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WOCA-AM Ocala Moves to FM

jmtillery

jmtillery

Beginning today at 2PM, WOCA-AM 1370 Ocala begins broadcast operations on Ocala translator station W244BC - 96.7 FM.
 
Excellent choice of frequency. No co-channel for several miles. Closest first-adjacents are Jacksonville and Orlando. That's the best you can hope for in a place like Ocala where the FM dial is packed full.
 
"excellent choice of frequency"? Ah, WHTQ in Orlando is right next to them and can be heard loud and clear in Belleview. My only hope is that this station can become Ocala's only CHR. That would be nice.
 
vadar said:
"excellent choice of frequency"? Ah, WHTQ in Orlando is right next to them and can be heard loud and clear in Belleview. My only hope is that this station can become Ocala's only CHR. That would be nice.
Click to expand...

Excellent choice, relatively speaking. Let's face it, the FM band is crammed full in the Ocala area. At least it doesn't have a close co-channel to hammer it when the band is open (ala 104.7/Ocala, 94.9/Dunnellon, and 95.7 / 107.7 in Gainesville.
 
To make 96.7 CHR would require changing the format on the parent station - WOCA-AM 1370, as translators are only authorized to re-broadcast the parent station's program and are not authorized to "originate" programming.

As for frequency choice, 96.7 has the best translator signal. It has quite an impressive signal for being a 10 watt translator. I've heard it clear in certain spots in Dunnelon as this frequency is clear.

Regarding Radio Training Network (The Joy FM) selling W244BC, The Joy FM no longer needed it after acquiring WHIJ-FM 88.1 Ocala several years ago along with WJLF-FM 91.7 Gainesville.
 
Is the parent company looking into all options? Who owns this station?
 
Wow, that's a really bad looking web site. I know I'm in Ocala. Anyhoo, someone needs to get a CHR in this town, make it local, somewhat live, have nice imaging and stop relying on 93.3, 106.7 to serve Slocala.
 
The new owner is Generations Broadcasting Corporation, owned by father and son Joe and Dan Martone, respectively. I sold WOCA to the Martones, as a buyer's broker, in July and they closed the sale in the beginning of October. The translator acquisition is recent, having filed the FCC application a few days ago.

The new WOCA website looks very good and contains much more "user friendly" information than the former site. Internet audio streaming and 24-hour operation were both implemented from the beginning of the LMA between Generations Broadcasting and former licensee Westshore Broadcasting, Inc.

The station is making progress, and with the addition of FM service, sales and ratings should increase considerably. This is a very smart move on WOCA's management's part. Since WOCA carries Rush, now El Rushbo can be heard at 96.7 FM in Ocala, right next to WSKY at 97.3, also a Rush station.
 
This is great news! I'm all about "the little guy" being able to prosper and survive against big corporate radio. The addition of the FM translator should help WOCA considerably as it battles against Entercom's WSKY. The proximity of 96.7 to 97.3 is an added bonus.

Since Rush is usually syndicated on a market-exclusive basis, why does Premiere allow both WOCA and WSKY to carry him here? Especially now that WSKY has upgraded to provide city grade coverage of Ocala? My guess is that it goes back to the days when Ocala and Gainesville were separate markets. WOCA carried Rush in Ocala and WGGG-1230 carried him in Gainesville. Neither station had a respectable signal into the other's market, so it wasn't an issue. Plus, WOCA had Rush before there even was a WSKY. Probably some sort of grandfather clause here (?)
 
WOCA is one of the first 50 stations to carry Rush when he first went national, so Rush has been on WOCA since 1988. WSKY did not come on the air till 1998. WOCA has the market exclusive rights to air Rush Limbaugh in Ocala, and has had them since the beginning of the Rush Limbaugh (national) Show. Additionally, when WSKY first went on the air, WSKY was broadcasting from the WGFL-TV tower in Newberry, which is too far away to place any meaningful signal over Ocala. For this reason WSKY was given market exclusive rights to air Rush in Gainesville. It wasn't till after WSKY moved back to it original tower site in Miccanopy that WSKY gained a marketable signal into Ocala creating two Rush stations covering Ocala... And that is how Ocala got two Rush Limbaugh stations.
 
Does WOCA have any plans to power up that translator to reach out further into their 2mV/m contour or 25 miles, whichever is less? They could put out a heckuva signal on the FM side 24 hours. Right now it looks like they are about covering their nighttime 33 watts contour with the 10 watt translator. Mark, did you do the translator deal too?
 
Nostalgia said:
Does WOCA have any plans to power up that translator to reach out further into their 2mV/m contour or 25 miles, whichever is less? They could put out a heckuva signal on the FM side 24 hours. Right now it looks like they are about covering their nighttime 33 watts contour with the 10 watt translator. Mark, did you do the translator deal too?
Click to expand...

I'm sure the translator can increase its power as I am not aware of any reason it would not be able to do so, however, an engineering study would need to be conducted to determine how much of an upgrade, if any, the translator is capable of achieving. Ideally would be to move it to the WOGK tower at about the 1,000 foot level with the full 250 watts permited for translators. This would essentially give 96.7 close to C3 coverage.

Another option is WOCA-AM can double its power to 10kw-ND-D from the existing tower. If this option is selected, the 2mV/m daytime contour will expand allowing for a larger translator coverage footprint provided the translator can gain the coverage without causing a problem with a primary FM.

Regarding the translator acquicsition, I did some early research and laid some of the early groundwork, but I did not negotiate the acquisition. That was done solely by the Martones. Early on we explored all options, and 96.7 was clearly the best choice out of the options available.
 
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