Radio Locator has WABQ in Painesville, Ohio, where it's been for a long time. They are on 1460AM. (the old WPVL and WQLS), 1000 watts day, 500 watts, night. They also have a translator at 94.7 FM, with 50 watts, in Painesville. The license expires in 2028. They do not have a website.
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WCCD off it again
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
200 watts directional? They have to be kidding. Maybe this is just a formality to keep an internet stream operational.
What station are you talking about? Neither WABQ nor WCCD have 200 watts directional as their power output that I see.
AM 1000 WCCD is applying for either 200 or 250. Down from their old 500 watts
That's what they've applied for when they combine/diplex from the WHK 1420 towers.
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They would have been better off buying the 1540 license. The tower is still standing on Euclid Avenue. The trailer with the equipment was removed sometime in Spring 2022.
I was actually in Painesville earlier and I tried listening to both 1460 and 94.7. I heard nothing on both.
I still keep thinking that, as far as day timers go, WWGK would have been a better buy (kilowatt non-D) versus WCCD (directional, previously 500 watts, soon to go down to 200) but that would be like coming around full circle. Ah well.
Buying the 1540 facility would be a "Full Circle" move, itself. From the 1960s and, just about, up until Good Karma got a hold of 1540, it was WABQ, an R&B station, focusing on serving Cleveland's urban community and competing with WJMO-AM 1490, the other R&B broadcaster. Eventually, 1540 am, WABQ became a Gospel station.
The non-directional 1540 transmitter site right in the middle of the city gave the station some pretty good coverage over a large swatch of population. Yes, it was a daytimer, but with some creative engineering, they might have been able to get a flea power night license (5 or 10 watts) which would have been enough to possibly get a LPFM repeater. Even if not, I don't understand just throwing this signal out with the trash. I believe that it is deleted and if so, gone forever because the FCC will not license any more daytimers. Reminds me of WJTB in North Ridgeville in a way. The owner (the "Reverend" James Taylor) allowed this 5KW, non-directional AM with very fine market coverage to fall apart....literally. No maintenance for years and years. The transmitter literally deteriorated and could no longer transmit an understandable signal. The last few weeks that it was on the air it was transmitting garbled noise. Very suspicious studio fires. I know of at least two groups who wanted to buy the station, but the "Reverend" reportedly wanted a million dollars! The buyers' offers were rejected, so the whole place continued to fall apart. It finally went off the air unable to broadcast due to massive technical problems. The "Reverend" refused to repair anything. The station went past a year off air and the FCC deleted the license. Now, the station is worth nothing. Great business plan, eh?
$100k cash and a 30 year note for $500k for an off-air station with no transmitter site or studio? All while having a reportedly silent Painesville propery? Didn't know he bought the Cortland polka station. There is a potential here to create a tri-station gospel network. Parma and Painesville will cover most of the Cleveland area target audience, Cortland adds Youngstown. Could originate from Cortland or, if the building still stands, Painesville or his basement. Going up against big Radio One with its Praise 1300, FM translator and 2 HD outlets. I think there already is a gospel AM in Youngstown. Going non-profit is interesting, how does he make any money, unless he spins them off for a profit. Pretty good though for leveraging the original WABQ into a mini-empire.
If that is the plan (a tri-station gospel network), he could buy WOBL in Oberlin for additional coverage west of Cleveland, as I hear that the owners of that station are in financial distress.
That’s on Good Karma. They really weren’t into getting translators for any of their stations, let alone WWGK. But even then, the FM dial in Cleveland is so clogged that they would have wound up with a horrible signal like WHK’s peashooter of a translator at 102.5 or WHKW’s at 96.9.
Remember, WJMO, owned by Richard Eaton, started on 1540 as an R&B station, migrating to 1490 around 1959.
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Given the many technical deficiencies 1460 AM holds, it might be in Dale Edwards’ best interest to move the WABQ calls and gospel format (which to my understanding, is/was non-commercial?) over to 1000 and give up the 1460 license.
The sad thing is that if you search “WABQ 1460” on Google, you get next to nothing. The last serious press coverage on the station was an attempt at progressive talk in 2011 via an LMA. That station has become virtually invisible online and it’s a shame.
The sad thing is that if you search “WABQ 1460” on Google, you get next to nothing. The last serious press coverage on the station was an attempt at progressive talk in 2011 via an LMA. That station has become virtually invisible online and it’s a shame.
Plus, Ashtabula, Akron, and Canton each has a station at 102.5. Those three, on top of Cleveland's, makes for a crowded frequency.
Painesville has a large Hispanic population. Maybe Spanish language programming on 1460 would be viable.
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