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Groove1670
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Major signal issues.
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WPFM on a new stick
- Thread starter cceng1
- Start date
Major signal issues.
musiconradio.com said:
Could you elaborate on that?
Tropo aside, I don't find any issues with 107.3. Granted, I'm in Baldwin County, but… watt for watt (what?) it seems like a good compromise. The HD, on the other hand, is another story. It's positively puny up against KSJ's maxed out setup and the new 12 bay wotsit that Rocket & Lite Mix use. I got Rocket's HD clearly in a first floor hotel room in Ocean Springs yesterday. That made me go
Louis_009 said:
It would have to be one hell of a unexected problem for them to switch back at this point.
Remember, no one in PC or Dothan cares about Tallahassee. You have your own stations, pitiful though they may be. I know the grass is always greener on the other side (I actually prefer the dial over in Biloxi to what we have in Mobile & Pensacola) but unless they're trying to sell ads there, it's invisible to them. Especially now that streaming is so common and easy.
From what I have learned (not much) over the years, even with the less-than-optimal setup they're running from now, the pros (lower rent, lower power bill, no new antenna costs) probably outweigh the cons (less Dothan and Tallahassee coverage).
I agree with Charlie on his first post and later post.
I will take height over power also. Except in rare circumstances. There has to be something else going on here.
A 10 foot face tower is a demon for an FM antenna and even with antenna
optimization, which apparently wasn't done, it is hard to arrive at a pattern without some significant
nulls. A half ass deployment, as this appears to be is wide open for problems.
Also, can anyone verify the ERP is actually 54,000 watts? Was the line and antenna
swept before operation? Maybe some power is turning to heat rather than exiting the antenna.
Maybe the transmitter TPO is low or was miscalculated for the new longer transmission line.
I just do not want to accept the fact that the new height/power ratio is causing
this much difference.
But if the signal is good in PC and that is all the company wants, this discussion is moot.
I will take height over power also. Except in rare circumstances. There has to be something else going on here.
A 10 foot face tower is a demon for an FM antenna and even with antenna
optimization, which apparently wasn't done, it is hard to arrive at a pattern without some significant
nulls. A half ass deployment, as this appears to be is wide open for problems.
Also, can anyone verify the ERP is actually 54,000 watts? Was the line and antenna
swept before operation? Maybe some power is turning to heat rather than exiting the antenna.
Maybe the transmitter TPO is low or was miscalculated for the new longer transmission line.
I just do not want to accept the fact that the new height/power ratio is causing
this much difference.
But if the signal is good in PC and that is all the company wants, this discussion is moot.
For several years, Ch 7 had been "encouraging" PFM to move off the tower by increasing their tower rent. This goes back to the very early Uh Oh (aka OO) days. With the advent of DTV and even more so with the advent on Ch 18 (also owned by Ch 7 and on the same tower) WPFM's vacating the tower became even more important to Ch 7.
Channel 7 has a CP to up the power of virtual Ch 7 and move it to RF Ch 18 and then move Ch 18 (RF) to another channel. The tower will not support this improvement/replacement with the PFM antenna on the tower. They were also supposed to replace the tower with a new on that was 1500 tall but that has been put on the back burner from what I have heard. The existing Ch 7 tower is very old and was built in 1960 under MUCH less tower spec standards (aka EIA-222....probably EIA-222A which is now G). The tower has been well maintained but you have only hang so much $hit on a tower.
After all that, I get to my point......THAT is why they moved.....they didn't WANT to move.....they HAD to move. Honestly, I haven't listened to them enough to give you my opinion of how the signal is in PC/PCB.
cceng in OH now back to the hamfest
Channel 7 has a CP to up the power of virtual Ch 7 and move it to RF Ch 18 and then move Ch 18 (RF) to another channel. The tower will not support this improvement/replacement with the PFM antenna on the tower. They were also supposed to replace the tower with a new on that was 1500 tall but that has been put on the back burner from what I have heard. The existing Ch 7 tower is very old and was built in 1960 under MUCH less tower spec standards (aka EIA-222....probably EIA-222A which is now G). The tower has been well maintained but you have only hang so much $hit on a tower.
After all that, I get to my point......THAT is why they moved.....they didn't WANT to move.....they HAD to move. Honestly, I haven't listened to them enough to give you my opinion of how the signal is in PC/PCB.
cceng in OH now back to the hamfest
Am I the only person surprised that the FAA will allow 1000 ft+ tall towers along the coast with Tyndall and Eglin in the area? The old WMBB tower already fell down once and they went and replaced it with a taller tower. Now that PCB isn't tied in with Tallahassee or Dothan for FM or TV, why does such a small military/tourist market need more height than FWB has? The only reason Mobile-Pensacola-FWB needs tall towers is because of the 100+ mile diameter of the area and 1 million+ full time population of the markets.
I just looked it up. WPFM only has a class C1 license meaning they max out with 100,000 watts at around 1000 feet. I've always thought WPFM had a class C license that would allow the. 100,000 watts at close to 2000 feet. The FCC will allow WPFM to broadcast from the top of the tallest tower around Panama City but they have to sacrifice some of their watts to protect 107.9 in Biloxi and 107.9 in Valdosta and 107.7 in Andalusia, etc...
Pensacola's 107.3 has the same issue, only a C1 license in a market dominated by full class C and C0 stations (C0=1500 feet). The Ft Walton stations have C1 and C2 licenses (C2=50,000 watts at a max of 1000 feet) but the Ft Walton stations are all under powered because Eglin won't allow a 1000 foot structure to be built near their airfields.
Pensacola's 107.3 has the same issue, only a C1 license in a market dominated by full class C and C0 stations (C0=1500 feet). The Ft Walton stations have C1 and C2 licenses (C2=50,000 watts at a max of 1000 feet) but the Ft Walton stations are all under powered because Eglin won't allow a 1000 foot structure to be built near their airfields.
poledo said:
That is why WTVY-TV in Dothan had to build its 2,000 ft tower in Bethlehem, FL in 1978. The FAA wouldn't allow a 2,000 ft stick near Fort Rucker or its numerous stage fields.
Herb Tarlek said:
And those Ft Rucker helicopters don't just stay around Ozark and Enterprise. They fly over to Georgia and down to the Beach every day. Didn't one of them take down the WFXL and WALB towers about 6-7 years back? Just another reason I don't understand why PC couldn't do just fine with a couple 1000 foot towers for their full power TV and class C2 or better FM's. It's really our reaponsibility to make this area as attractive to the military as possible. If a base shuts down it's really going to hurt.
now with Gray's new LP CBS in Panama City that 2000 ft stick isn't all that useful. I've been wondering if WTVY could install a directional DT antenna on that tower and cut their power bills enough to make it worth their while... They only need to cover north of I-10 now... theoretically at least. The NW FL panhandle is heavily cabled and dished. Very few OTA viewers out there. Bama has many more OTA viewers.
Tibbs2 said:
Do people really listen to the radio on the beach anymore?
With the line of tall buildings along the beaches, I'd be curious what, if anything, could be done to get around that "concrete wall" to put a usable signal on the beach-side of the buildings. Short of broadcasting from a boat, I don't think this (admittedly minor) issue could be alleviated.
Over here in Alabama, my experience has been that reception of our local C0's and C's is troubled on the beach side even though they're basically line of sight from the taller condo buildings. And I don't think we're even as densely packed as PCB's beach is with tall concrete condos. My experience with that was back before WCSN came on in Orange Beach, so I dunno if the class A from a short tower on the back bay makes a difference, being lower powered but much closer to the beaches.
I don't reckon Panama City itself has enough terrain variation or tall buildings to cause issues further out on the beach?
That's one of the problems Tibbs and I have. The memories of cruising the strip with every car radio playing the Great 108 and every jam box on the beach tuned to the same Great 108 are etched into our brains. I know I never accepted people switching over to Island 106 when they joined the show. We're always going to think the people out on PCB are wanting to get a great signal from 107.9 and there's no way to teach us otherwise.
My memory is that the wall of condos on Orange Beach is tighter than the condos on PCB... but now-a-days I only travel to PC to go to class at GCCC, I don't go to the beach anywhere but Pensacola and Navarre. It's possible I haven't seen the beach in PC or south Alabama in over 10 years.
My memory is that the wall of condos on Orange Beach is tighter than the condos on PCB... but now-a-days I only travel to PC to go to class at GCCC, I don't go to the beach anywhere but Pensacola and Navarre. It's possible I haven't seen the beach in PC or south Alabama in over 10 years.
Late last night I fired up the good radio, looking to see if WABF 1220 in Fairhope has turned on their translator yet or not. Instead I was treated to so mild tropo which brought in several stations from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Troy and the Dothan-PC area. Despite 3 or 4 strong signals from the area including 89.1, 96.9 and 105.9 like locals, there was no trace of WPFM. I'm wondering if their new setup will help them with tropo issues locally when it gets bad. They certainly weren't getting carried over here like the other big stations were.
I certainly listened to WPFM when I was in high school in the late 70s (in Bainbridge). I recall hearing a DJ called Captain Big, and ads for the long gone Ease On Inn late at night. They also ran the News Blimp feature.
When I worked at 3WQ in 82-83, Skip Bishop was the PD and morning jock at 'PFM across the hall, and there were also Jeff Davis, Erica P. Lee and Steve Lemon. I got to go on the air on 'PFM one Sunday night when Skip was short-handed.
When I worked at 3WQ in 82-83, Skip Bishop was the PD and morning jock at 'PFM across the hall, and there were also Jeff Davis, Erica P. Lee and Steve Lemon. I got to go on the air on 'PFM one Sunday night when Skip was short-handed.
Update: I finally caught a bit of PFM in Baldwin County. I drove out to Fairhope late last night to check on the WABF 1220 translator (still off, so I'm still trying to figure out where the American Family Radio programming I heard on 106.9 came from the other night…) While doing a band-scan, PFM was overpowering Kicker from Biloxi a good bit. Weird that I had to go 15 miles west to finally hear a Panama City station. V-100 was booming, as well, under Lite Mix, whose HD has been off for months.
And last but not least, while in Fairhope, WPAP was easily killing everything else on 92.5, including the poor little WHEP translator in Foley. So that was three rarely-heard PC stations in one night.
And last but not least, while in Fairhope, WPAP was easily killing everything else on 92.5, including the poor little WHEP translator in Foley. So that was three rarely-heard PC stations in one night.
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