1KW would be possible but I don't have a clue on the night power. The problem is you need to separate the burning desire to keep KQV on the air from the business portion of a radio station. Regardless of the ground conductivity, if you program the station with a format people want to listen to, you can sell ads so that is the upside. Take the cost of the license, the equipment, legal fees, operating costs, music license fees, and the FCC fees, you need to bill a lot each month. With a stand-alone AM, it gets hard to do that. The owner of WJAS has the tower and the staff to add KQV. Salem can do it on the 730 tower or on one of the 1250 towers. If you and I did it, we would be gambling the money used to purchase the license. If you don't find a new home for the transmitter site in one year, the FCC will delete the license and you have lost your investment. I believe a broker will be signed shortly. He will work to find a new owner for the station. If not everything, at least the license and equipment as I believe the current owner has an offer for the land in had.
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KQV to go off air after Dec 31
- Thread starter raccoonradio
- Start date
1KW would be possible but I don't have a clue on the night power. The problem is you need to separate the burning desire to keep KQV on the air from the business portion of a radio station. Regardless of the ground conductivity, if you program the station with a format people want to listen to, you can sell ads so that is the upside. Take the cost of the license, the equipment, legal fees, operating costs, music license fees, and the FCC fees, you need to bill a lot each month. With a stand-alone AM, it gets hard to do that. The owner of WJAS has the tower and the staff to add KQV. Salem can do it on the 730 tower or on one of the 1250 towers. If you and I did it, we would be gambling the money used to purchase the license. If you don't find a new home for the transmitter site in one year, the FCC will delete the license and you have lost your investment. I believe a broker will be signed shortly. He will work to find a new owner for the station. If not everything, at least the license and equipment as I believe the current owner has an offer for the land in had.
R.I.P. Hopefully more to come.
One of the Oldest AM stations goes off for good Jan. First...
http://www.arrl.org/news/one-of-oldest-us-radio-stations-to-go-dark
http://www.arrl.org/news/one-of-oldest-us-radio-stations-to-go-dark
No doubt a pirate will appear on 1410 calling itself "Fake-Q-V".
My opinion, I think Mr. Dickey wants out of the business altogether. An option to keep the station on the air would be 1st move out of downtown Pittsburgh. 2nd pick up a satellite news feed. 3rd to stay local carry channel 4 news in the morning noon 6:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m... This would keep the signal on the air at a cheaper cost until it could be sold.
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It's simpler than that to keep the license. AM 560 in Catskill NY has been seeking a buyer for years. It only goes on the air sometimes with automated music. Once in a while, someone reads a few news items. Unless you were thinking a new owner would want to keep the KQV news-talk image, that's all you have to do. Perhaps a religious or ethnic organization that could buy and relocate KQV to a new tower at a reduced power, so the current owners could sell the land the current towers sit on.
I asked earlier why KQV in the earlier days of AM radio didn't upgrade to a better frequency and power. Now I have to ask why in more recent years, it didn't find an FM translator to simulcast. According to Radio-Locator.com, there are 11 translators in and around Pittsburgh. Some AM stations have one, a couple have two. 620 WKHB has three, so does 660 WAMO.
Was this a case where the owner of KQV was working so hard to keep the All-News format going, he never thought to grab one of those 11 translators or find a twelfth? I know he's deceased now and his son is trying to sell off the station. But it seems this family didn't do what some owners of smaller, suburban AM stations did to remain viable.
I asked earlier why KQV in the earlier days of AM radio didn't upgrade to a better frequency and power. Now I have to ask why in more recent years, it didn't find an FM translator to simulcast. According to Radio-Locator.com, there are 11 translators in and around Pittsburgh. Some AM stations have one, a couple have two. 620 WKHB has three, so does 660 WAMO.
Was this a case where the owner of KQV was working so hard to keep the All-News format going, he never thought to grab one of those 11 translators or find a twelfth? I know he's deceased now and his son is trying to sell off the station. But it seems this family didn't do what some owners of smaller, suburban AM stations did to remain viable.
Which is why they're doing the right thing: Shutting the station down, turning the license in, and waiting for someone else who knows what they're doing to pick up the license and start from scratch. It's easier to do that than buy an existing station, assuming their staff, and all of their obligations. Who will be the person who picks up this license, invests the money in the physical plant, and relaunches the station? My bet is it won't be a major owner. Too much expense, with no return. It will have to be someone local who cares about radio. Maybe a former local radio engineer or salesman with some spare cash and time on his hands.
I know somebody who knew the late Mr. Dickey and had discussed this with him.
For whatever reason he apparently had zero interest in going to FM. None.
Interesting question. 970 has an 8-tower direction array? Wow! Take a you pick.
This sounds like a Scott Fybush question.
I've been told that diplexing on the 970 array would be complicated and expensive (but apparently not impossible). It remains to be seen whether a new owner would go to that much trouble, whether iHeart (which owns 970) would agree to it, and if so, what they would charge for rent.
C.
The office lease is up. The agreements with the network news feeds end on the 31st. There is a buyer for the transmitter property who would be removing the towers and the building. No bidders met the terms of the auction yesterday. There are a couple of people attempting to work out a deal so it isn't dead yet. The owners still have the option of doing nothing and letting the license be deleted.
I guess at this point the facility is dead. If someone wanted to revive the format they might be better off to buy the intellectual property and find another station. For the money it would take to rebuild 1410 you could probably buy 103.5 from Keymarket. I think an all news on FM with a little younger feel could carve out a nice little niche.
Sounds like this deal was in the making long before the 20th of December. Happy New Year KQV staff members.
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