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WCPH/WENR

K

knoxbob

As I was surfing through the FCC web site I noticed that WENR 1090 in Englewood has gone silent due to health issues with the owner. As I recall the last time I was in that area he was simulcasting both WCPH and WENR. I was just wondering if any board members live in that the McMinn County area might have some insight on why just one station and not the other or both. There are a lot of stations in that vicinity and the ad dollars might be hard to come by for those 2 AM stations with the state of the business right now.
 
Paul 's health has been bad, for several years. WENR is off because the tower is one stiff breeze away from crashing down. In fact, he's had trouble even finding anyone willing to take it down, much less try to fix it. It has to be lit for airport reasons and has been on FAA notification for years cause it isn't.

It is unlikely that the "wiener the world awaited" will ever be on the air again. Someone might be willing to buy the license but you'd have to keep it near Englewood and McMinn Co is already over-radioed.

A decent offer could probably get WCPH, but it would still be in the town the interstate forgot. Unless rail travel picks up, that's never going to be a bargain.
 
He could always put it on the WCPH tower, it should put a good enough signal in Englewood to be legal. The band might get a little more crowded if someone gets the FM allocated to Englewood @ 97.9.
 
An insurance man by the name of Paul Wilson owns the station. He has been ill for several years as stated earlier. WENR's tower is a real disaster and in very poor condition. A bad gust of wind would likely topple the tower. WCPH has a decent daytime signal here in Athens and the area. It is classic Gospel with some brokered religion on it, I sure do miss their old Adult Standards format.
 
I thought it was still adult standards, it has been a couple of years since I passed through the area and it was simulcast on both stations. Diplex the signal off the WCPH tower and get a translator for it an you could have a 24 hr signal with adult standards or a soft oldies format.
 
They've thought about diplexing. But putting two stations 130 khz apart on one stick would require some really stiff engineering expenses. And when you're finished you have two stations in a market that can't support one. And it's unlikely there will ever be many new translators licensed. The FCC must first make sure that every church in America has an LPFM for the badly underserved religious market.

The better thought would be to change 1220's col to englewood and then find some preacher somewhere in East Tennessee who's dying for a daytime signal. Still probably not wprth the effort.
 
The problem with that is that the Valcom is only FCC type accepted for frequencies above 1200 khz. It won't meet minimum field strength requirements below that.

Paul sold off most of the land, so he doesn't own the land where most of the ground system and guy wire anchors are anymore. So putting up any antenna at the existing site is pretty much out of the question.

If this were a station with some useable nighttime power it might be worth it, but for sunrise to sunset it's probably best to just let it die.
 
Yes, wise to let this one die. Etowah is more viable signal wise. And a mixture of modern and ancient equipment wise, WCPH still uses their old 1950 era Collins audio console for one.
 
An FCC query found that the station had filed it had resumed operations effective March 16. The comments section of the filing state that Paul Wilson has been ill for the past 11 months and is still ill, but improving. He has secured a manager to operate the station on his behalf.

I also noticed that the license expires August 1 - I wonder if it will get renewed.
 
I saw the renewal application but not one coming off the sat. I was in the area today and tuned in WCPH and it didn't have a great signal in Madisonville and I didn't think to try 1090 while I was there. Is he running 1090 on a long wire or using the WCPH tower?
 
WENR 1090 is back on the air, gentlemen. Simulcasting presently WCPH. Signal is spotty in Athens but audio is decent.
 
They are back on at reduced power using a long wire:

STA FOR TEMPORARY LONG WIRE ANTENNA

THE ORIGINAL VERTICAL TOWER USED WITH THE STATION THAT HAS BEEN ERECTED FOR MANY YEARS BECAME DANGEROUS IN THAT ONE OF THE LEGS
HAD RUSTED ALMOST INTO AND THE GUY WIRES HAD RUSTED. WE COULD NOT GET A TOWER CREW TO CLIMB THE TOWER AS IT WAS NOT SAFE TO CLIMB.
IT WAS NECESSARY TO DISMANTLE THE TOWER TO PREVENT COLLAPSE IN A HIGH WIND AND AS A SAFETY FACTOR. WE HAVE ERECTED A TEMPORARY LONG WIRE ANTENNA THAT IS END FED AND ABOUT 206 FEET LONG.THE ANTENNA WIRE RUNS NE TO SW AND THE FEED IS ON THE NE END OF THE WIRE. THE LONG WIRED IS LOCATED AT THE SAME LOCATION AS THE LICENSED TOWER AND THERE WAS NO MOVEMENT OF THE TRANSMITTER SITE.WE PROPOSE TO OPERATE TEMPORARILY WITH A POWER OF 300 WATTS SO AS NOT TO EXTEND THE CONTOUR OF THE LICENSED VERTICAL TOWER. WENR IS LICENSED TO OPERATE WITH A DAYTIME POWER OF 1 KW ON A FREQUENCY OF 1090KHZ AND IS NON DIRECTIONAL. AN STA IS REQUESTED TO USE THE LONG WIRE ANTENNA UNTIL WE CAN ERECT A NEW VERTICAL TOWER TO REPLACE THE ONE THAT HAD TO BE DISMANTLED. THIS STA REQUEST IS FOR 4 MONTHS.
 
Did the FAA / FCC loosen the tower painting requirements / lighting back sometime in the 1980's. Back in the pre 80 / 90 days almost every radio station's tower was painted had lighting. I can understand the $300 to $800 a month electric bill for the lighting but I have seen a lot of towers with flaking paint and some with rust. Wouldn't a paint job every 8 to 10 years be cheaper than having to replace a tower? I can think of some 50+ year old towers* that have been taken care of and still are "safe".

* WSM, 650am and a lot of the old analog TV towers are at least 50+.
 
I agree you have to maintain your tower just like any other piece of equipment and if you ignore it long enough it will fail. WATO is a good example, it fell down before someone could knock it down. I do not know if the WENR tower height required it to have lighting or not.
 
WENR's proximity to the McMinn County airport would require it to be lit at 50 feet. They've been reporting the tower lights out to the FAA for years because no one would climb the tower and fix them.
 
I'm bringing up an old post to add that WCPH/WENR have been sold for $60k. To George Hudson III of Ooltewah, Tn. The WENR tower is still running on a long wire so there will be that expense of rebuilding that and the equipment listed looks pretty old so not much value there.
 
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