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Status of WABB-AM 1480

M

Mario500

Guest
For several weeks, I heard nothing on my radio set to 1480 AM in the morning, when "Doug Stephan's Good Day" is usually broadcast by WABB-AM. This morning, I heard the program again. A few days ago, I made a request by electronic mail for a weekly schedule of WABB-AM's programming and I have not yet received a response.

The only radio programs I would hear at this time are "Leo Laporte the Tech Guy" and occasionally "The Morning Buzz" from WBZR-AM and "The Kim Komando Show" from WAVH-FM. I might start listening to "Doug Stephan's Good Day" again after sending e-mail to the host requesting he be more pleasant and limit the use of the "apparently", which many news reporters and news presenters use too much to express doubt about what may be true.
 
WABB-AM is not broadcasting any programs again. WABB-AM and WABB-FM are still advertising on the World Wide Web for a chief broadcast engineer. I hope they find the right person soon because the AM station is not improving for technical reasons.
 
There was silence earlier, but now I can hear programming from WABB-AM.
 
On Friday morning, WABB-AM kept losing audio of "Doug Stephan's Good Day" every few seconds. It must have been a problem with the satellite signal for the program.
 
Noticed something similar while visiting Mobile not too long ago. On a Saturday afternoon, WABB was airing top of the hour network news, then dead air for the rest of the hour. This went on for at least 4 hours. It's almost as if nobody cares.
 
Exactly! Nobody does care. Maybe the Dittman family just hangs on to the facility for sentimental reasons. After all, they've owned it since 1959, and for about two decades after that, 1480 was an enormously successful station. Cannot imagine the facility being remotely profitable now.
 
J Alex Bowab said:
Exactly! Nobody does care. Maybe the Dittman family just hangs on to the facility for sentimental reasons. After all, they've owned it since 1959, and for about two decades after that, 1480 was an enormously successful station. Cannot imagine the facility being remotely profitable now.
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Maybe they should look at a new format. With one talker on FM and another housing Limbaugh and Hannity, somebody's losing--and hard.
 
In the last 25 years WABB AM has gone through every format imaginable ... nostalgia/adult standards, business news, Heart & Soul (r&b oldies), you name it ... what's left except Spanish or oldies (now that no FM does that format). Certainly not another religious station!

Pensacola also has 3 news/talk stations (1330 1370 1620) but I don't think that proves there is room for that many. Maybe a second sports/talk station? Jackson MS, a similar size market, has had 3 of them at once.

If 1480 were mine, I would get some daytimer to take over that fulltime facility and shut the daytimer down.

WABB was one of 3 applicants for a better AM facility on 1160 back in the 80s, but the winner in that comparative hearing instead bought WDLT FM from me and 1160 never materialized. I was on the Alumni Board at Spring Hill College at the time; they told me WABB had offered to donate 1480 to the college if WABB was able to get 1160. I told them I would not advise accepting it, as there was nothing useful they could do with it.
 
J Alex Bowab said:
In the last 25 years WABB AM has gone through every format imaginable ... nostalgia/adult standards, business news, Heart & Soul (r&b oldies), you name it ... what's left except Spanish or oldies (now that no FM does that format). Certainly not another religious station!

Pensacola also has 3 news/talk stations (1330 1370 1620) but I don't think that proves there is room for that many. Maybe a second sports/talk station? Jackson MS, a similar size market, has had 3 of them at once.

If 1480 were mine, I would get some daytimer to take over that fulltime facility and shut the daytimer down.
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Oldies or sports are what I'd consider. Might it be possible to pair an FM translator with 1480? I'm surprised there hasn't been any action on 99.5 in Mobile or 103.5 in Daphne yet.

J Alex Bowab said:
WABB was one of 3 applicants for a better AM facility on 1160 back in the 80s, but the winner in that comparative hearing instead bought WDLT FM from me and 1160 never materialized. I was on the Alumni Board at Spring Hill College at the time; they told me WABB had offered to donate 1480 to the college if WABB was able to get 1160. I told them I would not advise accepting it, as there was nothing useful they could do with it.
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There was a recent CP for 1160, but it seemed to be deleted or modified into a new CP on 770. Any chances on either of these ever being built?
 
The 1160 debacle went like this: Tom Wilson and Judge Cain Kennedy (both black) dba United Broadcasting, applied for 10 kw D/1 kw N DA-N (2 or 3 towers). Xmtr site was to be on west side of I-65 about halfway between the Moffatt Rd exit and the Hwy 45 exit. Tom had worked for me at WKXI FM in Jackson Ms in the 70s. He bought WDLT 98.3 from me in 1992 (he died last year) and also bought the Citronelle FM.

WABB also applied for 1160, forget what their facility would look like, only that it would be better than what they had on 1480. WASG 1140 Atmore applied to move to 1160 get DA-N. Before the comparative hearing went very far, the other two applicants agreed to let Tom buy them out. Perhaps it was thought that his minority preference would prevail before the FCC.

Judge Kennedy decided he wanted to get out of the deal, so Tom got backing from a minority small business investment company and bought WDLT. He let the 1160 application lapse.

I don't know of any subsequent action which would preclude someone from getting a 10 kw day/1 kw nite CP on 1160 now. I have seen two CPs granted on other frequencies in the past few years, and neither one was ever built.
 
Addendum: The Tom Wilson 1160 chapter was written about 1984-1987. Yes, there was a more recent 1160 application/CP, to be called WKTT, to be located up north of town on I65. When I examined it a few years ago, and saw that it would take six towers (!) and would have miniscule night power, I had a hard time imagining someone building such a debacle. I saw a 6-tower monstrosity in Jackson Miss go silent because the owner shut it down after buying a Class IV station, which would have a better bottom line.
 
It was licensed to Saraland. I've been away from radio since 1992, so my info may be out of date ... but in the old days, you had to deliver a certain level of signal, believe 5 mv/m, over substantially all of the city of license day or night ... and going back even more, there was a time when you had to put 25 mv/m over the central business district (but I know that one was eliminated long ago).

The WKTT proposal's night signal, I think, would have delivered the requisite signal over Saraland, while it would be nearly impossible to do so for Mobile, given its expansive incorporated area.

More correctly, it was probably easier to sell the application to the FCC by showing that the proposal would give the first local service to an incorporated community, which in this case, was likely more than 5,000 population. Mobile already had a plethora of licensed signals; Prichard had two (1270 and 960); Chickasaw had one (98.3), but Saraland did not.

Of course, that first local service thing is such a joke. Nowadays, no station really addresses the needs of its city of license. It's just a way of getting an application thru the process. I know; I once owned the Chickasaw station, and didn't know where its City Hall was located.

Most laughable instance: A Class IV (1000/250) station on 1450 was once the dominant black-programmed station in the widespread black areas of Chicago's south and west side... but it was licensed to Cicero, an adjacent all white suburb (when MLK marched in Cicero, it had ZERO black population); every license renewal, they showed the FCC where they were serving the needs and interests of Cicero. It did put the minimum requisite signal over the corporate limits, but the rest of it was a joke.
 
From the WABB-AM website:

"WABB 1480AM serves the Mobile metropolitan area with a signal of 5,000 Kilowatts during the day, and 4,400 Kilowatts at night."


Wow, that's a lot of power. Did they get a license upgrade?
 
hertzkeeper said:
From the WABB-AM website:

"WABB 1480AM serves the Mobile metropolitan area with a signal of 5,000 Kilowatts during the day, and 4,400 Kilowatts at night."


Wow, that's a lot of power. Did they get a license upgrade?
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Do not know the date they uped the night time power, but they are running a 4 tower pattern at night. IMHO they should think about moving they nighttime farther north of town but that would be rather expensive. I would try "trueoldies" if I could get it cleared. IIRC Scot Shannon worked there in the 1960's. Here Radio-locator's link.

http://www.radio-locator.com/info/WABB-AM
 
In the old days, WABB AM's xmtr site was on Whistler Street in the EightMile area of Prichard... extreme NW corner of what was then the populated area. Night time DA-N lobe was a single one to the SE. (It was listenable nights in central Fla via skywave.) There were 4 self-supporting towers in a straight line.

That site was less than desirable for daytime non-DA as the conductivity wasn't as good as it is at the current site (which is in somewhat swampy area closer to the bay). Incidentally the current site, on Dumaine St off Craft Hiway, was originally the studio/xmtr site for WMOZ 960, a black programmed daytimer that went off the air around 1964 when its license was revoked.

At one time, WABB kept the Whistler St site for night only, and used the Dumaine site for daytime. I was living in Atmore at the time. I was always aware that 1410 with 5 kw D was always stronger there than 1480 with 5 kw D because 1410 had an ideal xmtr site in terms of conductivity. When WABB started using the Dumaine site, there was a noticeable improvement in day coverage.

Eventually, the decision was made to abandon the old site and put the night one on Dumaine also. Since the DA-N lobe had to go essentially SE, it seemed like the new site would sacrifice huge areas west of the I65 beltline hiway. And it did.

As I mentioned in another forum, WABB at one time tried to move to 1160 and dispose of 1480 altogether, but that didn't happen. They are stuck with a facility which does a poor job nights, but in this day and age, an AM can't produce the revenue to justify a huge capital expenditure to add a few square miles of night coverage.
 
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