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WGUN/WPBS AM

The main issue with night service for WGUN is money.
You could, in theory, design an array that would serve a substantial portion of the metro Atlanta area. The question becomes at what cost?
You could put up 6 - 10 towers NW of Atlanta and shoot a "pencil pattern" through downtown with 50 KW. But a facility like this would easily cost over $1M and would still only serve 50% of the area with a signal strength high enough to overcome cochannel interference.
And if you built such a facility......how would you monetize it? Radio cumes drop off a cliff after 7 PM.....most people are watching TV. How would an expenditure of $1M + translate to higher billing and profits?
A better plan would be take the million bucks and:
1. Give each of the Rivers kids $200K.....
2. Carefully construct a plan for brokered programming centered on health and fitness. Hire a couple of good people to work the plan. ADVERTISE......ADVERTISE......ADVERTISE......(repeat until eyes glaze over)
3. The current format would work if they could find some good sales people to sale it. Problem is.....even V103 and WSB have problems finding good account reps. A good rainmaker will never be happy peddling $10 spots.

Prices are so bad for stations that a sale can be safely ruled out. They would be hard pressed to sell it for $1M.
But with a brokered time format they could be pocketing around $1M yearly......it was doing close to that 10 years ago. But to make it really successful they would have to focus on particular products and/or industries. You can't just sell time to anyone with $50 in their greasy lil' hands.....
I think health/wellness and personal development is the niche. Focus programming here,properly position the radio product, and advertise. I think they could do $100K/month with this approach.
 
secondchoice said:
just looking at the soon to be CC WOR, They have a 3 tower 24 hour pattern that put most of the signal into NYC.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WINS&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

If WGUN could have something like that from just north of Cartersville and they covered Bartow County, Cherokee, Forsyth, Gainsville north, and the Atlanta Airport to the south 24 hours a day, they could be a "second trier" player in the market. There are direction patterns that will "protect" stations with less than 100 watts going towards the "protected" station.
Click to expand...
Agreed, if you can find a good piece of cheap land to put a big ol' array and make the pattern tight enough to the north, you could do that. But it's still going to cost some money. I wonder what WSB rakes in after PM drive...take that, and quarter it. But it would give you viability for AM and PM drive.

This sounds like a project for a Jack Weber type with more money than common sense.

My daughter reminds me that WDWD does this with four towers in Powder Springs: http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDWD&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

And WDCY with 4 towers in Douglasville: http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDCY&service=AM&status=C&hours=D
 
Take WSB's evening revenue and quarter it!!!!??????
You have got to be kidding.....right??!! WSB has one of the best sales forces in the world! I hardly think WGUN would bill one quarter of WSB's 7P - 6A even if they had a megawatt for night service.
Problem #1. To add night service with any appreciable power would demand more than just a couple of nulls. To compare this situation to WDCY or WDWD is like comparing apples to oranges. WGUN would need a fairly complex setup to put relatively high power in to the lobe(s) You guys keep bringing this up but trust me.....night service for WGUN with higher power levels will require lots of towers and lot's of money.
And you still would have a signal which does not totally cover the market.
Problem #2. Where are you going to find the sales weasels? Like the ones at WSB/Cox? You're not going to get good account reps selling $10 spots. If you're in the business you know what I'm talking about......good sales people are hard to find.
 
WINS which is a whole lot closer to Canada does it with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=25451

and even closer 50KW Daytime WFLI 1070 (Lookout Mt) Chattanooga protects WAPI Birmingham AL, 133 miles away, plus WCSZ 163 miles away with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=72061

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bi...mat=&dx=3&radius=200&freq=1070&sort=freq&sid=

The WFLI 3 tower 2500 watt (only kicked up to 25 or 50 KW) Nighttime pattern aimed more toward South Carolina from just northwest of Cartersville would work

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFLI&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

There are some "smart" engineers that could make this work.
 
taylorengineer said:
Take WSB's evening revenue and quarter it!!!!??????
You have got to be kidding.....right??!! WSB has one of the best sales forces in the world! I hardly think WGUN would bill one quarter of WSB's 7P - 6A even if they had a megawatt for night service.
Problem #1. To add night service with any appreciable power would demand more than just a couple of nulls. To compare this situation to WDCY or WDWD is like comparing apples to oranges. WGUN would need a fairly complex setup to put relatively high power in to the lobe(s) You guys keep bringing this up but trust me.....night service for WGUN with higher power levels will require lots of towers and lot's of money.
And you still would have a signal which does not totally cover the market.
Problem #2. Where are you going to find the sales weasels? Like the ones at WSB/Cox? You're not going to get good account reps selling $10 spots. If you're in the business you know what I'm talking about......good sales people are hard to find.
Click to expand...
But what if you just offer night service to clear some syndicated shows with their own spots? You wouldn't need salespeople for that, would you?
 
"There are some "smart" engineers who could make this work"

Name a couple? And listen to Tylorengineer - cubic money is what would bve required.
 
secondchoice said:
WINS which is a whole lot closer to Canada does it with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=25451

and even closer 50KW Daytime WFLI 1070 (Lookout Mt) Chattanooga protects WAPI Birmingham AL, 133 miles away, plus WCSZ 163 miles away with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=72061

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bi...mat=&dx=3&radius=200&freq=1070&sort=freq&sid=

The WFLI 3 tower 2500 watt (only kicked up to 25 or 50 KW) Nighttime pattern aimed more toward South Carolina from just northwest of Cartersville would work

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFLI&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

There are some "smart" engineers that could make this work.
Click to expand...
 
It's great to daytime or in this case night dream about 1010 WGUN adding appreciable nighttime coverage but its not gonna happen. You can't take a pattern from other AMs and assume it works for WGUN. I suspect it would take not less than 6 towers to even get 1000 watts and then you have to locate it so it places a nighttime interference free over all of Atlanta. Uh oh. 1000 watts won't do it. Remember that WCNN had to change COL to North Atlanta census district to make 10KW work on 680 because it couldn't city grade all of Atlanta corporate limits with their nighttime and that was way back in the early 1980s. 1010 has stations in all directions...there simply isn't an "open" direction to beam the signal.

Furthermore, there isn't any place to put an array even if you had unlimited money. You aren't going to get property zoned if you could. Ask the folks who tried to get property zoned for 830 up near Roswell.

Finally there is the reality that when WSB put their programming on FM, the credibility of AM radio in Atlanta probably suffered irrepairable harm. Atlanta was never a strong AM market because only WSB really covered the market even back in the good old days of AM radio. The soil content made it impossible. AM signals don't like granite and there is a ton of it under the ground in Atlanta and so much so some of it even pops up above ground (Stone Mountain). Viable radio stations in Atlanta now have to survive against all the new media encroachment with FM.

secondchoice said:
WINS which is a whole lot closer to Canada does it with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=25451

and even closer 50KW Daytime WFLI 1070 (Lookout Mt) Chattanooga protects WAPI Birmingham AL, 133 miles away, plus WCSZ 163 miles away with 4 towers

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=72061

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bi...mat=&dx=3&radius=200&freq=1070&sort=freq&sid=

The WFLI 3 tower 2500 watt (only kicked up to 25 or 50 KW) Nighttime pattern aimed more toward South Carolina from just northwest of Cartersville would work

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFLI&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

There are some "smart" engineers that could make this work.
Click to expand...
 
The COL most likely would change just like South 107, but with WFGW giving up their night time directional pattern, and no station on 1010 in South Carolina, it just "looks" doable.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFGW&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

With the towers North or West of town, most likely a 24 hour directional pattern to put more signal into the market does (like WWL) would be required. If any one would try such a project, some kind of "Kinstar" http://www.kintronic.com/ would have be used.
 
artsutton said:
Remember that WCNN had to change COL to North Atlanta census district to make 10KW work on 680 because it couldn't city grade all of Atlanta corporate limits with their nighttime and that was way back in the early 1980s.
Click to expand...
WRNG/WCNN has always had a COL of North Atlanta. 1969 Broadcasting Yearbook has them with a North Atlanta COL and 5000W.

BTW: Now that Brookhaven is finally (re-)incorporated, would the FCC let Dickey change the COL from North Atlanta to Brookhaven?
 
secondchoice said:
The COL most likely would change just like South 107, but with WFGW giving up their night time directional pattern, and no station on 1010 in South Carolina, it just "looks" doable.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WFGW&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

With the towers North or West of town, most likely a 24 hour directional pattern to put more signal into the market does (like WWL) would be required. If any one would try such a project, some kind of "Kinstar" http://www.kintronic.com/ would have be used.
Click to expand...
To everyone else's point, this is probably doable, and you could find a flood plain cheap northwest of town to place the towers (like the Mouse did with WDWD), but would require both zoning and a buttload of money. Like I said, this would require someone like a Jack Weber doing it for the love of radio more than a quick return. No "Flip This Station" here.
 
The 830 CP expired last year---unbuilt.

Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
 
jabba17 said:
artsutton said:
Remember that WCNN had to change COL to North Atlanta census district to make 10KW work on 680 because it couldn't city grade all of Atlanta corporate limits with their nighttime and that was way back in the early 1980s.
Click to expand...
WRNG/WCNN has always had a COL of North Atlanta. 1969 Broadcasting Yearbook has them with a North Atlanta COL and 5000W.

BTW: Now that Brookhaven is finally (re-)incorporated, would the FCC let Dickey change the COL from North Atlanta to Brookhaven?
Click to expand...

I was going to point out the same thing. WRNG had to go in as North Atlanta. At the time the FCC would only grant a license to a city that lacked service. WRNG was famous in that it was one of the first "sneak in" stations meaning that WRNG was really an Atlanta station.

I don't think anyone cares about city of license anymore, so I do not think it would be worth the lawyer fees to file the application to change the COL.
 
jabba17 said:
BTW: Now that Brookhaven is finally (re-)incorporated, would the FCC let Dickey change the COL from North Atlanta to Brookhaven?
Click to expand...

Since most stations like to include the major city in their TOH ID (like "WCNN, Brookhaven-Atlanta"), why even bring it up when your "city" of license includes the major city's name ("WCNN, North-Atlanta")?

--

As far as tower location, would it be possible to diplex with WDWD?
 
trusty said:
As far as tower location, would it be possible to diplex with WDWD?
Click to expand...

IMHO WDWD's antenna farm is too far south. The "big' issue is Canada. If the WDWD site was used most likely would have another AM did not cover cover the northern part of the market. If you have to duplex the WRGA site might be an option:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WRGA&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

but it most likely is too far north west, to keep the city of license Atlanta.
 
secondchoice said:
BTW does any one know what has become of 830 AM I can't find them in the FCC data base:
Click to expand...

I was wondering that myself. They had plans to use the area at Morgan Falls for xmtr location. Maybe "diplex opportunity" for WGUN. Seems that a Rome, GA location is a little too far away.
???

PS: When WDGR left Dahlonega, they left a puny antenna there on quite a bit of floodplain just sitting there.
 
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