What the heck is up with 990?

[radiojay1]

The station is on the air for a few days, then it's off the air for a few days, then on, then off. Does anyone running 990 have a clue? What is up?

 

[alfieradioguy]

Word is several investors including Arlene Violet and 'Big' Ange want a second 'Power house' talk radio station in R.I.
Personalities I'm hearing are Violet, Barber, Cianci and St Pierre are being spoken to.
Question, What about the signal?

 

[Skynet74]

That signal will always be that stations downfall. It totally Sucks! They better figure out if they can fix the signal first before they dump all kinds of money into that toilet bowl. Then change those call letters. Nobody wants to listen to a station that makes you think of a big fish.

 

[AKLes]

Face reality.

The 990 frequency is forever condemned to be a loser in Providence.

The directional pattern is dictated by a "ring" of co- and adjacents that demand the shape.

Only way to "fix" that would be for some giant to buy up several 980, 990, 1000 stations and either change their frequencies, if possible, or take 'em silent. It was a deal like that that killed off WPEP in Taunton (did it stay dead? I've lost track).

Ideally such a "fix" would involve a lower power and much simplified pattern. The power cost and maintenance on six towers alone constitute a huge "fixed" cost that has to be met before there can be any thought of profit.

The original WLKW made it big in 1959-1965 or so because advertisers and, especially agencies, hadn't figured out that 50,000 Watts dumped out to sea cannot hold an onshore audience. They've learned a few things since then.

As to the call letters....

Once upon a time they had value in Fall River and would have had more in New Bedford (or even Nantucket) when anybody gave a rat's hind end about the "whaling heritage" but that's all gone.....now it's a question of whether it speaks of a big, rotting fish (though whales are mammals) or getting drunk on beer that ain't quite Narry.

 

[alfieradioguy]

Les and Skynet,
I recently saw the head of the F.C.C. on CNBC. Basically saying, upon complaint the F.C.C. will investigate and clap down, fine, violators. 990 should file a FORMAL COMPLAINT with the F.C.C.
990s signal should be free of interferance.
THE F.C.C. can make that happen.

 

[AKLes]

Les and Skynet,
I recently saw the head of the F.C.C. on CNBC. Basically saying, upon complaint the F.C.C. will investigate and clap down, fine, violators. 990 should file a FORMAL COMPLAINT with the F.C.C.
990s signal should be free of interferance.
THE F.C.C. can make that happen.

The problem is you're looking at the situation backwards, though I'm sure well-meaning. 990/Providence is the latecomer to the frequency. The others on 980, 990, 1000 were all there much earlier! Bliss Properties got the original WLKW shoe-horned into a tiny little available geographic area, going on-air in 1959. The directional pattern, as licensed, and the wimpish night power, are required to live with any interference from those who were there first. 990/Providence is required to maintain licensed parameters to protect those stations; any lapse that causes interference to the pre-existing stations would bring down The FCC (upon complaint) but it would come down on 990/Providence.

At the time...and I worked at the original WLKW not long after they first signed on...was that there were two approaches to putting any signal on the air in Providence on 990. Remember, the FCC didn't license odd power levels in those days. Available were 250W, 500W, 1,000W, 5,000W, 25,000W and 50,000W (Watts). Somewhere around 400Watts, not an available value, would have worked from a rooftop antenna in downtown Providence but 250 was the max that would have been permitted. Alternative was higher power with a very tight directional pattern to protect pre-existing stations. Theoretically it might have been fewer towers at, perhaps 5,000 Watts but there was no real estate available close enough to the proposed City of License (Providence). Best workable was the Burillville site with 50,000 Watts and six towers (two rows of three). Besides, advertisers and agencies, back then, would swallow the 50-kW claim whole.

Ken Prior (son of R.I. radio engineering legend Tom Prior) was the first CE at (then) WLKW (may have been spelled "Pryor"....it's been years) Ken later went on to do all the engineering for R.I. Public TV (38).

 

[alfieradioguy]

Les,
You know your history!
What a situation.
Can you or anyone think of a way to make 990 work?
What a mess!

 

[AKLes]

Small corrections to my original discussion of power levels:

25,000 Watts was NOT available at that time.

10,000 and 20,000 Watts were available.

None of that changed the situation for 990 Providence but I figured that if I didn't make the correction somebody else would have.

I have said previously that somebody with big bucks might try buying up one or more of the co or adjacent channel stations to give what is now WALE more lattitude but, with AM properties becoming less and less valuable by comparison with FM, why bother? Certainly if I owned WALE (May God Forbid), I'd be carefully watching the "others" in case one or more fails financially. If it didn't cost too much and if I placed a high enough emotional value on an agenda....well, the folks being mentioned as possible someday operators might have that motivation but, I doubt, the cash.

 

[DG02816]

Another footnote to what Les is saying....I've heard from Steve Conti that the transmitter site is a mess. The Nautel AMPFET 50 isn't making 50 kW daytime, and at least one tower of the 6
may be close to falling down. When I worked there in the late'80's under the WEAN call, then-Chief Engineer Grady Moates told me the station would have much better coverage using a 4 tower cloverleaf from Centredale, and 10 kW, rather than the present setup. If indeed another powerhouse talker is wanted on 990, get rid of the WALE call. Too much bad baggage with it both in Fall River and Providence. I'd bring back either WEAN or WLKW.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia

 

[Skynet74]

Would it be fair to say that at any point within the last 15 years, WALE hasn't had ratings any higher than what a person could achieve by using a megaphone in a Mall?

 

[AKLes]

Another footnote to what Les is saying....I've heard from Steve Conti that the transmitter site is a mess. The Nautel AMPFET 50 isn't making 50 kW daytime, and at least one tower of the 6 may be close to falling down.

From about 15-years experience in working with Nautel AM transmitters...both the AMPFET and ND series...there's only one thing that takes these puppies down: Neglect.

The tower situation is no surprise; I doubt the originals have been replaced. Thoe were minimum-cost tubular stock bought as part of the RCA package that included the "Cramplifaze" transmitter. The four originally installed on the WSAR "new" site in Somerset were of similar quality and, when they were replaced with a new two-tower array some years back, the crew taking them down was happy to have the job over with.

When I worked there in the late'80's under the WEAN call, then-Chief Engineer Grady Moates told me the station would have much better coverage using a 4 tower cloverleaf from Centredale, and 10 kW, rather than the present setup. If indeed another powerhouse talker is wanted on 990, get rid of the WALE call. Too much bad baggage with it both in Fall River and Providence. I'd bring back either WEAN or WLKW.

I can't help but agree though getting real estate would be a problem and necessary permits would be almost impossible unless exactly the right palms could be found to grease. Hey, we're talkin' Rhode Island here....

The WALE call mostly has baggage (in Rhode Island) from the 990 issues. It had been a pretty good name in Fall River but it's not a Fall River audience anybody would really want to influence. Of the other two, if it had to be one WEAN might have been trotted around a bit less but I think it's been long enough since it was really respected that it's either neutral or slightly negative.

This is one of those stations you really want to take off the air for about 30-days then bring back in a blaze of publicity with a call never previously used in the market. A carefully considered name. Unfortunate case when it was considered great to have a "Q" in a call and a station up the road from here became, briefly, KQRZ. It was only about two days before the format/call shift that the staff was warned, under penalty of dismissal, that they were not to use "K-(you say the rest) on the air. Up to then nobody had really thought it through!

Anybody who'd be willing what it would take technically do do anything useful with 990 might do far better to try to pry 550 from Disney's cold, dead fingers and expend the effort to either bribe their way into putting up a third tower or finding a new site where they could push it up to 5-kW. That power that low on the dial (with a decent pattern) would stomp hell out of what 25-kW could ever do on 990.

 

[DG02816]

Les,
You're pretty much on target observation-wise. 550 does(or did)have a CP for 4.6 kW-D, 2.4 kW-N, DA-2, from the present site. I guess that's long since expired. I know RD was thinking of selling off some stations; not sure if WDDZ is one. 550 DID try to go talk under the WICE
call sign, but it, too, got blown out of the water. WICE could conceivably end up as the call on 990 as well as WEAN.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia

 

[AKLes]

550 does(or did)have a CP for 4.6 kW-D, 2.4 kW-N, DA-2, from the present site. I guess that's long since expired. I know RD was thinking of selling off some stations; not sure if WDDZ is one. 550 DID try to go talk under the WICE
call sign, but it, too, got blown out of the water. WICE could conceivably end up as the call on 990 as well as WEAN.

I don't see any evidence of the CP on the FCC website and don't know if it involved a third tower. IF it can be done with new construction (or suitable bribes and a third tower) then at 4.6 kW it would potentially be louder than WHJJ and slightly louder than WPRO (AM). I hazard that even without knowing what the pattern might lool like because the most strongly required protection would be to the North (WEDV, Waterbury Vt.). The problem with the failure doing talk was twofold; talent (lack thereof) and promotion (insufficient) though promotion without talent would have been money wasted.

I haven't kept track of the re-use of the calls, WEAN or WICE so can't comment on whether they'd be of any value. Personally, I think they've been degraded through years of being tossed around and are, if anything, mild negatives.

If I had my way back in the sixties (then) WXTR would have had a sister FM playing rock but, ownership being what it was, that didn't happen. And, if it had, it would have been sold at a good profit long before the value had peaked. I can see a day coming when somebody's gonna move a big-name talk show (Rush?) to FM and, after a period of time, sell off what today is a major AM player to some megachurch. Yeah, I know, sounds foolish now but, then, so did rock FM in 1968.


Whaddya think, Holland.....

 

[DG02816]

Les,

You're partly right on protection if 550 were to be beefed up. I think they'd also have to protect WGR in Buffalo to some extent as well as WDEV in Vermont. Not sure who'd have to be considered on 540. On 560, WFIL down here and WGAN Portland ME and WHYN in Springfield MA come to mind. But still, a shame . Two frequecies 440 kHz apart,(550 and 990) so poorly used.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540

Philadelphia

 

[frankieNY]

Since about 1990 WALE has had at least 3 hosts scoring in the arbitron ratings. Starting with Steve White who scoring big numbers from 89-91, he also scored good numbers again in 1996-1998. Billy Goodman scored around a 2 in 1992-1993. Tom Isuzu numbers are the highest rating to date. On many books Isuzu beat out WHJJ and WPRO. Scoring over a three many times in the mid 90s. After 1997 they went to selling commercial time so it wouldn't be fair to expect them to score in the ratings

As far as the transmitter goes. You can talk all you want how bad it is. All that matters is that WALE reaches all of the Providence Metropolitan area and then some. Soon WALE will provide Rhode Island with a much needed third station with a good lineup including at least one of the above hosts and one big surprise from the not too distant past.

 

[Skynet74]

Since about 1990 WALE has had at least 3 hosts scoring in the arbitron ratings. Starting with Steve White who scoring big numbers from 89-91, he also scored good numbers again in 1996-1998. Billy Goodman scored around a 2 in 1992-1993. Tom Isuzu numbers are the highest rating to date. On many books Isuzu beat out WHJJ and WPRO. Scoring over a three many times in the mid 90s. After 1997 they went to selling commercial time so it wouldn't be fair to expect them to score in the ratings

As far as the transmitter goes. You can talk all you want how bad it is. All that matters is that WALE reaches all of the Providence Metropolitan area and then some. Soon WALE will provide Rhode Island with a much needed third station with a good lineup including at least one of the above hosts and one big surprise from the not too distant past.

I can't wait to see this magic trick planned.

 

[AKLes]

As far as the transmitter goes. You can talk all you want how bad it is. All that matters is that WALE reaches all of the Providence Metropolitan area and then some. Soon WALE will provide Rhode Island with a much needed third station with a good lineup including at least one of the above hosts and one big surprise from the not too distant past.

I'm probably splitting hairs here but I want to head off mis-understandings among folks who are not primarily technical.

The transmitter my be in disrepair but it's not a major problem. Transmitters, especially Nautels, can be repaired. One of the major problems is the signal and that's caused by the directional pattern by day and the extremely low power at night. Remember, that miserable nighttime signal was at the root of changing the city of license because 990 cannot put an acceptable signal into Providence after sunset.

Back in the early 1960's WLKW, 990, with "Beautiful Music" gave the then big three (WPRO, WJAR, WICE) a good tussle for ratings. During the day. Initially it made money because advertisers bought into "50 Thousand Watts" as a major indicator of strength. Several things happened to destroy that: 1. The "Beautiful Music" format declined in popularity all over the country. 2. FM became more prominent; ultimately dominant. 3. The kicker: Advertisers figured out they weren't getting the coverage they thought they were and bailed in big numbers.

Listening habits have changed. Some really good talkers might have a chance to give WPRO/WHJJ a run but where's the impact for FM listeners? The run might work for mornings and daytime but the extremely limited signal at night means absolute death during at least December, January, February when the power is cut back right at the start of evening traffic and silence prevails in a large chunk of the actual market.

A big enough technical and talent investment might turn a nice profit for a limited time but the real money would come from building it up and selling it off before things go to hell as they surely will.

 

[Skynet74]

WALE should only be a part timer since the signal is totally worthless in the dark. Make it a 6 AM to 6 PM station. Then shut the whole transmitter down until the next morning. It may sound crazy....... but so does the idea of operating a 50,000 WATT station that only 1000 people can hear after dusk.

 

[WarwickGuy]

6 am to 6 pm makes alot of sense for 990, especially for a talk format

 

[Skynet74]

Yep. The two most profitable dayparts are covered during those hours. So that's what matters most at this point. It will give them the best chance at keeping the station alive.