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What's New with 1330-AM

T

The Voice of Reason

Does anyone have any update on the status of 1330-AM out of Ontario, New York?
Personally I would be surprised if anyone would put money into a station whose signal feeds the fish in Lake Ontario. Look at the AM station in Brockport as an example of a directional signal and its impact, or lack thereof on the community it's supposed to serve.
 
Waiting for the Lightning to Strike

Just for fun, I checked out WASB in Brockport's website. First of all, you have to look at Radio-Locator's coverage map. I know that they're not alway completely accurate, but I think that it's fairly reliable in this case.

According to Radio-Locator, they're directional north at night, and northwest in the daytime. Yet WASB's website states:

We are the only Christian, Conservative, Patriotic radio station in Western New York. We cover from Eastern Buffalo to Western Syracuse with the Word of God, the truth in todays events, and beautiful Christian music.

Western Syracuse? They don't even make Rochester reliably. Not nice to lie in the name of God...
 
Unless the owners have done some major maintenance on their towers, that signal doesn't even reach parts of Spencerport, which is just five miles down the road on Route 31 from Brockport.
 
Not that it helps their case much, but I believe they're trying to include the simulcast of WRSB 1310 Canandaigua in making that ridiculous claim.
 
"Unless the owners have done some major maintenance on their towers, that signal doesn't even reach parts of Spencerport, which is just five miles down the road on Route 31 from Brockport."

So right, which brings to mind a personal experience involving WASB.

This happened shortly after I started my current show at WXXI back in 1988. I was in the process of winding up a family manufacturing business (a company that targeted industrial customers only instead of the general public, and would have gotten little or nothing from a radio ad buy) and selling the plant after my dad passed away. One afternoon while I was in the office there, someone from WASB (or whatever they were calling themselves then) phoned, telling me they could guarantee me a big audience for my products and services. Made claims of blanket coverage of the entire metro with one of the strongest signals in town, and big audiences.

I asked him two questions, without identifying myself.

One, how come I can never hear you east of Manitou Road even on a good car radio?

Two, why didn't I see you listed above the line in the last Rochester Arbitrons?

No answer. Thanked me for my time, conversation over.

If their website claims accurately reflect what they're telling potential accounts, they may have been selling on the basis of pure-pork baloney for quite some time.
 
I ran the board once for someone who was leasing time on WASB for a sports broadcast. I remember the shag carpeting and wood paneling, along with the ricketiest equipment I've ever seen. Quite an experience.
 
The Brockport AM station had a better daytime signal towards Rochester when it was on 1560. At least that pattern permitted a minor side lobe to the east, which allowed commuters to hear it on the way to the city. 1550 WCGR caused problems in the eastern suburbs, but the situation then was better than today.

The big problems began when the owner decided to file for full-time operation on 1590. This project required the construction of two more towers to protect co-channel WAUB in Auburn, a considerable expense which caused a significant reduction in daytime signal to the east. Needless to say, the night signal is practically useless in Rochester as well, due to co-channel interference and the null at 120 degrees.

Lesson: If you have a suburban station, make sure a major lobe goes towards the population center instead of away from it.
 
Okay now that we discussed the Brockport station, does anyone have any information about 1330-AM in Ontario?
Had I know there was so much interest about Brockport, I would have posted something about that station.
 
Just another brief hijack on the Brockport station...how can it position itself as a Rochester station when you can't hear it well before you hit I-490?

Wow. And not only is the signal bad, last time I heard it, the station seemed to be using the worst equipment possible, with a show that sounded like it was recorded off a bad phone line via cassette.

I hear they do use cassettes, so...

OK, back to the "anyone heard about 1330" discussion...sorry!
 
Last I heard, the CP was still up for sale. What you already stated, pretty much sums it up:
Personally I would be surprised if anyone would put money into a station whose signal feeds the fish in Lake Ontario.
Click to expand...

What would such a station do - compete with WACK for the all important Northern Wayne County 50-plus demographics? I the owner of the CP is asking $250,000 for the CP and transmitter site. Sounds a little steep to me.
 
There's a tile ad on the homepage of www.fybush.com placed by Dick Kozacko, Elmira media broker, offering a "Rochester AM CP" including real estate for $150K. IIRC the copy says "price reduced!"

To my knowledge there is only one unbuilt AM CP in the Rochester metro, which would have to be the Ontario 1330. Seems like it would cost more to build it than the station would be worth. DOA.
 
Savage said:
There's a tile ad on the homepage of www.fybush.com placed by Dick Kozacko, Elmira media broker, offering a "Rochester AM CP" including real estate for $150K. IIRC the copy says "price reduced!"

To my knowledge there is only one unbuilt AM CP in the Rochester metro, which would have to be the Ontario 1330. Seems like it would cost more to build it than the station would be worth. DOA.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with your statement. 1330-AM's signal alone would be about, or as bad, as the AM station in Brockport. The only thing I could envision for 1330-AM is a repeater station for WRVO in Oswego, should that station decide to expand its coverage. However their current FM frequency is already heard in Wayne County and even in parts of Webster, so why waste money on an AM?
 
If $150k is too high for that CP & land, what would be a fair price? Could a station that was locally programmed to serve Ontario actually be a profitable venture?
 
There's only one answer to that, scooter. You'd have to find a "unique buyer" and the "fair price" would be whatever that CP-holder would be willing to accept. Selling CPs is a tough situation now. The dynamics are decidedly in favor of the buyer, because the clock is always ticking. Any purchaser knows the FCC issues CPs for three years and grants extensions only in very rare circumstances, so at the end of 36 months, you're done even if you've made appreciable efforts to get it on the air but aren't finished building. So they're in the driver's seat, especially if a considerable amount of the allotted time has ticked by, which is the case in Ontario.

3 years sounds like a long time, but it's not. There are precious few companies building AM antenna gear any more so you can't really shop. Kintronic estimated build-time for our 20kw DA-D system at 14 weeks. It wound up being twice that. Add in design time, plus time to put up towers, plow in a ground system, get local approvals and a C of O and proof the antenna system in the field. You don't have a lot of room for error or delay. Even with a full 3 years it's a fingernail-biter.

"If I were a bettin' man" I'd lay odds on the 1330 CP expiring and being deleted.
 
Savage said:
"If I were a bettin' man" I'd lay odds on the 1330 CP expiring and being deleted.
Click to expand...

And rightfully so.

The AM band has gone to hell in a handbasket. Stations of this type are nothing more than radio riff-raff. Three and four tower directional signals to nowhere that do nothing more than take up band space and throw RF in places where nobody lives and nobody cares. If the markeptplace doesn't do some pruning, the FCC should. That Brockport AM on 1590 is another waste of RF. It wasn't much better when it was on 1560, either.
 
And rightfully so.

The AM band has gone to hell in a handbasket. Stations of this type are nothing more than radio riff-raff. Three and four tower directional signals to nowhere that do nothing more than take up band space and throw RF in places where nobody lives and nobody cares. If the markeptplace doesn't do some pruning, the FCC should. That Brockport AM on 1590 is another waste of RF. It wasn't much better when it was on 1560, either.
Click to expand...

Good point. Just a waste of RF. If this 1330AM CP became a station back in the old days, when AM still had more listeners, it would still have been a big nothing. Look at the original WADD at 1560 in 70s. That station might have done a little better if they could have broadcast at night(high school sports being a nice money maker), but still never would have amounted to anything.

I heard the broker is claiming you could make this 1330AM thing a "move in" to Rochester and possibly have a tower system as close to Rochester as Brighton. I know little about the technical aspect of the business, but that sounds fishy to me. Mr. Savage, any comments?
 
I worked at that "fish feeder" on 1560. For the brief time I was there, the station was #1 in Lake Ontario Carp, 25-49. The station was a mish-mash of AC, but at least we did news, tried to be local and serve the community. And it gave me the opportunity to cut airchecks to get a better job, do production, learn more about engineering. The guy who really had WADD sounding good was Larry Hunter, who programmed it with a heavy emphasis on Oldies. He'd gone to WGR Buffalo by the time I arrived at the Mighty 1560.

While in Brockport, I met two genuinely fine gentlemen, Irwin and Melvin Duryea, station owners who were landed gentry in Brockport and treated this then long-haired hippie-lookin' kid from Buffalo quite nicely. I got blown out by a GM who thought my relationship with the Duryea family undermined his authority. He also hated the fact that I was simultaneously working at WUSJ Lockport. Something about allegiance. He sat me down in his office and said, "son (pejoratively), you better find another job because if you don't, I swear I'll fire you on Christmas eve." I submitted my resignation the next day and walked. The clown called me and idignantly asked why I "quit on him." I reminded him of his diatribe only 24 hours earlier. He actually had the temerity to say, "well, I didn't mean it literally." Right. Because daddy taught us not to speak ill of the dead, the man shall remain nameless. But I actually learned something from that goofball. If ever I was to be in management and had to fire somebody, I would treat the person with dignity.

I really wanted to go to work for WAXC, which was a runaway train at the time and work for Larry White, with the Greaseman (read from the hobble-la-ga-ga-handbook of love) and Robert Craig Savage, but I think I might have had trouble getting the weekend overnight gig. So I decided to take the advice of Horace Greeley and "go west," to Lockport, then Buffalo. I've come to value Larry's friendship and hold in high regard his accomplishments at WAXC and WBUF.

Brockport really was the only community that little 1 kW signal thoroughly covered. Drive east on Rt 31 through Spencerport and it vanished. Drive west to Albion and it was vapor. Likewise south to the thriving metropolis of Batavia, where on Route 19 in winter months around 4 p.m., WQXR New York would wash over the signal a mere three miles south of the station's towers. Ah, but that Brockport fish-feeder got into Trenton and Peterborough, Ontario like a local! Now, if only we had a sales office there, we coulda made a killin'! I jest.
 
JimPastrick said:
Brockport really was the only community that little 1 kW signal thoroughly covered. Drive east on Rt 31 through Spencerport and it vanished. Drive west to Albion and it was vapor. Likewise south to the thriving metropolis of Batavia, where on Route 19 in winter months around 4 p.m., WQXR New York would wash over the signal a mere three miles south of the station's towers. Ah, but that Brockport fish-feeder got into Trenton and Peterborough, Ontario like a local! Now, if only we had a sales office there, we coulda made a killin'! I jest.
Click to expand...

In its current 1590 incarnation, WASB puts a very respectable signal over Oshawa. Or rather, "used to put" a respectable signal over Oshawa. Now that CKDO up there has moved from 1350 to 1580, I expect any trace of WASB has been extinguished on the north shore of the lake.

The eastward signal is no better - still gets shaky around Spencerport and is gone before Gates. I've literally heard it ONCE here in Brighton, where WAUB dominates the channel.
 
cee said:
I heard the broker is claiming you could make this 1330AM thing a "move in" to Rochester and possibly have a tower system as close to Rochester as Brighton. I know little about the technical aspect of the business, but that sounds fishy to me. Mr. Savage, any comments?
Click to expand...

I'm not Bob (though I did see him the other day), but I'll take a whack at this:

There are a few factors at play here. The 1330 CP is the sole "local service" to Ontario. Because it has never been licensed there, it could still be removed and relocated elsewhere - but doing so would NOT extend the term of the CP. To relocate the CP elsewhere, you'd have to find a new city of license that would also be "first local service," and to more people than would be served by the 1330 Ontario CP. Remember, Webster, Irondequoit, Brighton, Fairport and Henrietta all have first local service already. East Rochester? Penfield? Victor?

There's no protection between stations 40 kHz or more apart, so 1330 could sidle right up to 1370 and 1280 with no interference issues. But it does have to protect WRSB on 1310, which puts a surprisingly potent signal up from Canandaigua into the southeast suburbs. There's also first-adjacent protection to WLVL and WWLF on 1340, co-channel protection to WSPQ and WEBO on 1330, and probably some other issues I'm forgetting, too.

I'm thinking it could probably be moved...but that CP expiration date is starting to be a pretty major issue.
 
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