Listening to Dick Bartley on WCLS 97.7 Spencer/Bloomington...Could I get a second opinion? Has their audio taken a HUGE leap forward in the past week or two? It was anemic & shallow in that past...now it's consistent & tight. Not saying it's the cleanest or brightest I've ever heard, but apparently WCLS does have an engineering department & they have made progress. As a listener, I thank them. As a broadcast engineer, I salute them...Can I Get A Witness?
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WCLS Audio
- Thread starter BobOnTheJob
- Start date
Better late than never, Bob, but I did get a chance to listen to them on the way to work (at 4:30AM) on the south leg of 465. They do sound a lot better...I am pretty sure what I heard was a satellite feed, but nonetheless, it sounded decent on my car radio (when 97.9 in Anderson wasn't doing the number on them). Sounds like maybe they spent a little money on some processing gear or at least adjusted what they had.
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look4mission
Guest
Indy Dan... you mention 97 9 doing a number on them. I know
they are a 50,000 w FM - but it seems they really do a number
on "a number" of stations near and around them...way far from
their freq. Any ideas? Wouldn't be over modulating...or ?
they are a 50,000 w FM - but it seems they really do a number
on "a number" of stations near and around them...way far from
their freq. Any ideas? Wouldn't be over modulating...or ?
look4mission said:
I really don't have any idea...I know they're loud, but cannot tell if they're overmodulated or not. I'm guessing I was probably halfway between the two stations, but expected some splatter from a strong adjacent like WGNR. My car stereo is far from a precision piece of test equipment which would really tell the story. I would think if they were affecting stations nearby, then those stations would be complaining about it. If it's spurs from the transmitter or intentional overmodulation, then they have a problem. That happened with WTLC a few years back when they were on 105.7...you could hear them all over the upper end of the FM band every few hundred kc.
The older transmitters would sometimes go out of tune (especially when the room temperature changed a lot) and they would occupy huge amounts of bandwidth. That's pretty rare these days.
From my experience, there are almost no broadcasters who over modulate or operate over power. I say almost as I hear rumors that sometimes seem credible, but have yet to witness firsthand a purposely over-powered or over modulated station. The people I work for tend to demand that the meter stay as close to 105% as possible without exceeding the legal limit. Kinda like me and my 5mph over every speed limit policy.
Back to WCLS, they seem to have tweaked it a little more as of this past weekend. It's sucking up a little background noise up on some quiet tunes, but I actually enjoy a little bit of that on an oldies format. Except for the relatively low technical quality of the liner voice, the station sounds prtty good now. Thanks for spending the money Dave! This evaluation is based on Dick Bartley's Saturday Night show...that's all I listen to on WCLS and I am very thankful they carry it. If they are taking requests, hopefully they'll also pick up Bartley's 4 hour show that can air anytime over the weekend. If they suddenly pick that one up, it will remove all doubt that someone from WCLS reads this site...
From my experience, there are almost no broadcasters who over modulate or operate over power. I say almost as I hear rumors that sometimes seem credible, but have yet to witness firsthand a purposely over-powered or over modulated station. The people I work for tend to demand that the meter stay as close to 105% as possible without exceeding the legal limit. Kinda like me and my 5mph over every speed limit policy.
Back to WCLS, they seem to have tweaked it a little more as of this past weekend. It's sucking up a little background noise up on some quiet tunes, but I actually enjoy a little bit of that on an oldies format. Except for the relatively low technical quality of the liner voice, the station sounds prtty good now. Thanks for spending the money Dave! This evaluation is based on Dick Bartley's Saturday Night show...that's all I listen to on WCLS and I am very thankful they carry it. If they are taking requests, hopefully they'll also pick up Bartley's 4 hour show that can air anytime over the weekend. If they suddenly pick that one up, it will remove all doubt that someone from WCLS reads this site...
I
indyradioguy
Guest
BobOnTheJob said:
You can tie a pretty ribbon around dog poop and it's still dog poop. The liner guy is the pits, the morning show is the worst and all they do is steal ideas and stuff from other stations. Sad excuse for radio... and no I have never worked for that company.
indyradioguy said:
Typical low-budget operation. The local liner guy would be Steve Ross. He was GM at Danville for many years and also for a while at Brownsburg before going to Mid-America. He was doing some on-air work at WCBK for a while. I understand he also does some engineering for that group of stations.
M
MrJoey
Guest
Steve Ross, he's one of the nicest guys you can work with! You rock Steve!
MrJoey said:
Gave me my first job in radio...we had a lot of fun at WGRT back in the day...he would do anything to get you to lose it on the air including setting fireworks off in the air studio or setting your news copy on fire WHILE you were reading it. I haven't seen him in a few years..last I heard he is living in Martinsville and spending a lot of Dave's money!..good for him!
Kale's morning show is entertaining, if unoriginal. He's a good guy too.
It was my understanding that the liner guy was the GM for WCLS, WCBK, and Spirit 95.
It was my understanding that the liner guy was the GM for WCLS, WCBK, and Spirit 95.
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