• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

The new Pensacola Translator Tower aka WDWR.

P

Poledo

I decided this story was now big enough to deserve its own thread. This new newspaper article tells a story that makes it appear there might be some meat on the bone with Nichols request that the new downtown translator tower come down.

Some related posts are in the Guadalupe thread. There were previous posts but they may have been on Radio-Talk... Including a thread concerning WNRP going on air from downtown on 106.5 before getting struck by lightning while testing.

As for the Translator Tower, It appears sub contractors and inspectors signed off on way to much paperwork before the work was really finished, and got caught. Been there, done that, would still do it for the right customer. Hate it that they got caught.

Anyway, at this point I think the smart money for WNRP is to settle for height on their own short 1620 tower on neighboring property. If any space is open on the WRRX tower, that should pull a premium. The 106.9/WBQP-CD tower on industrial seems to be working well for 106.9 & 97.1 now. Maybe leave good enough alone until Mr. Church gets his problems worked out. 92.3 and 95.3 will likely stay silent longer due to this legal issue.


Hopefully there's no firewall to this link.
http://www.pnj.com/story/news/local.../?hootPostID=138d64fa2c56551d348a872ef4e333e7
 
Maybe. I thought they were currently live from Industrial with a LMA tied to WPNN and held CP for the new WDWR tower.

Remember when all this started I was speculating WNRP may have decided to erect their translator 3 blocks down the street from the new WDWR tower or at least they were adding an FM transmitter/antenna to the WNRP AM tower for an unknown reason.

I read that article online yesterday. The WDWR articles took up the entire front page (and one additional inside page) in the Sunday print edition of the PNJ. Makes it appear to be a very big deal.
 
I'm 99% sure the only place this translator has broadcast from is the WDWR tower. I can't find reference to any alternative site in the list of STAs and construction permits in the FCC's records. The STAs that Hale filed were to operate from the old WDWR tower at 199 feet until the new 400 foot tower could be constructed.

Now, how Hale managed to keep 97.1 on the air when that tower was taken down and being rebuilt (what, twice now?) is anyone's guess. But there is no other alternative location I can find.
 
Looks like I stored some bad info in my brain. I'll try to update it.

Those applications for 97.1 are some interesting reading.
I would have never guessed they wanted to move it to downtown Pensacola to help protect WABB's signal. How nice of them.

So as far as you know only 106.9, channel 12, 19 and 46 have used the Industrial tower in the last decade?
 
seedless said:
Looks like I stored some bad info in my brain. I'll try to update it.

Those applications for 97.1 are some interesting reading.
I would have never guessed they wanted to move it to downtown Pensacola to help protect WABB's signal. How nice of them.

So as far as you know only 106.9, channel 12, 19 and 46 have used the Industrial tower in the last decade?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, that's correct, although I admit my knowledge of the low power situation in Pensacola is shaky.
 
Your think your knowledge of the Pensacola LPTV situation is shakey?
Dude, since before HD I've never known what I was going to find on LP when I rescanned from 32502 or 32561.
I still look to ABMP for updates.

I thought I'd figure out where 97.1 broadcasts from while driving around today, but go figure... they were off the air.
 
The P'cola city council took up the issue of "the tower of controversy" tonight. It'll be interesting to see if they did something... anything... or just tabled the topic for later.
It was also kinda weird hearing Andrew McKay talking about the topic on the WNRP 1620 evening drive. They never mentioned the tower in dispute was where the planned to plant WNRP's future FM translator.
The PNJ had an editorial on the tower today questioning the towers strength/safety. There might have been another small PNJ article.

The biggest question I still have is, if Mr Church told the FAA they were only going to build a 350 foot tower because they were going to mount a 40 foot "master antenna" on top (I assume a single FM antenna for all the low power translators) so how do they explain the 400 foot tower? Was he going to try to get away with and risk liability for 400 foot + 40 foot top mount antenna, downtown, without FAA notification?

As far as I know WEAR and WCOA have yet to report on this. I quit reading the In Weekly last year. The PNJ is printing something almost every day and it came up on WNRP today. May be meat on the bone. It'll suck for the translators if that tower comes down and isn't replaced due to bad politics.
 
If it comes down, I have a feeling it may stay down permanently. I'm not as worried about the translators so much as I am WDWR. I have zero interest in Catholic radio but I hate to see a viable AM allocation go away. Isn't it one of the few AMs in P'cola that has a viable night signal over much of the immediate area? 1 kW fulltime ain't much but it's nice and centrally located. I supposed it could be diplexed with someone else but that might be rather expensive for little payback. Then again, it's all about that translator. As long as there's an AM to drive that, it may not matter to Gabriel* how well the AM gets out. ;)

The height discrepancy is such a puzzle to me. 350 feet plus a 40 foot mast is only 390 feet, so I'm assuming the mentions of a 400 foot tower were just rounding up by Mr. Church. But why would you need a 40 foot mast for anything? FM translators are usually only one or two-bay antennas and they could just as easily be side-mounted like the old ones were. Plus, the FAA needs the total height including any accouterments, not the tower height itself. That 50 foot difference is enough to cause major problems to low flying aircraft.

The only thing that I can think of that would logically require such a mast extended over a tower is a VHF TV antenna. Or a panel UHF system, but neither of those are things that are a) practical or b) needed in Pensacola. Unless WBQP-LD 12 was planning to move but that would be the ultimate in pointlessness.

AM is a bit voodoo to me so I could be way off here, but a quarter-wave at 1230 kHz is 200 feet if I'm not mistaken. A 500 foot tower would be a 5/8ths wave. 350 would be… Weird? Was Mr. Church planning to put up a skirt the first 200 feet then use the extra to boost the height of translators? I guess that's logical.

* - Archangel Gabriel is apparently the patron saint of radio broadcasters. "The more you know!"
 
The news today is that the tower topic has been tabled by the city for future review.

The fact that 1230 has been operating continuously from that same site for decades makes them grandfathered so that should help, but if the new tower is deemed unsafe and comes down for any reason I don't see a replacement tower of significant height going up in the city limits ever again.

In the music days 1230 had an excellent night signal 10 miles out but the sound quality of the Catholic programming is so bad I don't know what the coverage is now. 1230 is better at night than 1620.

Also, no food trucks are allowed in the city limits.
 
I can't see how this move would benefit Robert in terms of coverage. He doesn't have any audience at all on the beach... he's probably better off staying on the Industrial tower. Gene Church must be offering low low prices for space on the Tower of Controversy.

It's not a safe move. The city is discussing taking down the "unsafe and illegal" tower now and dealing with the lawsuits later.

The other in-town tower site is the WRRX tower in the storm water basin near the old jail. The county is preparing to build a new jail and majorly reengineer the drainage in that specific area. While it hasn't been reported it is possible the WRRX tower is also in jeopardy.
 
According to a news report I heard today on WCOA, the Pensacola city council will move in the "Long Hollow Tower" tonight, Thursday March 17.

1230 is still dark.
103.3 and 97.1 are still live and local.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom