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WNAZ'S FINAL BROADCAST DAY

wondering how many am stations are no where near max. im sure watt can answer this, and has no relation to WNAZ..but AM in general..when i worked at WHIN in gallatin in the mid 70's it was a 1000 watt daytimer..but it got all the way to Cookeville..now it's 5000 watts and just seems so weak..no where near the coverage it was at one fifth the output...too many cell phones in the air ?? :eek:
 
I remember a lot of AM stations that were only 1000 watts but had a pretty long broadcast range back in the '70s and early '80s, but now you have trouble picking them up in the town they broadcast from without interference of some kind. Hell, there are certain parts of town that I can't even get WSM-AM and WLAC-AM because of the interference.
 
i also recall as a kid in the mid sixties, the local pool would pipe in WMAK or WKDA over the speaker on top of the pool house..both came in just fine some 30 miles away..i don't know what their power was at the time..but i don't think it was over 1000 watts...
 
anotherguy said:
As far as the "Overcomer Ministry Lite" comment, I may not agree with everyone Bott carries, but they definitely don't allow crackpots like RG Stair on.
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Oh, gawd, I used to hate Stair! He would call to complain about the least little glitches in his programming, yet he had more dead air than any other broadcaster! We used to call him "Dead-air Stair"! But the dead air was actually his "best" programming! :eek:

It gave me great pleasure when he once called the station to complain about a pre-emption that he had previously agreed to! When I pointed that out to him, he sheepishly said, "oh, that's right!" ::)
 
jwk1979 said:
I remember a lot of AM stations that were only 1000 watts but had a pretty long broadcast range back in the '70s and early '80s, but now you have trouble picking them up in the town they broadcast from without interference of some kind. Hell, there are certain parts of town that I can't even get WSM-AM and WLAC-AM because of the interference.
Click to expand...
deltas69 said:
i also recall as a kid in the mid sixties, the local pool would pipe in WMAK or WKDA over the speaker on top of the pool house..both came in just fine some 30 miles away..i don't know what their power was at the time..but i don't think it was over 1000 watts...
Click to expand...
At some point, AM radio simply quit trying. Anyone know when that was? 1980, or thereabouts?
 
According to the Resistance's Facebook page Bott takes over on Feb 17th, and there will be a video made of WNAZ's final day. My next trip to Nashville won't be until after Bott takes over and I'd guess the stream is down for good. I hope someone will be able to get airchecks of the final day and hopefully the final hour.

On that same subject would anyone know if there are any airchecks from WNAZ's past available anywhere online? Thanks.
 
Has the Resistance's Facebook page been taken down? When I try to get to it now it will only go back to my wife's page. I was hoping it would stay up and allow for comments after the changeover and perhaps have the video of WNAZ's final day.

I hate to say it but the Resistance's efforts may have been a good thing, but I believe Trevecca was determined to unload WNAZ and Bott gave them that chance. THey had no real desire to save the station.
 
jwk1979 said:
I remember a lot of AM stations that were only 1000 watts but had a pretty long broadcast range back in the '70s and early '80s, but now you have trouble picking them up in the town they broadcast from without interference of some kind. Hell, there are certain parts of town that I can't even get WSM-AM and WLAC-AM because of the interference.
Click to expand...
According to some studies, the ambient noise level is 10db on average and as great as 30db worse as compared to 20 years ago. The greatest impact being on "Medium Frequencies", where AM lives. At this rate, I wouldn't count on it getting any better unless some catastrophic electromagnetic event (solar tsunami or HEMP) takes out the power grid.
 
Let's see how much better 89.1 gets. I'm told they've had no processing on the air. The stick is a 300 foot job on the school property. Clearly little effort to do anything with it. Pretty clear the school didn't care. Bott engineers have been seen there doing some tweeks, and they've applied for a power increase. With the additional Dickson signal hitting West Nashville plus several translators around the area, this station may end up being heard. too bad it's taking a new owner to take some interest.

It's sad how many owners, both AM & FM, just assume the signal doesn't need any work done on it.
Example, 1470 WVOL. I could barely hear them before the wires got clipped. Not sure if they ever did anything to that signal since Oprah left town.

Seems if someone owns a station, they oughta take care of it.
 
Seems if someone owns a station, they oughta take care of it. I rather imagine the problem is little or no money to take care of it as far as small AM stations are concerned..and the listener base for those are not aware that they CAN sound better....
 
I rather imagine the problem is little or no money to take care of it as far as small AM stations are concerned..and the listener base for those are not aware that they CAN sound better....
[/quote]

Delta is making a good point in today's economic world but sadly the bigger point is radio stations made a lot of money. Owners got accustomed to huge profit margins. With more am stations having fewer live local shows there's a lot of payroll saved.

When a company says they're not making budget, that's not the same as not making money. The owners got used to a lot, got away with spending little, now wonder where the audience went.
While we can boo hoo for the poor AM guys beware. That same "do it cheap" mentality is on the FM side too I'm afraid.
In this case WNAZ is owned by a school. What do they know. But if WNAZ was such a losing proposition, Bott wouldn't have bought it nor be spending a lot of money ON it.
An owner who uses "we ain't got no money anymore" excuse is more than likely,just a lousy operator.
 
Speaking of "spending a lot of money on it", today's FCC Public Notice shows WNAZ's application to increase power to 22,000 watts has been approved.
 
w9wi said:
Speaking of "spending a lot of money on it", today's FCC Public Notice shows WNAZ's application to increase power to 22,000 watts has been approved.
Click to expand...

The upgraded signal should give BOTT a very nice signal over Nashville.
 
deltas69 said:
Seems if someone owns a station, they oughta take care of it. I rather imagine the problem is little or no money to take care of it as far as small AM stations are concerned..and the listener base for those are not aware that they CAN sound better....
Click to expand...

You are lucky that you have WSM 650. Last night I picked them up on the skip near Atlanta and IMHO the music was as good sounding as our 106.7.* I am not a Country fan, and did not care for the music but it "sounded" OK. You can get some "fidelity" on AM if done correctly. WSM has figured it out.

* There are complaints about 106.7's processing on the Atlanta board.
 
Here is a press release regarding the "expansion" of Bott Broadcasting in Nashville:
http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/504616259.html

Bott Radio Network announces a major FM expansion of its Christian Talk Radio service to Nashville and Middle Tennessee with the addition of five FM stations: 89.1 FM-Nashville, 91.5 FM-Dickson, 99.5 FM-Clarksville, 93.9 FM- Gallatin and 101.9 FM-Lebanon.
 
89.1 has certainly been interesting today...normal music programming in mono...then
carrier will drop...return in stereo with talk programming for a few seconds...then carrier drops
again...back up with mono normal WNAZ feed.
some of the stereo feed has included new John Young voiced legal IDs...and parts of promos
BTW...there are new calls coming with the Bott acquisition
 
I talked to a staffer yesterday and he said Trevecca basketball will be on tonight and then they will be on the air with music until midnight. I hope Bott will let WNAZ do some sort of farewell tonight before they take over completely.

I still believe Trevecca is making a big mistake in selling WNAZ. But I get the impression that they've been wanting to unload it for a long time and selling out to Bott gave them that chance. I know that if I had been a donor I'd be wanting a refund on the part of my donations that weren't used.

I listened to WNAZ on trips to Nashville since the early 80's when they were the only option for CCM. It's sad to see things end this way. :(
 
On a side note I found out recently that WAY-FM's translator in Dyersburg has been sold and is off for good. I guess I'll start listening to them on trips to Nashville and for streaming. At least they didn't sell out completely like WNAZ. :(
 
WNAZ transmitter off for about 10 minutes around 1:15pm...
now back to normal CCM programming in (((S T E R E O)))

guess the Bott testing is completed (for now)
 
It will be interesting to see how much better the current signal can be with good processing and adjusting a new limiter is probably what you're hearing. Realistically to get the antenna welded and new transmitter in, it will be late May or early June probably before their 1000 or so watts becomes 22,000 watts on 89.1

But even with their cruddy transmitter and no processing, just noticing a difference today shows how underperforming that station was in the first place.
 
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