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KRCM has hit the air.

P

purpledevil

Guest
Don't know if anyone else has noticed, but 1380 is on the air. Signal is pretty strong as far south as the 610 North Loop. Unfortunately, the format is rather weak. Another preacher, another donation being begged for. I never realized I needed to pay someone to pray for me. What a sham. Another former Beaumont station, wasting away in Houston.
 
Not hearing KRCM at an 8pm check...thought the 60 watt night signal might make it to my Cy-Fair location, but just hearing several stations via skywave taking turns dominating the frequency. Will make another check after sunrise. Pehaps KRCM is still testing and not on full time yet...?

Also curious if they are using the original 250 watt day authorization or the 2800 watt CP. If they are going for the 22kw upgrade near Prairie View they might not bother with the higher power at Shenandoah.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Not hearing KRCM at an 8pm check...thought the 60 watt night signal might make it to my Cy-Fair location, but just hearing several stations via skywave taking turns dominating the frequency. Will make another check after sunrise. Pehaps KRCM is still testing and not on full time yet...?

Also curious if they are using the original 250 watt day authorization or the 2800 watt CP. If they are going for the 22kw upgrade near Prairie View they might not bother with the higher power at Shenandoah.

KRCM is on with 2.8 kw day and .O69 kw at night. Whether or not the high power CP is granted remains to be seen.

Texas Tuner
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Not hearing KRCM at an 8pm check...thought the 60 watt night signal might make it to my Cy-Fair location, but just hearing several stations via skywave taking turns dominating the frequency. Will make another check after sunrise. Pehaps KRCM is still testing and not on full time yet...?

Also curious if they are using the original 250 watt day authorization or the 2800 watt CP. If they are going for the 22kw upgrade near Prairie View they might not bother with the higher power at Shenandoah.

I looked for it last night at BW 8 & Veterans Mem. and there was no sign of KRCM, only a faint (I think) Radio Disney station. I'd have to drive up there one night to see just how far that 69 watts goes at night, but my suspicions tell me not much past the start/end of Hardy Toll on the south end.

[/quote] KRCM is on with 2.8 kw day and .O69 kw at night. Whether or not the high power CP is granted remains to be seen.

Texas Tuner
[/quote]

Something tells me the good folks in El Campo might have a word or two to say about this CP, at least in regards to the daytime signal. Time will tell. 1st adjacent KHCB-A sends everything NW & SE to protect KULP. The CP for KRCM doesn't seem to do that.
 
Heard KRCM this morning around 9am with a rather poor signal at my Cy-Fair location. Clear ID at the top of the hour, Spanish language Contemporary Christian music and preaching.

Now that I know what the format is, I think I might have actually heard it the other night, but mistakenly thought it was skywave from elsewhere.

They must be running the original 250 watt authorization, because the signal was too poor to be 2800 watts, unless they have horrible antenna efficiency. I'm 19 miles from the transmitter site--I would guess the effective coverage area is a 10 mile radius.

The 22kw application would send most of the signal ESE from just north of Prairie View, which would keep it away from KULP.
 
They were one of the original R & B stations in the area. But, owners and formats change. The thing just couldn't make any money in a market saturated with so many stations. To this day there isn't enough advertising revenue in the area to support the stations that haven't gone to brokered programming.
 
I don't know that there are not enough potential advertisers that is the problem but the amount of work it takes to gain an advertiser and keep them versus the amount of money the advertiser can afford to spend. When I was in such a situation, so few advertisers were long term (3 continious months or more) that it ended up costing as much as they spent to gain a new advertiser when one dropped...and most dropped after a month or two. Brokering, if you can find someone with the cash, is just easier.
 
foursider said:
They were one of the original R & B stations in the area.

So, contrary to mrbeasley's post, the station was not, at least for a while, worthless...
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Heard KRCM this morning around 9am with a rather poor signal at my Cy-Fair location. Clear ID at the top of the hour, Spanish language Contemporary Christian music and preaching.

At least Spanish language speaking people have real contemporary Christian music in Houston as opposed to praise and worship cr@p. Sigh --- the greatness that was the original KSBJ when Buddy Holiday was wisely at the helm.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
At least Spanish language speaking people have real contemporary Christian music in Houston as opposed to praise and worship cr@p. Sigh --- the greatness that was the original KSBJ when Buddy Holiday was wisely at the helm.

Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love...
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
At least Spanish language speaking people have real contemporary Christian music in Houston as opposed to praise and worship cr@p. Sigh --- the greatness that was the original KSBJ when Buddy Holiday was wisely at the helm.

There could be an alternative in the future. Educational Media Foundation, which produces the Air-1 and K-Love syndicated Christian music formats, has applied for a number of LPFM's in and around Houston. If the FCC ever moves on these, EMF could finally get some coverage here.

Supposedly KSBJ and EMF have a handshake agreement not to compete with each other. However with KSBJ buying stations and increasing its coverage area, I suspect that agreement is going by the wayside.

Several Houston rimshots would also be good places for an EMF format should the current owners ever decide to dump the stations. Example of this is the KZAR 97.7 rimshot in the San Antonio market, which EMF recently purchased from Univision.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
There could be an alternative in the future. Educational Media Foundation, which produces the Air-1 and K-Love syndicated Christian music formats, has applied for a number of LPFM's in and around Houston. If the FCC ever moves on these, EMF could finally get some coverage here.

Supposedly KSBJ and EMF have a handshake agreement not to compete with each other. However with KSBJ buying stations and increasing its coverage area, I suspect that agreement is going by the wayside.

Where there is a format hole - somebody will eventually fill it. Unless it is oldies in Houston --- but that's another thread. I am excited to hear the news about EMF! Certainly, K-Love would compete with KSBJ, and that wouldn't fly. But Air-1 is a different matter, it is a totally different audience that is underserved because there is no over the air outlet for N-GEN. I can see quite a demand for Air-1, I know I would be listening. It is a lot closer to Buddy Holiday's original vision for KSBJ - I haven't been this excited for Houston's Christian audience since the original KSBJ came on the air nearly 30 years ago!
 
The KRCM signal is better than it was a few weeks ago, so perhaps they have cranked up the power. Hearing the same programming on 1380, 980 and 88.1, although according to the Radio Aleluya website, 980 and 88.1 are only partial simulcasts, with different programming depending on the time of day. No specific program listings on the site for 1380.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
The KRCM signal is better than it was a few weeks ago, so perhaps they have cranked up the power. Hearing the same programming on 1380, 980 and 88.1, although according to the Radio Aleluya website, 980 and 88.1 are only partial simulcasts, with different programming depending on the time of day. No specific program listings on the site for 1380.

Daytime power is still 2.8kw, nighttime .069kw (69 watts). The biggest change you hear is in the audio processing. An old Orban was replaced with an Omnia One. The audio should sound a lot better than it did before.
 
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