As usual, rural listeners will get the shaft. During hurricane periods, the threat of storm surges to the downtown Norfolk area is something quite serious. A move closer in to the metro area will mean less overall survivability for the broadcast scene during major CAT-2 and higher events.
I admired the WAFX tower out on US-460. Relatively high ground and rimshot coverage for much of my travels in rural Virginia.
Oh yes, the old WJOI 1230 (final call sign WJYI) which was near the old Ford plant is now history too. License cancelled. The only guys running HD AM in town.
For me, somebody from Norfolk, VA, relatively close to the water, I get relatively solid HD Radio signal of WAFX as well as analog coverage. 106.9 The Fox at its current site has always benefited in the fact that it's a higher power signal, so it gets advantages in this prospect.
WJOI 1230 is a sad loss, and I wish it would've stayed, however as radio progresses things tend to become history. Look at WGH-AM and WGH-FM, the only three letter facility in Virginia, is located here. Hampton Roads is one of the older areas of radio, and we have a lot of older stations that still exist. WWDE has been here long enough that a Forensic Files episode was made about a DJ who worked for the station and WNVZ has existed here since the 80's/90's. All it'd take would be for one major format flip here and entire centuries of radio history would be wiped in a single format flip.
WAFX's current transmitter site is way better than being located closer to me. I don't need another hella strong HD Radio station here, as WNOR is strong enough as it is, we don't need another hella high powered station here to mess with me during e-skip and tropo, I'm regularly able to get tropo on 106.7 and 107.1 with 106.9's current location, with it being THAT CLOSE, it'd be completely impossible.
Another thing is during SIMPLE rain storms, at least 4 stations here have STL problems. 92.9 The Wave and Hot 100 being the two worst contenders for storm issues. 92.9 The Wave gets knocked out simply by a thunder storm passing through and Hot 100 will go dead air for hours on end during major storms.
