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WREK applies to upgrade to C1/100kW

Congrats Tom and great news!
It's nice to know that at least a few facilities can still upgrade. Many non-comms are limited by small church owned stations which operate with a few hundred watts but essentially kill any possibility of signal upgrades.(WRAS is one such station. Some puddle jumper in Jasper, Ga. kills any possibility of more signal for 88.5. But thank Gawd there is one more "savin' station" on the air. Just what the world needs.....more Jimmy Swaggert and less education!) Too bad thses stations didn't max out their signals when they had the chance. WRAS will lose coverage in Athens soon due to a translator programmed by The Calvery Chapel.....from across the country! The 88.5 signal is slowly being eaten away by this translator garbage....soon, you will have to be within 30 miles of the tower to hear it. Wait 'til these guys fire up their HD transmitters!
As reported earlier, WABE has an application to go C-0 and improve coverage. WRFG is putting it's new antenna up as I type.....WRFG will for the first time ever have a real, metro wide, signal.(65,000 watts @ 500 Feet on the Richland tower in Dekalb County.)
Now.....if we could only get WCLK some more power and a taller tower to transmit from!!
 
WREK is still short-spaced to a few stations, including WJTG Fort Valley, WRAF Toccoa Falls, and new stations in Rome and Cedartown, but the three nulls will take care of that. You can do just about any pattern with a cavity-backed panel antenna system. I think it would work out well for WREK since we don't need an optimized omni pattern.

I think we're leaning towards the Harris 22kW FM/HD tube transmitter since that should give us the ability to build out this proposal.

88.5 is definitely going to be under assault during the filing window....

Good to hear that RFG is making progress... that CP's been out for a while.
 
littlejohn said:
Unless Harris is giving scandalous discounts (not unheard of) I'd go with the Continental box.
Click to expand...

Harris? Continental? My God, what the HELL is the world coming to. I just installed two Nautel V-10 transmitters. For all that is good and holy, get a Nautel.
 
It never hurts to have a booster in the company! Great, more coverage to hear next year's game at Bobby Dodd where the Jackets lay Dame into the ground for a second year in a row! Plus, more signal to drown out Munson!
 
FloydB said:
It never hurts to have a booster in the company! Great, more coverage to hear next year's game at Bobby Dodd where the Jackets lay Dame into the ground for a second year in a row! Plus, more signal to drown out Munson!
Click to expand...

Actually, Tech's series with Notre Dame is over for now. The latest deal was a 2-for-1 -- 1997 and 2007 in South Bend, 2006 in Atlanta.
 
Now.....if we could only get WCLK some more power and a taller tower to transmit from!!
Click to expand...

Tom, I believe about 8 or so years ago, WCLK had a CP to move to the Richland site at a much increased height. But it was never built. So they remained on the puny 1340 tower at the Clarke Atlanta tennis courts.

Do you recall that?
 
Yes, Roddy, I do remember that. The move would have put WCLK at 300 feet non directional, 6000 watts. The problem was that southwest Atlanta coverage would suffer - the signal would have a hard time getting past the downtown Atlanta skyscrapers into the middle class black areas in SW Atlanta.
The best solution for WCLK would be to build their own 300-400 foot tower on the present site. This would get their signal over 90% of the downtown buildings and improve coverage in Gwinnette, Dekalb, and N Fulton.
You might be interested to know that WCLK could go commercial at 92.1 with 25,000 watts if:
1. They turned off 91.9
2. The Bear 92.5 moved back to it's old site in Zebulon and returned to 6000 watts
3. WBTR in Carrollton moved to a new site.
For 15-20 million dollars, WCLK could have a commercial facility worth 40-60 million dollars. If run properly, this new commercial station could possibly generate 10-20 million of revenue...or more, yearly. I'm not sure if the owners of these stations would go for it and what it would cost.....but it could be done. At least the engineering used to work....not sure if something has changed to preclude it today.
 
taylorengineer said:
You might be interested to know that WCLK could go commercial at 92.1 with 25,000 watts if:
1. They turned off 91.9
2. The Bear 92.5 moved back to it's old site in Zebulon and returned to 6000 watts
3. WBTR in Carrollton moved to a new site.
Click to expand...

I'd imagine WJGA-FM in Jackson would be a problem too.

Would the FCC let go of a NCE station without something to replace it? I'd imagine that would be a difficult public interest argument. Maybe they could do this in a two-step: file for the 92.1 facility as a NCE station (change of channel for WCLK), and after it is built, switch it to commercial.
 
Yes....you're right. WJGA moves south a bit and WBTR switches channels to 92,5.
Hey - you Tech guys should trade 91.1 for 91.9 and do the deal yourself. Then Tech football COULD sell commercials and make a small fortune!
 
taylorengineer said:
Hey - you Tech guys should trade 91.1 for 91.9 and do the deal yourself. Then Tech football COULD sell commercials and make a small fortune!
Click to expand...
Or buy back WGST and make a smaller fortune. ;D
 
trusty said:
Or buy back WGST and make a smaller fortune. ;D
Click to expand...

And Tech was the original licensee of 94.1, WGST-FM, a superpowered signal, in the 1950s.

WREK is happy as-is with the underwritten sports broadcasts. The fans whine about our signal delay, but with HD Radio, they'll have to get used to an extra 8 seconds... (thanks Ibiquity!)
 
I wish WRAS could do something to improve Gwinnett coverage. I would love to hear an upgrade on WCLK. Their signal is weak, but good from the current location.

taylorengineer said:
WRFG is putting it's new antenna up as I type.....WRFG will for the first time ever have a real, metro wide, signal.(65,000 watts @ 500 Feet on the Richland tower in Dekalb County.)
Click to expand...

WRFG is now operating at 65,000 watts @ 500 feet. Work should be complete in the next week or two, but you can drive-around the metro and test the new signal strength now. I listened to their late-night jazz tonight in northern Gwinnett. A stronger signal, but still in-and-out around Lawrenceville-Suwannee Road. Before WRFG was almost non-existant.
 
WRFG is not operating at the new site yet.
I understand it may be several more days before equipment tests will begin. Most of the equipment is installed and ready....they may still be waiting for the T-1 to be installed to get audio from the studio to the transmitter.
The signal will be pretty good in most of Gwinnette. It will only be 4000 watts in that direction but that's at 500 feet....and the new site is much closer to Gwinnette county. WRFG will have a huge improvement in coverage in ALL directions.
I wish we could get the money to improve the WRAS to the north and east. Money is tight in Mr. Purdue's wonderful world of state government....the WRAS budget has actually shrunk(factoring in inflation) over the past few years. Why...I couldn't even afford new towels for the engineering juccuzzi and I'm drinking domestic wines with American cheeses during maintenance breaks.
 
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