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wpon/wcxi whats the deal

E

eyeconic

Guest
I have been listening on line to WPON or is it WCXI for a few months now since I found them on the Oldies Radio Stations site. I am in NJ so I only listen via the net all night, usually from midnight until 8 or 9 AM. I cannot believe the great rare oldies the play uninterrupted, a live jock named Jimmy comes on for morning drive, I usually turn them off around 9AM or so. The questions I have is what are the real calls and frequency, does this station really exist over the airwaves, how are the ratings, do they get into Detroit. I also notice on songs that have wide stereo separation, one channel is gone the other channel comes out of both speakers very strange, let say on Jan and Dean recordings you only hear one vocal coming out of both channels.
 
They indeed do exist over the airwaves WCXI is on 1160 out of Fenton Mi with 1kw and does have a cp to move transmitter to Milford Mi and power increased to 15kw when all is said and done,WPON is on temporary statis at the same site as WCXI they both will permanently broadcast from same site WPON will eventually go full time after all tests and construction is finished WPON will be at 760 watts day and I believe 250 watts night.
 
Thanks for the info, which one will keep the classic oldies format and what will the format be on the other station or will they simulcast on both signals Will they be a Detroit signal, its funny many of the doo wop and rare tunes that they play were popular in the Philly/NYC area in the 50s and 60s, its odd they program those out that way and here there is no station playing them, thanks for the net lol.
 
At this point no one knows what format will be on what station, but I’m hoping WCXI 1160 will remain Oldies the signal will be better than WPON 1460 ,I’m 63 years old and nothing on FM really appeals to me format wise ,I usually listen to CKWW 580 for Oldies the FM Classic Rock and Classic Hits Stations repeat the same 150 songs and no 60’s tunes at all.
 
I am kinda like you, I am 67 and grew up with the british invasion and west coast surf music, this station is a real good catch for me. The Philadelphia market has nothing on either band playing anything before 1975. I also am an old school kinda guy that hates to see the AM band being destroyed with mostly ethnic or religious formats. I still think music can survive on AM if the format is right but that might just be a few of us left that think that way...
 
I am kinda like you, I am 67 and grew up with the british invasion and west coast surf music, this station is a real good catch for me. The Philadelphia market has nothing on either band playing anything before 1975. I also am an old school kinda guy that hates to see the AM band being destroyed with mostly ethnic or religious formats. I still think music can survive on AM if the format is right but that might just be a few of us left that think that way...

Guess I'm one of the few, also......!
Back before heavy processing and the NRSC "mask".....AM sounded.......GOOD!!
To "get back there" again?? Forget IBOC/digital.....utilize MINIMUM audio processing....and find some people who can ACTUALLY control audio levels on a board!!!
IF IT'S DONE RIGHT.......AM can sound VERY CLOSE to FM re: clean audio with VERY GOOD overall frequency response...
Then, of course, there's the little matter of listening to this "good, clean audio".....on a REALLY GOOD receiver, capable of wide-band operation...
LOVED my McCay/Dymek AM-5 tuner!!!!:)
Let's bring back the T.R.F. "front-end" superhets!!!!
 
.AM can sound VERY CLOSE to FM re: clean audio with VERY GOOD overall frequency response...

No, it can not. The main reason is that essentially no radios in use today have an AM section that is capable of the kind of quality that AM had back in the 50's. As AM's lost more and more audience to FM in the 70's, reaching "majority" in 1977 nationally, AM radios became a less important part of receivers. Manufacturers picked up on this and made cheaper and cheaper designs. Back when Bob Orban was heading the NRSC IBOC committee, they did a published study that showed that a large sample of radios had AM audio that was pretty much rolled off by 3.9 kHz, and the committee concluded that anything over 6 kHz to 7 kHz was so far down that it was immaterial.

Then you have the higher and higher noise levels on AM caused by electronic devices. That means that the coverage area of every station is reduced to the area where the signal overcomes the noise... the ITU says this is 15 mV/m in cities. That means that few stations even have enough coverage to effectively compete in their market area.

One of the things AMs have done since the early 60's is to try to sound loud. Back then, that meant using an Audimax (with the 0 k resistor) and Volumax to keep the modulation density as high as possible. By the 70's, we found ways to still sound loud, but cleaner than the grungy 60's AM sound by using multi-band limiters, IC's with high slew rates and the like... folks like Oginowski and Dorrough led the way in this area and the quality of audio got much better by the late 70's. But that was when FM had taken most music listeners and it's future as a music medium was nil.

In fact, it was the heavy processing of the late 60's and early 70's that helped drive AM listeners to FM. By the time better processing became available, it was already over and manufacturers has sense the absence of a need for good AM band fidelity and looked at ways to make the AM section as cheaply as possible.
 
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Well maybe someone in Detroit will bring back a good FM traditional Oldies format that will emphasize on 60’s Music ,but meanwhile all I have is CKWW 580 or Zoomer Radio 740 out Toronto at night.
 
Well maybe someone in Detroit will bring back a good FM traditional Oldies format that will emphasize on 60’s Music ,but meanwhile all I have is CKWW 580 or Zoomer Radio 740 out Toronto at night.

The issue in the US is that advertisers, particularly those with ad agencies, do not target radio listeners over 50 or 55. So a format based on 60's music, appealing to listeners at least 10 years older than that, will have a hard time getting ad revenue. Certainly not enough to sustain an expensive FM station costing millions of dollars.
 


The issue in the US is that advertisers, particularly those with ad agencies, do not target radio listeners over 50 or 55. So a format based on 60's music, appealing to listeners at least 10 years older than that, will have a hard time getting ad revenue. Certainly not enough to sustain an expensive FM station costing millions of dollars.

Yup. Once we turn 50 we all turn into pumpkins so far as advertisers are concerned.
Women 18-49 are what they are after, as that group makes the vast majority of purchasing decisions.

I was living in the area when WCXI signed-on as WFEN (and then WACY, "Wacky Radio").
It's one of the stations I frequently listen to online.
 
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