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WCKL -An Atrocious Stream and Lousy Management

C

ChuckRoast

I enjoy the oldies music mix that’s heard during the day on WCKL. It features some rare 50’s tunes and doesn’t get bogged down with the easy listening hits like WROW. I can hear the station fairly OK driving around the Capital Region. I was happy to see a streaming audio link to the station listed here on this site. But then I tried to listen to it. The music sounds grossly distorted like a walkman losing it’s battery power. It’s like they put a mike next to a speaker. The connection has a high “kbps” reading so the problem must be with the source. Can’t they fix this?

On top of the lousy sounding stream they did something stupid radio wise this morning. During drive time they played light “Christian Contemporary Music” in place of their usual music. First of all, if you’re going to play Gospel music on a station that plays traditional oldies you should play traditional hymns etc. They have a right to play CCM music and mix in some “turn or burn” preaching spots but during drive time it’s a total turnoff to most of the oldies fans who listen the rest of the day. Play this gospel music when it's effective, not when you have your largest potential audience.

I have a feeling mangement lives in fantasy land. They expect to build an audience this way?
 
WCKL seems to be playing all Religious music today Sunday this evening after 6:00 PM...I thought they were Oldies, aren't they ?
 
I'm not sure but I think the station is owned by Christians. A large hint is the photo collage on the front page of their website which includes a speaker with a sheepish grin holding what looks like a Bible. It explains their sneaking in Christian music with the oldies. Perhaps it's more about gaining souls than gaining listeners.
 
MHVRadiofan said:
ChuckRoast said:
I have a feeling mangement lives in fantasy land.
Click to expand...

NUFF SAID!!! !! I saw on another thread they don't sound very good over the air either.
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i noticed too driving through the area last weekend that thier on air audio was very distorted ,, nice oldies music mix though
 
This is a Brian Dodge operation we're talking about here, 'nuff said.
 
I think he's "Dodging" his responsibility to the listeners of the community of service. Let's hope someone responsible buys it and puts a more professional effort into it. It could easily support Classic Country.
 
Someone ought to check to see if the food and money collected for flood victims found their way to victims or were absorbed by "administration costs".
 
Last November The Black United Fund was granted permission to transfer the license for WCKL to Dodge's group, providing the deal closed within 90 days. I was on the FCC date page yesterday and noticed The Black United Fund still listed as licensee. I wonder if it is just more sloppiness in paperwork, or is Dodge having problems coming up with payment, which was something like $500 per month.
 
I can imagine the station ownership reverting back to the Black United Fund and the signal going back to once a year transmitting to fulfill legal requirements. What a mess!!!
 
I recently was in the Catskill area for the first time since last fall. Wow, WCKL signal really has deteriorated since then. I wonder if Brian Dodge realizes that the FCC has standards for broadcast quality that must be met. Family 560 certainly does not meet any broadcast standards. I have heard better sounding pirates! WCKL sounds like a very distant station on an ancient radio, with weak tubes and a bad speaker. The sound is"in the mud", very low, weak, scratchy, and off channel. Perhaps Family Radio is no longer in the Greenport facility, and Dodge rigged up some tin cans and a string as an STL. That is how bad they sound. Although totally unintelligible, the volume level is actually significantly higher on adjacent 550, and 570. When I first approached the tower about a mile south of their tower the signal bled over all the way down to 530 and up to 580, although that stopped, as the transmission quality seemed to deteriorate over the weekend. The bleed as well as the main transmission on 560 became weaker than normal. Not being an engineer, I don't know if the problems are with the transmitter, processing, modulation control, the STL , something else, or a combination of everything. However, one thing is for sure, WCKL is barely listenable, and sounds like the old equipment is dying.It has not been used continuously for any length of time in years Indeed, Chuck, what a mess!
 
Interlocutor said:
I think he's "Dodging" his responsibility to the listeners of the community of service. Let's hope someone responsible buys it and puts a more professional effort into it. It could easily support Classic Country.
Click to expand...

Call me crazy, but I think the best alternative for this station (short of shutting it down) would be to sell the station to a college or other community group with perhaps an underground or free-form format similar to that of WBZH Pottstown PA. Under such a condition, the station could and IMNSHO should implement hybrid revenue model whereby the station survives on donations as well as advertisement.
 
The stream just sounds like the source feeding it is turned up too loud, if they just turned it down a little it would sound just fine.
 
Last I knew, Clear Channel kicked them out and they were over in Catskill. also had heard the transmitter had massive problems. Where is the FCC when you need them. There are so many violations - they should be shut down. Put the station back on the auction block.
 
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