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KPHX

F

flashman1

Okay, all, newbie here..Huge radio fan, DX, SW, etc...be gentle on me ;D

I'm actually one of the five people who listen to 1480. Lest I be termed a true loser, I'm retired and actually appreciate an alternative to the right wing junk on 550. Love Randi and Hartmann (Newcomb is questionable..LOL.) Trouble is why these guys can't field a viable station? Yes, I know this is Phoenix, but still....

Here are my queries:

1. WHY can't they do something about that awful signal? I'm in Sun Lakes and lose them after sunset, even at about the 101 and Baseline in the car. I have some damn good DX AM radios and I can't pick them up until after power up.

2. Even after power up...three or four days a week I get a hum that rattles the walls of my house..What's up with that?

3. Programming..they seem to change the lineup on weekends every other week. They have this Filipino "news" thing on, and now they announce another amateur show. Is there a plan here?
 
flashman1 said:
I'm retired and actually appreciate an alternative to the right wing junk on 550.
Click to expand...

May El Rushbo's rhinocerous leave its calling card on your front lawn. ;D


1. WHY can't they do something about that awful signal? I'm in Sun Lakes and lose them after sunset, even at about the 101 and Baseline in the car. I have some damn good DX AM radios and I can't pick them up until after power up.
Click to expand...

The "Big" 1480--5 kw-D, 500 w-N, DA-2. Check their coverage maps
on radio-locator.com and you'll see they have a big null starting in the 'Tuke
and extending SE toward, among other places, Sun Lakes:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=KPHX&sr=Y&s=C&x=4&y=4

As the Cranky Old Gringo has often stated, the only "usable" coverage area
is supposedly inside the red ring.
 
flashman1 said:
1. WHY can't they do something about that awful signal? I'm in Sun Lakes and lose them after sunset, even at about the 101 and Baseline in the car. I have some damn good DX AM radios and I can't pick them up until after power up.

2. Even after power up...three or four days a week I get a hum that rattles the walls of my house..What's up with that?
Click to expand...

Welcome to the board flashman1! I actually used to listen to 1480 every now and then when it used to have the Martini in the Morning format (I think I was one of their only listeners!). When I did listen to 1480, it was mostly at night because my beloved Goldmine on 1440 AM shuts down at dusk. Now, in regards to the 1480 night-time signal, I noticed that the station came in clear as a bell around downtown Phoenix. Driving home to the east side, the signal would weaken greatly once I hopped eastbound on the U.S. 60 from the I-10 at the Broadway Curve. Driving east on the 60 through Mesa, it was a gradual weakening of the signal until I got home to G-town where 1480 Phoenix was barely audible with the interference from the other 1480's around the country. Oldiesfan is right on about the Radio Locator map; if you're outside that red circle, you probably won't be able to pick up 1480 at night.

Now as to point #2, that hum used to not be there when it was Martini in the Morning so something has changed. Unfortunately, I wonder if my friends over at the Lumberyard have something to do with it. Over here in Gilbert, that hum you hear during the day is on 1430, 1450, 1460, 1470 and even interferes with the talkers on 1480. I can't explain it, but it started to happen soon after our friend Katfish on here said to expect noise on the 1440 dial. I sincerely hope that our beloved Lumberyard isn't responsible for the noise we hear on 1480 AM!


P.S. Someone should let the folks over at Radio Locator know that the Lumberyard doesn't like to use their night-time authorization so the night-time signal coverage map they have is just a pipe dream for us Goldmine fans! ;D
 
The Radio Locator map is overly generous with Kah Pay Achee Eckee's nighttime coverage. Three sticks, 500 watts and a high end AM just don't add up. But then again, the daytime coverage aint all that good either. You get what you pay for as the Nurse Czarina and I suspect the rent on that LMA aint too much. If they had more listeners and more revenue, 8~Sixty would be a much better frequency...and we know TMISU would love to unload it!
 
3. Programming..they seem to change the lineup on weekends every other week. They have this Filipino "news" thing on, and now they announce another amateur show. Is there a plan here?
Click to expand...

1480 KPHX is much like other small AM stations in the market in that they rely partially on "Brokered airtime". Much of what you hear on the weekends on KPHX is paid for by the hosts (or sponsors of that host). Typically KPHX does require a 13-week contract and the time usually costs in the neighborhood of $420.00/hour (an amount that always made me chuckle a bit). With that being said, there is certainly going to be a degree of turnover as new shows come and old shows allow their contract to expire. 1480 KPHX does not have the cash flow to hire part/full-time talent at this juncture and one would presume based upon previous performance that they never will... particularly when you consider the overall economic climate and the current status of the radio industry.
 
The tower site is over at 27th Ave and Roeser and certainly caters more to the west side. I've met people in Cave Creek in the middle of the day and it's bad there. I've driven from central Phoenix, where it sounds very good all the time, into the far east valley and it gets bad a bit past the new casino. And it's all crap in the EV at night.

As the brokered programming, they have their share just like anyone else. I have a hard time believing they're getting $420/hr right now. The national health and gold shows chisel everyone down, and the kind of people who host vanity shows are bad clients no matter what station they're on; they are good for $150 in most cases. Perhaps KPHX has some exceptions, but it is not a great time for AM stations with 25,000 cume right now.
 
Thanks for the knowledgeable replies, folks!

Think I understand why it sounds like I'm listening on a crystal set... ;)

As for the programming, now KPHX is hawking a couple of new shows for the weekend--one is some sort of "rappy" listener-contributed music program and the other is a supposedly "issue-oriented" thing with a local host. I think the "over" on this should be about three weeks, given recent history.

BTW, what ever happened to Jeff Farias? He was local, and pretty good. Of course, he may have been royally s*****d by Nova M, so that may explain that.
 
Jeff was doing a one hour show on KXXT that he was paying for but when KPHX came back on the air he could not get enough advertisers to help pay for the show. He does a show off his website every day.
 
I don't like brokered programming, but I give them credit for just surviving. This format has been bounced from station to station to station. If it could get on a good signal and then just get left alone it might build something of value.

If you think about it, the evolution of what is now conservative talk radio involved a lot of failed formats on small stations before it became what it has been since the late 80's. Look at how many stations tried talk and failed in Denver in the '70's. The same was true in LA and many other markets.

One thing conservative talk radio had going for it is that when it came up, it had to program locally most of the day. Those local personalities became the bedrock of those stations. Even though many of those stations have tilted more toward syndication, they still benefit from being established positions on the dial. If there is one thing liberal talkers need to build on, it's more local content -- talk and news. How strange that everyone talks about liberals prefering NPR (although this seems more like one of those grasping for explanations after the fact) and no one is suggesting that liberal talk stations beef up their afterthought news efforts.
 
flashman1 said:
BTW, what ever happened to Jeff Farias? He was local, and pretty good. Of course, he may have been royally s*****d by Nova M
Click to expand...
...after doing a lot of that s****ing himself as "Program Director"...
 
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