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Pensacola's format wheel keeps on spinning... this time SPORTS! on FM!!!

It was skip.. does anyone know if E's season has ended yet? Despite the weather conditions, I hope we can get one more shot of E's. Commercial preaching radio.. who would have thunk it?
 
I know the word is that WBSR is going to debut sports on FM 101.1, but that translator is still going nowhere.

Today I saw where a "license to cover" (he said, sarcastically) was issued for W277CC on 103.3 MHz. This is one coming from Atmore. The current site is for Walnut Hill. What piqued my interest is the next application in line: 250 watts from 564 feet, on the WYCT tower. It's off Old P'Cola Rd in Baldwin County, FWIW. You can see the 60 dBu contour plot isn't too shabby for such low power.

Is it set in stone that ESPN sports will be on 101.1? If so, what on earth are they doing with this? If it can stay 250 watts into town it'll be a great little signal to work with! ;)
 
Don't know if 101.1 is set in stone.. WBSR has been quoted in at least 2 local newspaper articles that they were going to be on 101.1 FM. One even said that 101.1 FM was going to come from Bay Minette. The newspaper said it was supposed to be live in early September.

As of now, no FM translators are receivable in Pensacola (city limits) except Calvary Chapel on 88.7 (or is it 88.9?). WHEP has a very weak signal on 92.5 in extreme western Pensacola... I prefer to call that area "Lillian, Alabama"... known to the locals as the home of Fireworks, Car Title Loans, and Porn.
 
poledo said:
Don't know if 101.1 is set in stone.. WBSR has been quoted in at least 2 local newspaper articles that they were going to be on 101.1 FM. One even said that 101.1 FM was going to come from Bay Minette. The newspaper said it was supposed to be live in early September.

As of now, no FM translators are receivable in Pensacola (city limits) except Calvary Chapel on 88.7 (or is it 88.9?). WHEP has a very weak signal on 92.5 in extreme western Pensacola... I prefer to call that area "Lillian, Alabama"... known to the locals as the home of Fireworks, Car Title Loans, and Porn.
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Pardon the thread necromancy, but there's actually an update on 101.1. It's just been issued a permit to move to one of the tall pickle-fork towers out near Seminole. 250 watts from 1,099 feet. Quite a nice little bit of coverage according to the plot. Hopefully this will be the last "move" before it can hop into Pensacola proper. The parent station has changed from WMEZ to WBHY, for what it's worth.
 
I'd really like to hear what 250 watts from the top of the Sinclair tower would cover on car radio.
The chances of a translator actually going live from one of those Robertsdale - Seminole candelabras... not quite zero.

I still think 250 watts, on the right frequency, from the top of the old 107.3 tower in Cantonment might work out.
... but the old WSRE tower on Fairfield Dr. or something even closer to downtown Pensacola is the realistic destination of all Pensacola bound translators.

I wonder why 103.3 didn't get fast tracked to go live? ....they have a CP from Downtown P-town. Just need to get Catholic 1230 to put it up for adoption and find a nice, new, parent for it.

... and it appears all the Pensacola bound translators are going to locally owned AM stations. No "cool" new niche music formats from Cumulus or Clear Channel for us? Maybe 1230 will keep that translator and flip to Alternative or AAA, "Redneck Rivera Rock, 103.3 FM/One-Two-Three AM, Wxxx"?
 
poledo said:
I'd really like to hear what 250 watts from the top of the Sinclair tower would cover on car radio.
The chances of a translator actually going live from one of those Robertsdale - Seminole candelabras... not quite zero.

I still think 250 watts, on the right frequency, from the top of the old 107.3 tower in Cantonment might work out.
... but the old WSRE tower on Fairfield Dr. or something even closer to downtown Pensacola is the realistic destination of all Pensacola bound translators.

I wonder why 103.3 didn't get fast tracked to go live? ....they have a CP from Downtown P-town. Just need to get Catholic 1230 to put it up for adoption and find a nice, new, parent for it.

... and it appears all the Pensacola bound translators are going to locally owned AM stations. No "cool" new niche music formats from Cumulus or Clear Channel for us? Maybe 1230 will keep that translator and flip to Alternative or AAA, "Redneck Rivera Rock, 103.3 FM/One-Two-Three AM, Wxxx"?
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Which old tower off Fairfield Dr are you referring to? The only one I know of in that vicinity is the tower with Magic 106 on it, behind the sheriff department or whatever it is.

I have a feeling the translator for WDWR will simply relay their Catholic programming and won't go to anything else interesting. It's probably a non-profit (but not non-prophet) setup so they don't have the money yet to put it on air.
 
There are two towers near the Escambia county jail off Fairfield Drive. Both are about the same height... there are a couple of shorter ones in that area too. I know WRRX 106.1 is currently on one. I know one used to be WSRE TV's tower before digital moved them to the Sinclair tower in Seminole. I don't know if WSRE and WRRX were on different towers or the same one, but there must be space on one of the Escambia County Jail towers for a translator broadcast antenna. That would be the tallest, centrally located, broadcast tower in the Pensacola metro.

The 88.7 Calvary translator that broadcast just 13 watts at 400 feet from one of two tall towers near the Gulf Breeze Zoo has a decent signal inside the Pensacola city limits. (yeah, 500-600 ft is tall for this area, we like airplanes and helicopters)
I can't help but wonder if WRNE 980 could get their translator up to a full 250 watts at 500 feet from one of those towers if they may be able to put a decent in-car signal into both Pensacola and Fort Walton (the urban area, not Destin), but I think WRNE is looking for indoor reception, not in car reception... so I expect WRNE is shooting for the same tower WRRX uses. One of the Gulf Breeze Zoo towers is the WUWF/WPAN(TV) tower, the other is just a tall cell tower, I think.
At the same time, putting a translator on top of one of the AM towers on Garcon Point should put a decent signal into Pensacola, Milton, and Navarre...

Speculation is futile. Just need to settle down and wait for the cards fall where they will... but I really hope 103.3 doesn't become Catholic radio. The AM has such poor sound quality and there are so many other uses for 103.3 that I might enjoy... plus they actually got the darn translator licensed in the Pensacola City Limits! Bring on the Rock of Pensacola Bay! I'll even buy some advertising if they put up a good format.
 
The parent station has changed from WMEZ to WBHY, for what it's worth.
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With KLOVE now in the market BHY might want Pensacola Coverage. CC and Cumu won't mess with translators in Pensacola. Not worth the expense or effort, the return would be too small.
 
Zach said:
My guess for the odd looking tower would be one of the very early cellular network towers, back when two or three could cover an entire city. Or maybe some sort of paging service. I really don't know the history of that sort of thing down here. I've never seen it in person, only on Google Street View.
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Hey, you've found a "Star Tower"! How cool! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Tower

G
 
So that cool looking tower on Industrial Blvd between Pensacola Blvd and W St is special?
I know it was around in the days of pagers. I also know it was around in the days of walkie talkie like mobile phones... but I was always told those walkie talkie mobile phones ran off an FM sub carrier... which way why the clerk in the convenience store could sometimes hear one side of your phone call while trying to listen to WABB 97.5 on his FM boom box while I was talking on the phone in the parking lot.

I know the building housing WBQP-LD used to be "Radio Electronics" that sold and serviced FM two way radios and mobile phones back in the 80's. I can't remember now, but I assume that stubby tower on "R" st used to be taller. Coverage area was about Navarre to Loxley with a whole lot of holes. One day I actually carried my two-way signal all the way east of Panama City... listening in to what the "crew" was working on back in Pensacola. My only experience with tropo that didn't involve real FM radio stations... but also a learning experience as I asked around to find out what the heck was going on that day when my two-way radio kept receiving and sending well past Navarre.
 
poledo said:
So that cool looking tower on Industrial Blvd between Pensacola Blvd and W St is special?
I know it was around in the days of pagers. I also know it was around in the days of walkie talkie like mobile phones... but I was always told those walkie talkie mobile phones ran off an FM sub carrier... which way why the clerk in the convenience store could sometimes hear one side of your phone call while trying to listen to WABB 97.5 on his FM boom box while I was talking on the phone in the parking lot.

I know the building housing WBQP-LD used to be "Radio Electronics" that sold and serviced FM two way radios and mobile phones back in the 80's. I can't remember now, but I assume that stubby tower on "R" st used to be taller. Coverage area was about Navarre to Loxley with a whole lot of holes. One day I actually carried my two-way signal all the way east of Panama City... listening in to what the "crew" was working on back in Pensacola. My only experience with tropo that didn't involve real FM radio stations... but also a learning experience as I asked around to find out what the heck was going on that day when my two-way radio kept receiving and sending well past Navarre.
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The convenience store clerk probably had a crap radio. Two way radio telephony products had their own bands, as far as I recall. Some in the VHF band, some UHF. Early cellular phones were in the spectrum vacated by TV channels 70-83, so someone with a TV that could tune those channels could often centre in on one side of the calls if a base station was nearby.
 
This was back when UHF TV went up to channel 83. The term "cell phone" hadn't been coined yet. It was literally a walkie talkie type phone. When I pressed the button to talk it cut off the person talking to me on a real phone. The person talking to me (the person on a real phone) had their side of the conversation broadcast to the 10 or so people sharing the channel but my side of the conversation was on a different frequency so the people sharing the phone system couldn't eves drop on both sides of the conversation.
 
That tower you are speaking of used to belong to Roddy Mead (now deceased). He owned the local 2way radio shop at the base of the tower. WMEZ used to be on that tower when Fred Brewer owned it and the studios were in Town and Country Plaza.

cceng
 
cceng, What was the name of that two way radio service? I know it used a repeater so it had far more range than a CB radio. The mobile units were mounted in the car/truck with a nice tall antenna on the roof and only had a channel a/b button. Channel A allowed you to listen to dispatch and respond to them. Change to channel B and press # on the dial pad on the back of the microphone got you a dial tone to make a phone call. We also had some portable "police like" walkie talkies that worked the same way.
I'm pretty sure the name of the business we were dealing with for equipment and repairs was "Radio Electronics" but that was back in the 70's and 80's so I can't be expected to remember much of anything for that long. I always assumed we were leasing spectrum from the same company, but I guess my dad could have been dealing with another company for air time/service.
 
Can't remember the name of Roddy's business......Those type of mobile phones were under a service called an RCC or Radio Common Carrier. They operated in the 152 mhz area. That was a long time ago....can't remember the details with all of this gray hair ;)
 
I figured if anyone would remember those things it would be a Ham guy. I can't remember much about them either except they did the job and we hadn't even imagined this future of Cell Phones taking over. I can't even remember if we could receive phone calls on those things.. I think they were outgoing calls only... someone had to call us on the two way FM radio and give us a phone number to call.
... and I don't even have the gray hair, just a rapidly growing bald spot.
 
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