On Channel Boosters in Asheville for GSP Stations?

[KyleSmith1988]

How come no broadcaster in GSP/Asheville has on Channel boosters in this market? I've thought about it many times, most stations in GSP are within Asheville's 60 dbu contour (on paper and on Radio-Locator) but the very mountainous area has numerous spots where signal is weak or non-existent around here (or worse, multipath which sounds very bad with music).

Best they were able to do around here was add a translator, like WSPA used 97.7 but not anymore.

Stations like 93.7 and 92.5 do great in Hendersonville and closer to SC but not in some parts of Asheville.

Stations like 93.3 and 98.9 are closer to town but still get weak in the area west and east of Asheville.

I remember 93.7 barely coming in at all in most of the area until you get down the mountain near Tryon/Landrum close to 93.3's tower.

Seems all these stations can legally use a booster (like WFBC-1 WSPA-1) but don't.

 

[AMRocks]

I'm guessing it's because they don't care about Asheville. Audacy doesn't have sales people selling in Asheville so it wouldn't matter if WSPA or WFBC penetrate that market. Remember, in radio, the market is Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson. The TV market includes Asheville, but not the radio market.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

I'm guessing it's because they don't care about Asheville. Audacy doesn't have sales people selling in Asheville so it wouldn't matter if WSPA or WFBC penetrate that market. Remember, in radio, the market is Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson. The TV market includes Asheville, but not the radio market.

What he said.

Plus, boosters are a pain in the rumpkus to maintain. They can cause more problems then theyre worth. I worked for a station that had ONE... and it was located in a bowl... when you drove out of that bowl... with the main and booster colliding, the signal got to be useless.

And in a place where terrain is up down up down up down.. thats plenty of chance for wreaking havoc.

 

[AMRocks]

In Atlanta, way back when 97.1 was Fox97, they were testing a booster. Since they were licensed to Gainesville GA, they had issues in downtown Atlanta. So they got a booster approved with the antenna at the "farm" where everyone else had their antennae. The problem was, when they turned it on, that signal colliding that Paul mentioned was directly along the beltway around the city. 😵 They messed around with it quite a bit by raising and lowering the power, but they eventually just shut it down.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

In Atlanta, way back when 97.1 was Fox97, they were testing a booster. Since they were licensed to Gainesville GA, they had issues in downtown Atlanta. So they got a booster approved with the antenna at the "farm" where everyone else had their antennae. The problem was, when they turned it on, that signal colliding that Paul mentioned was directly along the beltway around the city. 😵 They messed around with it quite a bit by raising and lowering the power, but they eventually just shut it down.

THe station i was at was in NW PA..... and they eventually turned it off permanently and handed in the license.

Why?

In addition to the signal collission...

When it went off, we only ever got one cpmplaint.. from the same lady.. every time.. that she had reception issues. It would go off when it lost lock from the main.

It was originally put on to try and get inroads into this bigger town nearby from the incumbent in town country station... and we never many very many big in roads and it was costing us tower rent and electricity every month

We turned it off and had no complaints.

Of note.. i lived 30 miles from the booster.. which was 250 watts on a hill, in that bowl.... I was up on the tallest hill in the region.. one day the main was shut down for some quick maintenance and wouldnt come back up for some reason, but the booster mysteriously didnt go off like it shouldve..... with just a table top road and no external antenna, i heard the booster and wel lenough to flicker RDs on my radio.

That should tell you how problematic the clashing couldve been

 

[KyleSmith1988]

IHeart does a great job with WYYD in Lynchburg VA with the booster near Downtown Roanoke...Even announcing it on their TOH ID.

I guess if its done right it would be an improvement, just low enough power near downtown should be plenty to help in those areas with minimal maintenance...

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

IHeart does a great job with WYYD in Lynchburg VA with the booster near Downtown Roanoke...Even announcing it on their TOH ID.

I guess if its done right it would be an improvement, just low enough power near downtown should be plenty to help in those areas with minimal maintenance...

Youre comparing apples to oranges there,kinda

Roanoke is the stations main market and they obviously have terrain issues covering it, so thats where the booster is.

Greenville-spartanburg is the main market not Asheville. Trust me, if they thought it was worth it, theyd probably be doing it already

 

[AMRocks]

Youre comparing apples to oranges there,kinda

Roanoke is the stations main market and they obviously have terrain issues covering it, so thats where the booster is.

Greenville-spartanburg is the main market not Asheville. Trust me, if they thought it was worth it, theyd probably be doing it already

Not exactly the same, but several of Audacy's stations use translators. WYRD-FM, not one of their big powered stations (but a big biller and ratings getter) has translators in Seneca and Anderson. The Block, which is an HD 2 station, has translators in Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson and helps the little station pull a 2-ish share. None of their translators are in Asheville

 

[Kelly A]

Boosters are REALLY tricky to design and set up. Physics dictate that there will always be a multipath zone, where the two carriers of equal level will intersect. In spite of using GPS to lock the carriers to the exact same frequency and adding audio delay to one or the other, there will always be a delay between the signal of the main station reaching the radio, and the booster. When the two start cancelling each other out? That's when things get ugly. The trick is trying to locate the worst multipath in an unpopulated area, like over wilderness or water.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Not exactly the same, but several of Audacy's stations use translators. WYRD-FM, not one of their big powered stations (but a big biller and ratings getter) has translators in Seneca and Anderson. The Block, which is an HD 2 station, has translators in Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson and helps the little station pull a 2-ish share. None of their translators are in Asheville

But arent those translators fed by an HD2? im pretty sure i recall reading that.

Different animal, if thats the case... because that wouldve been done so they can run seperate spots or sports

 

[AMRocks]

But arent those translators fed by an HD2? im pretty sure i recall reading that.

Different animal, if thats the case... because that wouldve been done so they can run seperate spots or sports

Yes. The Block fed by WFBC HD2. But they run the same spots on all of them.

The Seneca one for WYRD is fed from WSPA 2 and the Anderson one from WFBC 4

 

[gr8oldies]

I get to Asheville frequently and agree radio reception is a challenge, except for the higher powered WMIT and WKSC. Then the suburban and bedroom community areas are even worse. On-channel boosters would make it worse

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Yes. The Block fed by WFBC HD2. But they run the same spots on all of them.

The Seneca one for WYRD is fed from WSPA 2 and the Anderson one from WFBC 4

Comparing translators fed by an hd2 or 4 to a booster ios comparing apples to oranges and night to day.. two entirely seperate things

 

[boiseengineer]

Couple rimshots to Boise ID tried boosters.
Two different locations both disasters. Not enough terrain blockage from the main signal so the gain area was small but the majority of Boise was a multipath mess.
Only one "booster" is still licensed but is off. It's also licensed as an AUX! but only would cover Boise not the 90% of the rest of the normal coverage area.

 

[KyleSmith1988]

WMIT is another example that uses a translator in Asheville (106.3) rather than a booster...

I've seen these work well in Mountainous terrain if the booster is placed in a good spot, similar to having a home wifi Repeater, on the edge of the signal contour but not outside of it.

I remember in the Las Vegas market KHYZ (99.7) and also more recently KXLI (94.5) and KVGQ (106.9) before their boosters were added, their rim shot signals were mostly multipath and weak in most of the valley, but now they do quite well.

 

[101tm]

To put it pretty bluntly, as others have said, Greenville stations don’t care about Asheville and vice versa. It’s (unfortunately) the same TV market, but it’s a separate radio market so the Asheville stations are focused on selling to the Asheville market and the Greenville stations are focused on selling to the GSP market. Anything extra is just gravy. Note that none of the Greenville stations bother to mention Asheville or WNC on air….well; for whatever reason, 103.3/95.9/94.5 HD2/whatever does in their very long legal ID.

A lot of the GSP signals look good on contour maps but have bad problems once you get north of Hendersonville due to the mountains blocking the signals. Very few except for WKSF can overcome this. I do wonder while WSPA-FM had a translator in Asheville - did Entercom used to have a sales office there?

 

[KyleSmith1988]

Seems like they would care more if it wasn't for the weak signal in WNC from Upstate stations, most of which are close to the NC border anyway, or in WMYI's case, even licensed to that area...

Other than Asheville itself, most of WNC has a weak radio dial, only a few towns have their dial loaded but that's thanks to the many translators that barely reach a few miles into the mountains (like Franklin NC)

I know this is a market where lots of people commute to other nearby big cities around the area between GSP and WNC...it would surely help rather than hurt them if its not too expensive and well within their legal ability if they want to.

 

[tylerSC]

Used to be some of the Charlotte stations could be heard in Asheviile if you were on the right side of the mountain. Mainly 95.1, 96.1, and 107.9. However local translator signals may now interfere on the same frequency, especially the NPR station that now uses 107.9. And I always wondered why Asheville and GSP werent separate TV markets like the radio market.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Used to be some of the Charlotte stations could be heard in Asheviile if you were on the right side of the mountain. Mainly 95.1, 96.1, and 107.9. However local translator signals may now interfere on the same frequency, especially the NPR station that now uses 107.9. And I always wondered why Asheville and GSP werent separate TV markets like the radio market.

I used to get a good signal from 95.7 in Haywood County.

One time we brought a TV with us and we could pick up WBTV as well as we did at home.

 

[gr8oldies]

Used to be some of the Charlotte stations could be heard in Asheviile if you were on the right side of the mountain. Mainly 95.1, 96.1, and 107.9. However local translator signals may now interfere on the same frequency, especially the NPR station that now uses 107.9. And I always wondered why Asheville and GSP werent separate TV markets like the radio market.

Asheville only had one TV station, and presumably were going to watch the other 2 networks from somewhere, and Anderson, Greeneville and wherever Spartanburg were going to watch ABC. Since those stations and small cities were spread out, that would seem to be the best solution. Asheville is isolated as aa radio market, and most of the radio stations there don't remotely reach the other 3 cities