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Silent AM's...

L

leecasey

Guest
the thread on the Lexington station got me thinking about silent AM's here in the Aiken/Augusta area..... Grew up listening to and worked at WAKN 990, WKTX 1300 ( Aiken), WJES 1190 ( Johnston), and listened to WVAP 1510 (Burnettetown ).... all silent these days.... Ah if I had some money to burn these days....
 
Tee-hee! Money to burn? If I were running a station today I would pay you to NOT listen and to NOT work for me. Sounds like you burn radio stations rather than money. ;D

You do live in a part of the nation that puzzles me when it comes to radio. Years ago I worked for a station owner who would run trade-out advertising every year for his annual trip to Lake Fontana. He came back telling me about meeting a guy from a radio station in a small, small town that he met in a store where the radio station guy was making a sales call. My boss went on to tell me that this small town actually had TWO competing radio stations.

Out of curiosity I took the maps of BOTH Carolinas and the Broadcasting yearbook and created what would later be called a spreadsheet. It seems that every village of at least 2,000 people had their own radio station while up North we were amazed if a town of less than 12,000 people had a station. And the small towns with TWO stations or more was amazing.

The population of radio stations has long skated on thin ice. The industry has functioned in a state of denial. There had to come a time of "herd thining".

But I'm like you.... when it is a station that used to be my favorite to listen to, or one that I worked for..... it hurts.
 
In the 60's and 70's, Rockingham County, NC (where I live) had seven radio stations (5 AM and 2 FM) serving a total county population of less than 50,000. Six of them are still around today. The FM's migrated to Greensboro, one AM died, one AM went hispanic, one AM was sold to a mega-church and the remaining 2 AM's simulcast their programming. Rather than tearing each other apart, each station has found its niche and are surviving by super-serving that niche.

Later . . . .
 
The other day I went to Lexington, SC up by Columbia on business. While on the way from Cola to Lexing I put 560 AM on listening to the talk show. There signal was good and clear, strong with no powerline noise or fade. The modulation was good and loud and clean and for a few minutes if you didn't look at the dail you wouldn't think it was AM compaired to most AM stations of today. Yes I think AM is on the way out a little at a time which doesn't have to happen but now that it's happening you can't stop it without something really big happening to change things.
 
To my ears WVOC sounds like it is being broadcast over a Dixie Cup. The IBOC-limited analog bandwidth is like razorblades to my ears.
 
Granted the IBOC system has hurt it's modulation but still it beats a lot of other AM stations sound out there right now which tells you how they sound.
 
DudeFan said:
To my ears WVOC sounds like it is being broadcast over a Dixie Cup. The IBOC-limited analog bandwidth is like razorblades to my ears.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. AM used to sound pretty good back in the day over those huge oval car speakers, an AM transmitter that was well-maintained, less electrical interference and of course, no IBOC.
 
DudeFan said:
To my ears WVOC sounds like it is being broadcast over a Dixie Cup. The IBOC-limited analog bandwidth is like razorblades to my ears.
Click to expand...

AHEM! WVOC is NOT running IBOC.


Powell
 
It could be you car radio. Several car models lately have really bad AM radio sections. Some even cut off bandwidth as low as 2.5 khz. So, no matter how good the station audio may be, your think it sounds terrible due to the sorry radio.
 
Powell:

At one point Clear Channel was stating online that VOC was running IBOC. That is gone now.

It's definitely not radios. I've got a darned fine receiver in my car and the former WTOP (now WFED) sounded like FM.

It sounds like VOC has been running a reduced bandwith like what CCU proposed for all AM's running IBOC.

But I will also add this: other than radio fans, most people don't give a rat's ass about audio fidelity in this day and age of 128kbps mp3's.
 
Talking about audio quality, WBSC sounded like I was hearing them over the phone. They've always had poor audio quality but this was ridiculous.
 
leecasey said:
the thread on the Lexington station got me thinking about silent AM's here in the Aiken/Augusta area..... Grew up listening to and worked at WAKN 990, WKTX 1300 ( Aiken), WJES 1190 ( Johnston), and listened to WVAP 1510 (Burnettetown ).... all silent these days.... Ah if I had some money to burn these days....
Click to expand...

The Casey name is right at home when talking about those stations. I met Claude Casey at WJES/Johnston back in the early 70's, when it was 250w on 1570. I don't say this about many radio folks, but he was a gentleman of the highest order. At the time, I didn't know he was "famous", only later learning that he appeared in several movies and had been with the Briarhoppers at WBT/Charlotte, and later PD at WGAC/Augusta and WGUS/North Augusta.

There are other "gone and pretty much forgotten" stations. I worked at WDIX/Orangeburg (1150 -5kw-D/500w-N DA-2), which was just down the road from WTND/Orangeburg (920 - 5kw-D, with an unbuilt CP for 5kw/DA-N). Then there's WBAW/Barnwell (740 - 1kw-D), WGOG/Walhalla (1000 - 1kw-D), WATP/Marion (1430 - 1kw-D) and WLCM/Lancaster (1360 - 1kw-D).
 
Speaking of silent AM's, here in the upstate, the ever-silent WCSZ 1070 is still off the air. Their most recent request for Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA filed in September 2009 was denied by the FCC. I guess the FCC assumes they are still on the air. If you remember, somebody broke into the station in December 2009 and picked the MW-50 apart. Anybody know if there are any plans to ever put this seemingly snakebit station back on the air? I rode up Hwy 25 by there the other day and the whole place is overtaken by tall weeds. Sad to see any station off the air but especially this one which has quite a history with its WHYZ glory days. Back in the day, you could do a riding tour of all 3 of Greenville's powerhouse AM's with a very short drive up Hwy 25 from WQOK 1440, passing by WESC 660 and then by WHYZ.
 
more kilowatts said:
Speaking of silent AM's, here in the upstate, the ever-silent WCSZ 1070 is still off the air. Their most recent request for Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA filed in September 2009 was denied by the FCC. I guess the FCC assumes they are still on the air. If you remember, somebody broke into the station in December 2009 and picked the MW-50 apart. Anybody know if there are any plans to ever put this seemingly snakebit station back on the air? I rode up Hwy 25 by there the other day and the whole place is overtaken by tall weeds. Sad to see any station off the air but especially this one which has quite a history with its WHYZ glory days. Back in the day, you could do a riding tour of all 3 of Greenville's powerhouse AM's with a very short drive up Hwy 25 from WQOK 1440, passing by WESC 660 and then by WHYZ.
Click to expand...

I have a 50KW Continental that was all set for an AM upgrade that we decided to reconsider. When the WCSZ theft occurred, I heard about it, and reached out, offering up the 50KW rig and several other critical pieces of AM gear to get the station going. A TV reporter who covered the story called WCSZ's so-called caretaker, who never bothered to call back. Long story short, I tried to be a good samaritan and help another broadcaster. To date, *crickets* are all I have heard from WCSZ.
 
AS far as I know WVOC never ran IBOC.It doesn't matter what Clear Channel CLAIMS. The facts ARE: they would have to rebuild a lot of things and the GATES 5 transmitter wouldn't do IBOC very well. Harris claimed it would, but the GATES series doesn't fit the mask. Also they had a Optimod 9100B there and would have had to replace it. Even if they did just that the CC edict even for non IBOC stations is 5 kilohertz bandwidth for talk and 6 kilohertz for music.

One thing they really need to do to WVOC is completely replace the ground system, likely the ATU and phasor needs a LOT of work and new coax. They get out very poorly toward Newberry at night COMPARED to what they did years ago.


Powell
 
They've clearly bandwidth limited VOC. It sounds like crap.

Nothing could be the old 5kw RCA and Optimod combination. Although the Gates 5 is probably much more energy efficient. $10k power bill anyone?
 
WBEU, Beaufort,SC 1Kw D. In its' time a heck of a signal when it hit that salt water.
I worked their briefly in the 70's but was mainly at the competition 1490, WSIB, which
could only run 500 watts daytime,250 at night, in the 60's and 70's (now on the air as WVGB).
The WBEU sister FM is now 98.7 The River in Savannah, but still licensed to Beaufort.
I remember one time (probably about 1968 or 69) WBEU was airing a (I think) Carolina
football game... shutdown for daytimers was 5:30 or 5:15, and the game
went like 15 minutes over their sign off time, they stayed on, until the end,
Bob Fulton said," final, Carolina (whatever) Opponent (whatever)."..and BAM!
They were off...no calls, no goodnight...lol...I think the statue of limitations has
run out by now...
 
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