The first observation would be that I think we are watching Art Sutton at work here, and I am waiting to see the eventual outcome myself. Identifying themselves as licensed to Helen would simply indicate that they have not fully implemented the technical changes including the power increase possibly, and that when they notify the FCC that the Construction Permit has been accomplished and they ask that the new status be "licensed" then we will hear Clermont in the I.D.
Art Sutton has a track record of taking stations and finding some way to push, shove and squeeze to get facility upgrades. Some times he runs them long-term as part of his family of stations. Sometimes I assume he recognizes that the moved or improved facility needs to function in a way that does not fit into his mold, so he sells the "made over" station to someone... typically for a handsome amount of money.
Has the station at Helen ever really operated for an extended period of time as a local, home-town style radio station? When I moved to the area I think it was owned by one of the big companies and they were using it to supplement the coverage of a poor market coverage Atlanta station on the far side of town. Then I think it operated as a station serving the Spanish market for awhile, but again, located at Helen, it didn't cover neighborhoods with large amounts of Spanish speaking audience very well.
To me the long-haul puzzle is this: Will this Clermont licensed station go head-to-head with Cornelia (WCON), Dahlonega (WZTR) and Gainesville (WDUN) in programming to the area north-east of the Atlanta suburbs, or will it be positioned to reach down into Gwinnett and fit into some mega-broadcasting company's Atlanta portfolio? When you add up the population of the counties covered well by these stations, it would be considered a pretty rambunctious market if it were not sitting in the shadow of Atlanta. The recent redistricting of the Congressional territories has welded these communities together for the next ten years. This may contribute to them getting to know each other better and becoming a regional marketplace more and more, and walking away from their county-seat small-town retailing concepts. So I don't assume that Art has done all of this just to sell the thing to the "city slickers" who broadcast in Atlanta.
Get an extra bowl of popcorn, and we will sit down and watch the show. Make that a BIG bowl of popcorn because this thing has been gastating for a few years already, and we may be months or years seeing the final disposition of this frequency.
