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WKIZ Key West Florida - Deleted

G

Groove1670

Guest
Sad news: According to the FCC 1500 WKIZ Key West FL has been deleted after being silent for over one year.

It is the station that we all grew up listening to. I worked there. With a three tower array, and a nightmare to keep in check it didn't suprise me. It remained in the same building next to the drive in for 60 years. Still ran live up till 1992.
 
I think WKIZ was Spanish language religious programming in its finals days under a STA after a tower fell. I guess the keys only have 1 AM at the moment, sports talk WKWF 1600, since Marathon's WFFG 1300 is off citing no access to the tower site.
 
DXingRadio said:
I think WKIZ was Spanish language religious programming in its finals days under a STA after a tower fell. I guess the keys only have 1 AM at the moment, sports talk WKWF 1600, since Marathon's WFFG 1300 is off citing no access to the tower site.
Click to expand...


When I worked at another 1300, WTIR Cocoa Beach.. our studios were in Cocoa, 2 miles from the Merritt Island Bridge.. one night when I to hang out with a friend on cocoa Beach and we got some ice cream, I could hear some chatter under WTIR's signal on cocoa beach.. it was WFFG
 
Groove1670 said:
Sad news: According to the FCC 1500 WKIZ Key West FL has been deleted after being silent for over one year.

It is the station that we all grew up listening to. I worked there. With a three tower array, and a nightmare to keep in check it didn't suprise me. It remained in the same building next to the drive in for 60 years. Still ran live up till 1992.
Click to expand...

It's time, RIP. WKIZ will have a lot of company up in AM Heaven.
 
DXingRadio said:
I think WKIZ was Spanish language religious programming in its finals days under a STA after a tower fell. I guess the keys only have 1 AM at the moment, sports talk WKWF 1600, since Marathon's WFFG 1300 is off citing no access to the tower site.
Click to expand...

WKWF is the oldest and last AM in the Keys. It is still owned by the original family (LMA). They will get a FM translator soon.
 
Groove1670 said:
WKWF is the oldest and last AM in the Keys. It is still owned by the original family (LMA). They will get a FM translator soon.
Click to expand...

There are still two. And one is the monster Radio Marti AM on 1180.
 
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DavidEduardo said:
There are still two. And one is the monster Radio Marti AM on 1180.
Click to expand...

One commercial AM frequency. I doubt many in the Keys (unless you are a DXer) listens to Marti on a regular basis. There are several options on AM (Miami and Cuba) and FM options like WPIK and WMFM to choose.

Growing up, my dad worked at a site in the Keys which had a auxillary studio for Marti. Several redundant BE boards and cart machines were in this portable building.
 
As of 10 days ago WKWF is off the air, an STA has them going dark for tower work. The sports programming is now heard on WAVK 97.7 as "The Zone".
 
DXingRadio said:
As of 10 days ago WKWF is off the air, an STA has them going dark for tower work. The sports programming is now heard on WAVK 97.7 as "The Zone".
Click to expand...

WKWF will be back. It is under a LMA, but has been owned by the same family since 1942. I would guess they are getting the tower ready for the translator. WKEY FM is also on the tower and has a STA.

As of now there are no commercial AM stations on the air in the Florida Keys.
 
Groove1670 said:
WKWF will be back. It is under a LMA, but has been owned by the same family since 1942. I would guess they are getting the tower ready for the translator. WKEY FM is also on the tower and has a STA.

As of now there are no commercial AM stations on the air in the Florida Keys.
Click to expand...

I wonder with sports moving to 97.7 if WKWF will return with talk radio? WFFG has been off for some time now, a potential format hole to fill.
 
As a life long radio person, it is sad to see an AM station cease to exist. The reality is there is a big difference between being hundreds of miles away and thinking something, and being in the market, facing logistical and economic realities. WKIZ owner could have kept the license active with approximately 25 watts non-d operation under STA from somewhere in Key West, and eventually obtained license for a new facility. However the brutal reality of producing income remains. Where I am now there is a AM station that brings happy thoughts about what it could be. Selling advertising on it is not a happy thought... And keep in mind, the station was the owner's possession and if they decided to walk away from it, that is their choice.
 
Greg Strickland said:
As a life long radio person, it is sad to see an AM station cease to exist. The reality is there is a big difference between being hundreds of miles away and thinking something, and being in the market, facing logistical and economic realities. WKIZ owner could have kept the license active with approximately 25 watts non-d operation under STA from somewhere in Key West, and eventually obtained license for a new facility. However the brutal reality of producing income remains. Where I am now there is a AM station that brings happy thoughts about what it could be. Selling advertising on it is not a happy thought... And keep in mind, the station was the owner's possession and if they decided to walk away from it, that is their choice.
Click to expand...

A directional am is cost prohibitive to rebuild for smaller owners......they could go on an STA for non d operation but they wouldve had to rebuild WKIZ's directional array.. not worth it today
 
Greg Strickland said:
As a life long radio person, it is sad to see an AM station cease to exist. The reality is there is a big difference between being hundreds of miles away and thinking something, and being in the market, facing logistical and economic realities. WKIZ owner could have kept the license active with approximately 25 watts non-d operation under STA from somewhere in Key West, and eventually obtained license for a new facility. However the brutal reality of producing income remains. Where I am now there is a AM station that brings happy thoughts about what it could be. Selling advertising on it is not a happy thought... And keep in mind, the station was the owner's possession and if they decided to walk away from it, that is their choice.
Click to expand...

There is no land for an antenna. If land was found, it would be 5 to 10x times the value of the station. Zoning and enviromentalists wouldn't allow it. the The current three directional towers are on the water (If they are still standing). It just wasn't putting the money into it. 2 or more FM's in the market are for sale. 2 silent AM's and one silent FM. One that is running as a minimal facility.

Tower issues have been ongoing. The middle tower fell when I worked there in the early 90's. The station ran for years at 75 watts on a STA.
 
DXingRadio said:
What stations are these? Just curious, haven't been in the area in awhile. I'm aware of the two AMs that are off.
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Three of the four AMs are off. One, WKWF is under repairs, and will be back. For the moment, is is just the VOA / Mart?* station on AM.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
A directional am is cost prohibitive to rebuild for smaller owners......they could go on an STA for non d operation but they wouldve had to rebuild WKIZ's directional array.. not worth it today
Click to expand...

I had some limited contact with WKIZ, though being based near Seattle, I was too far away to be of any practical help.

If you'd had an opportunity to look at the station's applications file, you'd see a long, long, LONG list of STAs. I don't know if it ever got 5 years of stable operation at a shot. For about the last 10+ years of the station's life, it operated at reduced power, due to failures of one tower or another.

2 of WKIZ's towers were built on piers in the water, secured by heavy chains and screw-in stainless-steel anchors. The 3rd was attached to a dock and was, at least when I visited the site, converted to a unipole.

In one case, a motorboat went through a guy wire, dropping the tower. The owner eventually got that put back up, only to have a hurricane take out another one. That ended his interest in the station and he bled a reduced-power STA for years before donating it to a religious broadcaster out of Miami.

The religious broadcaster got new towers up, tuned and licensed, only to have them taken back down within a few short months by another hurricane. By that time, the relationship with the landlord had soured and the company was not able to resolve all of the issues and make the station's recovery "make sense". In addition to the landlord issues, getting permits to repair & install in the water was no small accomplishment.

Besides the dubious reliability of the tower piers and anchoring, corrosion was a major problem that no recent owner seemed interested in keeping up with. If a boat or a hurricane didn't take out a tower, corrosion eventually would have.

In the end, about the only redeeming quality of the installation was that it got out farther than you could possibly imagine 62.5 watts providing... possibly due to it having a really good ground system!
 
DavidEduardo said:
There are still two. And one is the monster Radio Marti AM on 1180.
Click to expand...

I can hear Marti's 1180 up here in Tennessee at night, but their shortwave frequencies are more clearer around here, day and night. I wonder if Marti will air their weekend MLB games this season...
 
Grounded Grid said:
I had some limited contact with WKIZ, though being based near Seattle, I was too far away to be of any practical help.

If you'd had an opportunity to look at the station's applications file, you'd see a long, long, LONG list of STAs. I don't know if it ever got 5 years of stable operation at a shot. For about the last 10+ years of the station's life, it operated at reduced power, due to failures of one tower or another.

2 of WKIZ's towers were built on piers in the water, secured by heavy chains and screw-in stainless-steel anchors. The 3rd was attached to a dock and was, at least when I visited the site, converted to a unipole.

In one case, a motorboat went through a guy wire, dropping the tower. The owner eventually got that put back up, only to have a hurricane take out another one. That ended his interest in the station and he bled a reduced-power STA for years before donating it to a religious broadcaster out of Miami.

The religious broadcaster got new towers up, tuned and licensed, only to have them taken back down within a few short months by another hurricane. By that time, the relationship with the landlord had soured and the company was not able to resolve all of the issues and make the station's recovery "make sense". In addition to the landlord issues, getting permits to repair & install in the water was no small accomplishment.

Besides the dubious reliability of the tower piers and anchoring, corrosion was a major problem that no recent owner seemed interested in keeping up with. If a boat or a hurricane didn't take out a tower, corrosion eventually would have.

In the end, about the only redeeming quality of the installation was that it got out farther than you could possibly imagine 62.5 watts providing... possibly due to it having a really good ground system!
Click to expand...

I was there in 1990 when the first tower went down. Troubles continued after that. We dropped to 75 watts (the signal was good) with the condition that it didn't interfere with WTOP (it did) and the STA's strarted.
 
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