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WRAU is new NPR news/info station for lower Delaware

M

MikefromDelaware

88.3 WRAU Ocean City, MD is simulcasting, at least some of the programming, from WAMU Washington, from American Univ. I listened to it for awhile yesterday while driving home from Rehoboth Beach. WRAU is a 50K station with a solid signal from Rehoboth into Smyrna. At that point, WHYY-FM from Philly was coming in good, so rather than listen to the developing static on WRAU I switched over to 90.9 I didn't go further south, but my guess is they cover most of the bottom part of Delmarva too. They were carrying ATC from NPR and the Washington traffic reports and news were aired via WRAU so I'm assuming they are essentially a repeater of WMAU. This gives Delmarva a NPR news/info station to compliment their WSCL 89.5 and the Lewes, DE 90.7 forget the calls that both air some NPR programming and Classical Music.

I'm surprised that WHYY-FM hadn't made a move to have a repeater in Lower Delaware for 90.9's programming as they did with Seaford's Channel 64 which is a repeater for Channel 12's programming. But in any case, WRAU is a welcomed addition to the downstate line up of NPR radio.
 
I do listen to WRAU for some of there different programs, like Kojo Nonde (not sure of the spelling) how ever they only offer one "local"show, Coastal Connections Friday's at 12noon and 8pm. All of the news and traffic as you mentioned is from WAMU. WSDL 90.7 Ocean City does offer local news during Morning Edition and ATC, they also offer a weekly local program about the shore Wednesdays at 9am. They also do local election coverage and special reports of longer form during ME and ATC.
WSDL is a class B1, while WSCL is a class B, 50Kw. Personally I think it's crazy that NPR allows any affiliate to carry programming, it may mean a few more listeners, but really hurts the truly local station. I personally would love to see 89.5 pick up the NPR Talk and move the Classical to 90.7, but there are strong Classical supporter on the board so that's not about to happen. If WRAU really wanted to provide a service for the shore, they would run the WAMU HD2 Bluegrass Nation programming at least part of the time. By the way WYPO (the repeater for WYPR in Baltimore) is a none player, they go days we no audio, and when it is on the level is lower that the other stations. They need to give it up. They do have some programs that they should offer to WSDL (Maryland Morning and Midday), and give WSDL a change to do more interesting regional programming. This would also save a lot of money, they use ISDN from Baltimore to Ocean City 24/7.
 
The problem with 90.7 being the Classical station and 89.5 being the NPR news/info/programming station is 90.7 doesn't get out as well as 89.5. So WRAU via WAMU is providing Delmarva with a good service, sort of a network feed for NPR programming, with some DC stuff thrown in. My guess is, as there are many Washingtonians who come to Rehoboth and Ocean City during the summer months, they may have been after their hometown NPR statoin WAMU to put the repeater in Delmarva so they could hear their favorite shows while at their summer home. Maybe those folks are also big contributors to WAMU as they obviously are not poor living in DC and having a Delaware summer home at Rehoboth or a Maryland summer place at OC. In any case you full time folks of Delmarva benefit. Enjoy.
 
I'm still waiting patiently for WSCL to return to full power. It's temporary power must be very low as I've heard WGBG on 98.5 many times in the evening up in Wilmington but 89.5 has made only occasional appearances in the recent hot humid weather. WSCL used to be 24/7 up here with full power.
 
I used to be able to get WSCL in my car up here too. I used to enjoy it at night when WRTI had switched to Jazz and I was in the mood for Classical Music. I haven't been able to get it for quite some time. So that at least explains why. They are using temporary power. Did they sustain some damage, lightning strike or something? I'd actually like to see them put a repeater up here so it would be a city grade signal 24/7 much like WRTI has done with their 107.7 repeater here in Wilmington.
 
WSCL's replacement antenna should be shipped within a few weeks. They are currently doing some final test and modeling. The modeling is so they can make adjustments for the tower it is to be mounted on. The car currently running a single bay antenna with about 6KW, and that means that there is no gain, actually a single bay antenna is less than 1, so with the loss of signal over the transmission line they are probably putting out closer to 3000 watts. The one saving grace for them is their tower height, over 600 feet. I can pick them up in Camden one my way to work. This is also the time of the year when ducting becomes a problem and that is probably why you can receive 98.5 some times.
 
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