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WORD to 98.9, Magic to 106.3

Yeah, just listened and recorded WORD but I didn’t have a good way to record both. I kept trying to juggle between 106.3 and 98.9 and missed the switchover for Magic on 106.3 :(

Most of the event involved Tara talking to people about the upgrade with a lot of fanfare. Elise Riley and Sheri Taylor are on Magic this morning. Most was centered around 106.3’s talk format moving to 98.9. Magic was just sort of there and made its move when the time came. They did make a comment on Magic about how long that station’s history goes back. Listening to Magic now, pretty non eventful.

RDS on 106.3 is messed up. Not showing artist/song and still says news talk.

I hope the transmitter for 106.3 gets a nice cleansing 😂
 
106.3’s RDS seems to be working now. WYRD-HD2 is now carrying Magic and the AC format. Does Magic not have any imaging?

ETA: finally heard a liner
 
98.9 is already broadcasting in Mono, but as of this post, Magic still hasn't turned on stereo or HD. 🤔

The DJs on Magic say they
are broadcasting from a new studio.

I'm thinking Magic isn't a top priority for them, especially compared to their talk station WYRD,
it sure seems obvious to me.
 
KyleAndMelissa22 said:
98.9 is already broadcasting in Mono, but as of this post, Magic still hasn't turned on stereo or HD. 🤔

I'm thinking Magic isn't a top priority for them, especially compared to their talk station WYRD,
it sure seems obvious to me.
Click to expand...
I can live without HD, but no stereo is bad. I’ve been noticing 106.3 sounded bad on air leading up to this and they haven’t seemed to have fixed it. I'm still seeing a stereo carrier on 98.9 with my Sangean radio - at least in HD?

WFBC-HD4 is also carrying Magic, and the 95.1 translator in Pickens County as well as 101.5 translator in Anderson County are both carrying Magic now.
 
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Magic's new Legal ID

"WSPA-FM Simpsonville
WYRD-HD2 Spartanburg
WFBC-HD4 Greenville"

Edit: Must be some strong tropo this morning,
Here in Gaffney, I'm getting a strong signal
of almost equal strength (as 106.3)
on 105.7 FM The Bull WLUB from Augusta GA.
 
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It’s quite telling that they mention the signal being bigger for WORD, yet they won’t be making any additional programming investments or covering any areas they don’t already cover. Shows it was a $$$ move and nothing else.

Why do they need WSPA-FM on both WYRD-HD2 and WFBC-HD4?
 
Not sure since 93.7 and 98.9 both provide a 60dBu signal over the translator coverage areas. The only reason I can think of would be to ocassionally send different programming to the translators, but I don't know if that was ever done with the talk format.
 
An interesting observation since I haven’t listened to 106.3 really in years. Here in Laurens I get a better stereo/HD signal from C3 104.9, which is farther than I do C3 106.3 which is closer and supposedly a better signal here. And this is with 106.3 in mono and 104.9 in stereo too. This is especially true indoors. I’m surprised Magic isn’t promoting the 95.1 and 101.5 translators.

Heard some new jingles - similar to the old ones but fresher sounding and sing “Magic 106-3” that match the station’s branding instead of “Magic 98 POINT 9” like the old ones did.
 
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Still no stereo on 106.3, sounds real bad in Mono.
Someone should call them up and them them to fix their transmitter, it's literally the press of a button to turn on/off mono/stereo.
Wonder if they even notice or care. 🤷‍♂️

Amazingly it's probably better to listen on the translators near Anderson (95.1 & 101.5) which WYRD already put in stereo, it'll probably be fixed soon tho.
 
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KyleAndMelissa22 said:
Still no stereo on 106.3, sounds real bad in Mono.
Someone should call them up and them them to fix their transmitter, it's literally the press of a button to turn on/off mono/stereo.
Wonder if they even notice or care. 🤷‍♂️

Amazingly it's probably better to listen on the translators near Anderson (95.1 & 101.5) which WYRD already put in stereo, it'll probably be fixed soon tho.
Click to expand...
Agreed, the audio processing sounds like it needs some tweaking as well. The transmitter is off Reidville Rd, probably less than 10-15 minutes away from the office (if anybody is even there lol)

I recorded (unfortunately just online) the countdown and switchover for WYRD as it moved from 106.3 to 98.9 and some scoped recordings of Magic 106.3 today. I’ll try to get them posted tonight and share for anyone interested.
 
WYRD on 98.9 is now promoting their new out of market listeners and the long reach of their new strong signal. On the Charlie show this afternoon they have reports from near Charlotte, Asheville, Columbia and Asheville regions and way down in Georgia. The long reach is a combination of the power boost at 100,000 watts and the high altitude on top of Hogback Mountain.

But I wonder do they still share the WSPA channel 7 TV tower or do they have their own separate tower for 98.9 up there? I remember the channel 7 TV tower fell down due to an ice storm a few years back and had to be rebuilt.
 
tylerSC said:
WYRD on 98.9 is now promoting their new out of market listeners and the long reach of their new strong signal. On the Charlie show this afternoon they have reports from near Charlotte, Asheville, Columbia and Asheville regions and way down in Georgia. The long reach is a combination of the power boost at 100,000 watts and the high altitude on top of Hogback Mountain.

But I wonder do they still share the WSPA channel 7 TV tower or do they have their own separate tower for 98.9 up there? I remember the channel 7 TV tower fell down due to an ice storm a few years back and had to be rebuilt.
Click to expand...
98.9 FM and WSPA-TV transmit from different towers on Hogback Mountain. 98.9's is not half as tall.
 
I tried listening to 106.3 in the car and it’s brutal. It sounds like it’s clipping on certain songs and has a weird compressed noise during music and has like a very loud/dirty audio chain. Still no stereo carrier but I do see where it’s been shut off on 98.9. Not sure why I still saw it earlier.

With it in mono especially, 98.9 is going to be a freaking beast. Better signal than 94.5 even, so I wonder if they will lose some people that couldn’t get news from 106.3 in the more fringe areas to 98.9.
 
I listened to 98.9 coming home today for a few minutes and the signal is definitely a welcome change. It definitely doesn't have the highest of sound quality to it though. It almost has that "streaming audio" sound to it at times. It's hard to describe, but it isn't as sharp as 94.5. Clearly all their hype about their vast geographic reach is for the advertisers ears. This was definitely a money move. They're planning on cashing in on swing state NC's flood of campaign ads in the next election cycle especially, as well as more ad $$ from the upstate of SC. If they can consistently hit parts of GA they might even pick up a few ads there in another swing state. Now with one election cycle starting as soon as the next one ends they can really capitalize on the political ad market to bring in the money.
 
historyvids said:
I listened to 98.9 coming home today for a few minutes and the signal is definitely a welcome change. It definitely doesn't have the highest of sound quality to it though. It almost has that "streaming audio" sound to it at times. It's hard to describe, but it isn't as sharp as 94.5.
Click to expand...
Doesn’t sound like they’ve changed it from Magic, that’s how it always was, or for at least the last decade. Are you listening to the HD signal? The analog has been low for ages now but the HD is even lower and sounds flat, this is a case of the analog signal sounding better. It’s definitely one of the lower volume stations in the market. Scan up to 100.5 and it’s like night and day.
 
Well less than an hour ago, I just happened to notice the Stereo carrier finally knocked on, probably for the first time since they finally switched it off in around 2013. Sounds better but the audio still sounds noisy. The RDS has been dropping and now it's off, so looks like some maintenance is going on. WYRD-FM is also off the air except for Fox News that came on at the top of the hour, just a carrier.

Just a thought: HD-wise, it'd be cool to put The Fan on WYRD-HD2 along with the WORD format, and just have The Block on WFBC-HD2.
 
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Here's the minutes or so of Magic 106.3, then late middays/early afternoons - Streamable'''

98.9 has been off the air for the last few hours so nothing to grab from them…
 
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