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W50CF has an application to move to channel 6

tomservo

tomservo

Mobile-area religious LPTV station W50CF was displaced from its channel when WFGX moved up to the tall tower in Baldwin County and has been off since.

I just came across an app for a move to channel 6. Looks like they may try the popular-lately move to being an LPTV/FM station on 87.7. The "new" site is from one of the tall towers and the contour map on the FCC site shows it skirting Mobile AND Pensacola, which means the audio signal would be even more robust.

Thoughts?
 
Is W50CF still owned by a church or was this LP running HSN? This isn't the first TV translator to apply for VHF channel 6 in this market, is it? Hasn't the FCC denied several LPTV moves to Baldwin county over the last 10 years? Didn't the FCC deny SpringHill College's request to move WTOH from 105.9 to 87.9 because of short spacing to WUWF? Wouldn't 100kw WUWF 88.1 and the ?kw new 88.1 in Biloxi still be a big problem for 87.7 trying to cover Mobile & Pensacola from a candelabra?

Oh yeah, how would the audio be more "robust". Isn't the audio signal like 30% of the video signal strength you'd see on a fake LPTV station app?

I just can't see how this dog would hunt in both cities at the same time. Seems like the best location for a VHF channel 6 / 87.7 FM would be Gulf Shores. But I don't know engineering and stuff like that.

Ramble Ramble Ramble.
 
The owner is listed as Franklin Media, so it may be HSN instead of religious programming. You're right about WUWF, I completely forgot about that. That alone may negate any hopes they have of getting big coverage. Still though, it possibly could work from Mobile. Gulf Shores may still be too close if Robertsdale is out. I honestly don't know the spacing requirements for analog LPTV to analog FM.

Up around Birmingham, they have a digital station on 6 and the hash spills out to 87.7 easily for a good 30 miles. Yet there are stations granted to both Bessemer (18 miles away) and Argo (25 miles away) on 88.1. Maybe it's different when the TV station is digital. From Robertsdale to WUWF's TX site is 40 or 50 miles.

The audio would be robust because they wouldn't be keeping it at "TV levels" of modulation, they'd be running it closer to "FM levels" against the rules. The 87.7 stations I've heard in LA, Chicago and Memphis were all very competitive with nearby real stations' processing.
 
W50CF for the past few years has been operated by a black church in Prichard, The Word of Life. Transmitter located atop The Tower on Ryan Park (formerly known as Creighton Towers) in downtown Mobile. [WPMI TV and WMPV TV both had studios in that building at one time, as did WGRR-960 AM.] Programming consisted of the church's services, and fill in from The Word, a satellite-fed black religious channel.

The station was not carried on any cable system in the area, though I put it on a SMATV system that was in the coverage area.

Franklin Media, which I understand to be the operator of WPAN 53 Ft Walton, once used W50CF to simulcast its programming into Mobile, since the TV 53 tower in Navarre could not reach Mobile. This at one time forced Comcast Cable in Mobile to treat WPAN as a must-carry. I believe some other cable systems in the area now carry WPAN by picking up its DirecTV feed.
 
J Alex Bowab beat me to it but, yes, Franklin Media is (was?) the owner of WPAN and WPAN used to broadcast on the channel 50 translator in Mobile. I think that ended well over a decade ago, although WPAN's legal ID slides included mention of the W50CF-Mobile translator up until they got the digital (ch 40.1) signal online and apparently dropped all mention of channel 53. I thought he had sold the channel 50 translator... apparently not.
Franklin Media is owned by a minister (it should be easy to look up his name... but I'm typing too fast to do it.) I believe he purchased WPAN when it was dark after its early days as an independent UHF (they showed George of the Jungle!). He put it back on the air as a religious station, but realizing he couldn't compete with all the other religious stations in the market: WMPV (21), WHBR (33), and WFGX (35) (WFGX started it's life as a religious station), he switched it to the (somewhat odd) cable access/infomercial/shopping format with services from his church on Sunday mornings. Can you imagine the old OTA Pensacola TV dial with: ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, 2 indies and 4 religious TV stations (and all 4 religious TV stations were on commercial allocations!)?

I bet I could have looked all this information up on the AL Media Page website... but I'm typing to fast.

My suggestion that Gulf Shores would be the best site for 87.7 FM needs clarification... This station may very well fit in Robertsdale/Seminole (LPTV has to accept interference but can't cause it, that wouldn't have applied to class D 87.9 from SpringHill college, would it?) but I don't see the signal reaching Pensacola or Mobile from there and central Baldwin county doesn't need another small radio station. If they could get this station on a tower near Gulf Shores or south of Lillian/Foley they could target South Baldwin as a local station (competing directly with WCSN or preferably complementing Sunny 105.7) and get some spillover coverage into the southern, more affluent parts of the Pensacola DMA. Perhaps a Smooth Jazz or AAA format (think The Seabreeze in South Walton/SanDestin). They could also try going from the 92 Zew site and target Mobile and Dauphin Isle or a Spanish Fort tower targeting the Eastern Shore, but it would probably just be another boring left of the dial religious format over there.

Man am I rambling... too much Caffeine. ;D
 
Religious TV station overload, you say? Understatement. There is yet another one now - WDPM , owned by religious outfit Daystar (call letters Daystar Pensacola Mobile?), that took over the old WSRE channel (23) after the analog/digital transition. It shows up as 23.1 on some sets/converters, and as 4.1 on others (so much for PSIP being an exact science). How many can survive in the marketplace?
 
Also religious LD channel 46 has a very strong signal around Pensacola bay... and religious analog channel 39 is back on the air to "keep the license alive" right now. WDPM has been off the air the last few times I've checked... either that or they're running a weaker signal than WALA or WEIQ.

My comment was referring to the insane religious overload back in the 1980's. 4 full powered commercial licensed religious stations in a market of 12 full power TV stations. There wasn't even enough programming to fill the stations, I can remember often seeing identical programming on three of the four religious stations at the same time. Neighboring TV markets had no full power religious stations (commercial or non-com) back in those days. I think Atlanta had 1 religious tv station.

Before I got cable this is what my TV dial looked like:
3 - ABC
5 - CBS
10- NBC
15- indie (later Fox)
21- religion
23- PBS
33- religion
35- religion - at least it was in the wrong direction and I had to turn the antenna to pick it up
42- PBS - very weak signal
44- indie
53- religion
58- tourist info - possibly the weakest full powered TV station in the US
 
J Alex Bowab said:
Religious TV station overload, you say?  Understatement.  There is yet another one now - WDPM , owned by religious outfit Daystar (call letters Daystar Pensacola Mobile?), that took over the old WSRE channel (23) after the analog/digital transition.  It shows up as 23.1 on some sets/converters, and as 4.1 on others (so much for PSIP being an exact science).  How many can survive in the marketplace?
Click to expand...

I would say the Mobile-Pensacola designated market area has excessive religious TV programming: WFNA-TV, WMPV-TV, and WHBR-TV broadcast "The 700 Club" and WFGX-TV, WHBR-TV, WMPV-TV, and WDPM-TV broadcast "Enjoying Everyday Life with Joyce Meyer".

One TV set in my home located in Mobile displays channel 4.1 and the other displays channel 4-1 when set for programming from WDPM-TV. Reception of programming from WDPM-TV is usually weak on either TV set.
 
I'm almost eyesight to the WDPM TX site and get 0% on it on two TVs.

How has the area been, historically, for cable penetration? Most of the religious programming these days is satellite or cable delivered, but maybe the religious groups saw a need for OTA transmissions in the area due to low cable uptake?

TBN is really the only religious broadcaster I know that's always been big on OTA, either through full power or translator stations. They're really making the most of multiplexing now with ATSC. All their full power stations seem to run 4 or more subchannels.

WPAN is also on WHBR 33.4 now, which makes me wonder if they're aiming to get back on cable in Baldwin and Mobile counties again. Riviera hasn't picked it up yet, but they haven't picked up Cool TV or the Country Channel either. (Not to mention how screwed up their program guide is for WSRE, but that's way off topic).

I have to agree with the idea of moving the LPTV 6 over towards Mobile. Regardless of whether they're going to jump on the 87.7 bandwagon or just be a real TV station, they need to focus that miniscule energy where the most people can receive it. And doing that from the candelabra in the sticks ain't gonna cut it.

(BTW, do those two candelabra towers have names? Or do they just get referenced by their locations?)
 
The BLAB TV programming on channel 33-4 is actually from WFBD-TV, not WPAN-TV.
 
I'm pretty sure that Sinclair owns the WEAR/WFGX/WSRE candelabra... no idea on a name though, I thought towers had license plates like cars, mobile homes, and billboards.

Also, will have to check to verify, I believe WFBD 48-1 and WHBR 33.4 are carrying the original Cox Cable Pensacola channel 6 BLAB feed while WPAN 40-1 is carrying a separate feed called BLAB-2 (2 does not reference a channel number, just a second BLAB channel).

Are any cable systems carrying WDPM or WFBD yet? I don't think anyone is carrying WJTC-HD yet... so get those antennas up in time watch the SEC Network football games this fall. The only sub channels I've seen on cable around these parts are PBS subs and WPMI/WKRG Weather. Is anyone carrying other sub channels on cable?

Zach, I was sure you would know the answer to this one, hasn't at least one other translator applied to move to LPTV channel 6 in the past few years and been denied (or let it expire)?
Also, if one of the pros out there is reading, would it work out to put an analog channel 6 LPTV in both Mobile and Pensacola? I believe both towns had analog translators on channel 8 a while back. If it would be easy to do in Pensacola I would think the channel 39 translator would be looking in that direction since it was purchased by "Pensacola Christian Radio" a few years back and has yet to air any programming.
 
poledo said:
I'm pretty sure that Sinclair owns the WEAR/WFGX/WSRE candelabra... no idea on a name though, I thought towers had license plates like cars, mobile homes, and billboards.

Also, will have to check to verify, I believe WFBD 48-1 and WHBR 33.4 are carrying the original Cox Cable Pensacola channel 6 BLAB feed while WPAN 40-1 is carrying a separate feed called BLAB-2 (2 does not reference a channel number, just a second BLAB channel).
Click to expand...

Let me know what you find out and I'll add that info to my website. I thought there was only one BLAB on WPAN, I didn't know there was a different version for Cox.

poledo said:
Are any cable systems carrying WDPM or WFBD yet? I don't think anyone is carrying WJTC-HD yet... so get those antennas up in time watch the SEC Network football games this fall. The only sub channels I've seen on cable around these parts are PBS subs and WPMI/WKRG Weather. Is anyone carrying other sub channels on cable?
Click to expand...

I'm on Riviera Utilities outside of Foley and they are not carrying WDPM or WFBD. I wouldn't mind WFBD if they're carrying America One. They have some goofball programming that's fun to watch.

We do get WJTC in HD. They never seem to show anything in HD, but when there was some severe weather a while back the WPMI weather crawl across the bottom was 16:9. Both WJTC and WPMI seem to have the ability to insert graphics in HD 16:9, like the station logo, website and the sports ticker during the news. Hopefully one day they'll upgrade to HD news.

As for subchannels, the Riviera Utilities here carries several. We get WKRG's radar and RTV subchannels, WSRE's Create, Florida Channel/PBS World and v-me subchannels, the TBN multiplex (Smile, Enlace, JCTV, etc.) and APT's Create and IQ subchannels. Yes, we get two identical Creates. Stupid. Oh, and the Local 15.2 weather channel.

They have not added Cool TV, Country Music, CTN International or BLAB. The listings show that we're supposed to get WPAN directly but last time I checked it was blank.

poledo said:
Zach, I was sure you would know the answer to this one, hasn't at least one other translator applied to move to LPTV channel 6 in the past few years and been denied (or let it expire)?
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to that. When it comes to maintaining my website, I don't usually look into applications, just construction permits, because there's always the chance that the applications will never be granted. So there may have been an app for channel 6 that I never saw.

I only pay attention more now to Mobile and Pensacola because I live here now. ;)
 
As for names of the two candleabra towers in mid-County, they were both originally owned by nationwide companies that put up towers and rent space. One was owned by SpectraSite, the other by American Tower. Those are the names assigned to them. According to Wikipedia, the two companies have now merged.
 
J Alex Bowab said:
As for names of the two candleabra towers in mid-County, they were both originally owned by nationwide companies that put up towers and rent space. One was owned by SpectraSite, the other by American Tower. Those are the names assigned to them. According to Wikipedia, the two companies have now merged.
Click to expand...

Ah, that's what I was wondering. I imagine the names will stay with whoever put them up. So we have the SpectrSite tower, the American Tower, the WKRG tower and the WALA tower as far as the really tall ones go. There's the WEIQ tower and one other one that either WHIL or WBHY uses. I forget whose tower that was originally.
 
Just to give the historical perspective: The WEIQ tower was originally used by WALA from maybe 1958 to 1964; it was the second of three sites WALA has used in its 58 year history. The one you refer to as the WBHY/WHIL tower was originally WKRG's second of three. It's about 1000 ft and is within the shadow of the 2000 ft WKRG tower that replaced it about 20 years ago. KRG may still have aux facilities on the shorter tower. A mile or so to the west of the two KRG towers is one that WABB owned and used for a while. It's about 850 ft and has a lot of 2-way stuff on it now.

As for the two candleabras, I believe SpectraSite is the more westerly one (closer to Wilcox Rd). Last time I passed Wilcox Rd, WEAR's 1200' stick (dating back to 1961) was still standing, but the batwing antenna had been taken down.

And of course, WJTC (and several FMs) are on about a 1400 footer that is a few miles closer to Pensacola. It's been there since about 1984.
 
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