On paper it will never be 100k watts. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if they went over 6k watts
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Old KSTB frequency going up for auction
- Thread starter Mediafrog+
- Start date
That was the original KSTB facility, which was a Class C3. The later Class A covered mostly water, or unpopulated land. At best a lousy signal into Galveston, useless elsewhere.
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AnyHuman
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Maybe when the new 101.5 signs on in Galveston it will play this song on loop as a publicity stunt LOL
That's mostly true, but I do believe there were a couple of gems. One of which was in Albany, which will end up with decent coverage into most of the Abilene market. That one ended up at nearly $100,000, so maybe not so hidden after all.
Sacramento went for more or less what the stick value was. The biggest surprise in this auction to me was what 104.1 in Sanger went for. I'm still stunned at the more than $3,080,000 final bid. That is an enormous sum for a exurb Class C3 in a geographically massive market.
Here is what the previous Susquanna KTDK signal looked like... https://fccdata.org/?lang=en&appid=1045247&facid=26146
Last year when the auction was first announced, we looked at that Hale Center allotment and the prospect for serving Lubbock weren't great. It will be marginal is most of the populated areas of Lubbock County. Lubbock is already very saturated with signals (or as David likes to say "over-radioed"), as can be seen by the recent bankruptcy sale of KRBL (which is a much better signal in Lubbock than Hale Center will be).
When I originally commented on the 95.1 Hale Center Class C1 allotment, I neglected to take into account second adjacent KAIQ, another Class C1 on 95.5. Given separation requirements, the Hale Center 95.1 transmitter would have to be located just north of Plainview, which means the signal would be poor to mediocre over Lubbock. Not as good a deal as first thought.
Any way to come onto Galveston island while catching Crystal Beach on the outside corner with lower power, like 1kw?
On that frequency, the facility is stuck on the peninsula.
It is about as useless as 1,000,000 Venezuelan Bolivares in a meat market.
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AnyHuman
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If they're really putting the signal on air that is. Some people are faking they're on and not. LOL
Not sure how that's going to fly with short-spacing to KLOL and KAYD...
There's a reason 101.5 fizzled out before the ferry landing when Cumulus moved KSTB to Crystal Beach.
Both of those are very short-spaced. Also, the first one wouldn't even hypothetically put a city-data signal over Crystal Beach. I don't have time to run the map right now, but I doubt the second one would cover enough either.
I am surprised by the winning bid amount of this new station. But, I think, though, the way to think about it is that it is a "full-power" FM radio station that is technically in the Houston market. And it could be used, at least plausibly, to be the originating station for some non-fill-in translators that are owned by a different licensee.
In that case, why not just use the Centerville station they also bought in this auction?
I am only speculating, but Centerville is twice as far from the center of the Houston and two or three counties (depending on how you count) outside of the market while Crystal Beach is in Chambers, which is part of Houston-Galveston.
Are there any full city signal or decent enough signal inside the loop available?
I’m also surprised, but with the winning bidder anything is possible. I stand by my predictions for where the transmitter will be located, based on past performance.
Every radio station in America is technically "for sale" if you offer the right price.
That prediction will be incorrect. The FCC will not license the station at either of those sites.
Click on the link below and zoom into the Bolivar Peninsula. The 100 dBu contour of this new Crystal Beach station can't cross into the 60 dBu of KLOL (the red line). The reason the reference coordinates (29 30 25 N, 94 30 17 W) were selected is because they just barely clear this requirement.
The FCC does have a "no population" waiver for translators. I'm not sure if that is even possible for a commercial FM, but even if they got that waiver because there aren't any residents in the 100 on Pelican Island, that site is too far west to put the required 70 dBu signal over the CoL, which in this case is Crystal Beach.
When the allotments were first announced and I was evaluating a number of them for my employer, I had this crazy idea about Crystal Beach. What if there was an offshore platform that could be used to get the 70 dBu into Crystal Beach and also a provide a good signal into Galveston? I didn't pursue it because it is kind of ridiculous, there aren't any platforms high enough, and there isn't commercial power available in the middle of the water. Also, it would be incredibly expensive. Regardless, it was kind of a fun thought experiment.
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Yes.
I mean like is there space for any new frequency??
I’m not disagreeing with you about the FCC, my prediction is where the Megadeath Corporation will actually place the transmitter, legal or not.
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