• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Why does Louisville have so many crappy signals?

R

Radiogeek500

What was the FCC thinking assigning all of those signals that really don't do jack squat?

You know what I'm refering to. 104.3, 101.7, etc etc.<P ID="signature">______________
Happy 20th Birthday Power 106

JOSH, Moderating the whole Radio-Info radio state of California and Indiana too!

www.myspace.com/radiogeek500</P>
 
Maybe they're not for Louisville

> What was the FCC thinking assigning all of those signals
> that really don't do jack squat?
>
> You know what I'm refering to. 104.3, 101.7, etc etc.
>

Maybe the FCC intended to give some signals to smaller communities to serve them and not major metropolis Louisville... granted that isn't what they've been used for, at least in recent history.

Also, maybe part of the reason could be some of the larger signals from Lexington to the east, and some signals from Columbus/Seymour, IN area that diminishes big signals from Louisville proper.
 
> What was the FCC thinking assigning all of those signals
> that really don't do jack squat?
>
> You know what I'm refering to. 104.3, 101.7, etc etc.
>

There's a lot of things messed up about FCC allocations. For example, in Cincinatti (a couple of hours from Louisville) many of the signals are no more then 15,000 watts strongs (sometimes only 2000-3000) due to nearby Dayton. It would have been $marter to assign that region with big 40-50,0000 watts signals as those could easily serve both Cincy and Dayton well with clearer signals.
I'm not suggesting that every signal be as powerful as 97.9 NCI Columbus (a 175,000 blowtorch) but come one!
 
Re: Maybe they're not for Louisville

Louisville was late to the FM game. There were early attempts by WAVE and WHAS, both gave up and donated the equipment and licenses to the Free Public Library, who started WFPL and WFPK. By the sixties WHAS-FM (97.5) along with WKLO-FM (99.7) were started along side their AM stations, the rest of the FM’s were stand alone operations. When the allocation for 95.7 was available the owners of the existing AM’s thought about it but none pursued the effort. By the late seventies, “Hi-95” was a stand alone operation doing very well.

But don't knock those Class A's. The first FM success in Louisville was WLRS (102.3) doing album rock in the early seventies. The early eighties saw what we now call Hot AC on WRKA when they landed at number one. Something that helped all of those early Class A's were tower location in reference to population. The antennas for 102.3 and 103.9, both licensed to Louisville, are atop downtown high rises and WRKA, licensed to St. Matthews, and the many incarnations of 101.7 (now 101.3), licensed to J-town, were on the east side where the population eventually migrated.

Another anomaly about Louisville FM concerns the lack of Class C's, WAMZ is the only one. The hills around Southern Indiana are a natural choice for antenna location; the downside is Class C's are prohibited in Indiana. WAMZ's tower is located in Kentucky, which allows Class C's.



<P ID="signature">______________
The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.</P>
 
>
> There's a lot of things messed up about FCC allocations. For
> example, in Cincinatti (a couple of hours from Louisville)
> many of the signals are no more then 15,000 watts strongs
> (sometimes only 2000-3000) due to nearby Dayton. It would
> have been $marter to assign that region with big 40-50,0000
> watts signals as those could easily serve both Cincy and
> Dayton well with clearer signals.
> I'm not suggesting that every signal be as powerful as 97.9
> NCI Columbus (a 175,000 blowtorch) but come one!


The reason for the low power levels in Ohio are due to the FCC dividing the country into different zones. Long story short, the maximum power level for an FM in Ohio is 50,000 watts at an antenna height at or less than 492 feet average height above the ground. Anything above that height must reduce power. Another long story short, FM coverage area is determined by antenna height, the output power determines signal penetration over the coverage area.

WNCI is grandfathered for that power level. WNCI achieved that much wattage when there were wasn't a power cap. When the rules went into effect, WNCI was allowed to keep the wattage in the cottage. But once they decide to give up the power, they can't have it back. Another grandfathered FM is WHKO. If they had signed on in the seventies at the existing tower height, their power would be around 6000 watts based on the height and stations near and far away on the same or adjacent frequency. One more Ohio oddity is Portsmouth’s WPAY-FM. Since their tower is located in Kentucky, they are allowed to be a Class C with 100,000 watts.



<P ID="signature">______________
The radio business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.</P>
 
> There's a lot of things messed up about FCC allocations. For
> example, in Cincinatti (a couple of hours from Louisville)
> many of the signals are no more then 15,000 watts strongs
> (sometimes only 2000-3000) due to nearby Dayton. It would
> have been $marter to assign that region with big 40-50,0000
> watts signals as those could easily serve both Cincy and
> Dayton well with clearer signals.

Most of the ones in Cincinnati are pretty strong. They might have only 15,000 watts, but they're on a high tower, so they're equivalent to 50,000.
 
Move-in ideas

104.7: WITZ is all the way out in Jasper, Indiana, but occaisionally makes it further east than the Air1 translators in New Albany and Middletown. The only co-channel stations it would have to protect would be in Dayton (WTUE) and one near Cookeville, TN. First adjacents in Lexington (104.5) and Frankfort (104.9) wouldn't be much of an issue. Second adjacents in Charlestown and Shepherdsville (yep, none other than 104.3 and 105.1 WLRS), a third adjacent in Scottsburg (105.3), and IF with the WQKC CP (93.9) may pose more of a problem. I'm thinking this could make it as far as Palymra, but it would be a tight fit.

95.3 #1: Considering WVRB in Wilmore (Lexington market) is perceptible in Fern Creek many days, WUME could probably stand a boost, even if only a directional one, of it's signal licensed to Paoli. The biggest constraint would be 95.7 in Jeffersonville (WQMF) and WIKI in Carollton (95.3), which frequently fights with WVRB in Frankfort. For this to work, WVRB and WIKI would probably have to be downgraded.

95.3 #2: The other alternative would be to downgrade WUME and/or move it northward, since WUME only has a fringe signal in the Corydon area anyway. WIKI could then move to the southwest.

97.9: WSLM in Salem, weighing in at 2200 watts, probably has the best chance of moving closer to Louisville. The only Louisville-area stations it would need to protect are WAMZ (97.5) and WQXE in Elizabethtown (98.3). There are a slew of stations on 97.7 in the Indianapolis and Cincinnati markets, but those shouldn't be much of an issue; the same holds for 98.1 WBUL in Lexington.

99.3: Situated halfway between WZKF and WDJX, this frequency is screaming for an allocation. WSCH is a Cincinnati-market rimshot licensed to Aurora, Indiana that seems ripe for the picking. I'm thinking WSCH could move to Mount Washington, since it only has an LPFM (or at least until WQKC moves to Sellersburg) and an AM Station (WLCR). WVLE in Scottsville (Bowling Green market) could also be fair game (although Nasvhille would be a much bigger prize).

88.9: This is a tall order. The station would have to protect WJIE (88.5, Okolona), WARA (88.3, New Washington), WFPL (89.3, Louisville). Somebody's going to have to move. The best bet might be for WKYU or WEKU to find a way to move their Public Radio flamethrowers close enough to Louisville to get an acceptable signal (much like WUKY, although they have a CP to move their tower to the east). WEKU would probably have to move to about Harrodsburg, and WKYU would need to move to about Leitchfield. As it is, Air1's translators on this frequency get run over by WEKU constantly.

101.7: Spacing with 102.3 and with 101.3 would be an issue, unless if 101.3 can be sent to around Pleasure Ridge Park. WXMA would likely have to move west as well. The real problem would be finding a new allocation for Shelbyville, unless if WJZO/WXTF/WLPP/whatever it is next quarter can pull off a major upgrade.

Another thing that would help would be to get the FCC to relicense 101.3, 103.1, and 88.5 as Louisville stations, since Okolona, Saint Matthews, and Jeffersontown are all but annexed into the "former city of Louisville" thanks to the Metro Government. Mail to any of those cities can be addressed as Louisville, KY 402XX. These communities shouldn't really be considered distinct from Louisville by the FCC. Likewise, a "first local service" argument holds little merit for Pleasure Ridge Park, Anchorage, Hurstbourne (the city, not the street), or any of the other 80-something incorporated suburbs.<P ID="signature">______________
chargeradioweb.jpg
</P>
 
Re: Maybe they're not for Louisville

>Rob has got it right.... Louisville requests for FM band allocations came late and by then, alot of the Cincy, Lex, Dayton and Indy markets had taken good footprints, as well as smaller regional towns between.... And the second, was the locating of the main towers on the Indiana side of the river, thus only having "B" ability of ERP, at their maximum (B at 50kW and 150m or C at 100kW and usually about 300m in this part of the country....Indiana being in allocation zone #1 and Kentucky being in allocation zone #2.....
 
I think that the main idea is that stations are going to broadcast to their local audience and in their target market. In the case of WMJM 101.3 their signal only makes it maybe 25 miles out of the Louisville downtown area. I live up in Salem, IN and it really fades bad up here. Once you get to Borden/Pekin Indiana you start to lose the signal quite a bit. However, considering that most of the MJM audience lives in the Metro that explains a lot there. Not many R and B/Soul fans up here in Indiana. Well except myself.

The same probably goes for the black gospel stations etc. I find that a lot of the population up here really doesn't know what exists out there in the FM or AM dial. I've gotten a few glazed over eyes when I mention this or that. Oh well, each to his own.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom