On another message board that I have not been able to sign up for, they were discussing putting the WEYI 25.1 programming on the WSMH 66 (RF 16) facility. Some suggested that Sinclair would or should shut down WEYI and turn in the license, and keep the WBSF 46 facility. There are a number of reasons why this would be a foolish move.
1. WEYI and WBSF are on the 1320 foot tower near Clio. WEYI is 300 kW NONDIRECTIONAL. WBSF is 600 kW DIRECTIONAL, with a deep null toward Genesee County, the equivalent of just 5.4 kW. The population of Genesee County is still over 400000. The Flint Urbanized Area in the center of population is around 300000, and has been approximately that since 1960. Only Flint, occupying just 34 square miles of the 650 square mile county, has seen large population losses since 1960, due to the loss of most GM jobs and the H2O Crisis. The population has mainly just moved beyond the city limits, and those areas outside never had a water problem now or in the last 60 years. Loss of industrial base is a widespread problem nationwide. Top employers in most cities now are state and local government, schools and colleges, and Hospitals and Medical Centers. Other cities (Toledo and Fort Wayne are two near Michigan), that appear better on paper, have annexed huge areas, which gives an illusion of growth. You can't just dismiss the importance of that many people, because of bad press.
2. The WSMH tower is a couple hundred feet shorter, and much further out, near Chesaning. That is about 25 miles from the center of population, whereas the WEYI is about 15 miles from the center of population. Originally WJRT 12 wanted to put their tower near Clarkston to serve much of the Detroit Area. After a several year legal holdup, they chose Chesaning, where is was to serve Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and also Lansing, East Lansing. WJRT 12 Flint was the ABC affiliate for Lansing for many years, and WJIM-TV 6 Lansing was the CBS affiliate for Flint for many years. After a few decades, the two markets got their own affiliates, and new networks, much closer, but mostly on UHF.
3. It would appear that WEYI is actually going to be substituted for WBSF, for the ATSC 3.0/"NextGen"channel because it serves the market better, being nondirectional. If people are going to face another transition like the NTSC to ATSC transition, and have to buy new TVs, converters, etc., at least the stations should have full market de facto coverage, not de jure meaningless predicted statistical contour coverage curves, based on curves from the 1940s to 1960, when no one anticipated the radical changes which have occurred.
1. WEYI and WBSF are on the 1320 foot tower near Clio. WEYI is 300 kW NONDIRECTIONAL. WBSF is 600 kW DIRECTIONAL, with a deep null toward Genesee County, the equivalent of just 5.4 kW. The population of Genesee County is still over 400000. The Flint Urbanized Area in the center of population is around 300000, and has been approximately that since 1960. Only Flint, occupying just 34 square miles of the 650 square mile county, has seen large population losses since 1960, due to the loss of most GM jobs and the H2O Crisis. The population has mainly just moved beyond the city limits, and those areas outside never had a water problem now or in the last 60 years. Loss of industrial base is a widespread problem nationwide. Top employers in most cities now are state and local government, schools and colleges, and Hospitals and Medical Centers. Other cities (Toledo and Fort Wayne are two near Michigan), that appear better on paper, have annexed huge areas, which gives an illusion of growth. You can't just dismiss the importance of that many people, because of bad press.
2. The WSMH tower is a couple hundred feet shorter, and much further out, near Chesaning. That is about 25 miles from the center of population, whereas the WEYI is about 15 miles from the center of population. Originally WJRT 12 wanted to put their tower near Clarkston to serve much of the Detroit Area. After a several year legal holdup, they chose Chesaning, where is was to serve Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and also Lansing, East Lansing. WJRT 12 Flint was the ABC affiliate for Lansing for many years, and WJIM-TV 6 Lansing was the CBS affiliate for Flint for many years. After a few decades, the two markets got their own affiliates, and new networks, much closer, but mostly on UHF.
3. It would appear that WEYI is actually going to be substituted for WBSF, for the ATSC 3.0/"NextGen"channel because it serves the market better, being nondirectional. If people are going to face another transition like the NTSC to ATSC transition, and have to buy new TVs, converters, etc., at least the stations should have full market de facto coverage, not de jure meaningless predicted statistical contour coverage curves, based on curves from the 1940s to 1960, when no one anticipated the radical changes which have occurred.
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