Yesterday the FCC approved Cox's application to move WSBB-FM 95.5 to the WSB-FM site. It will operate with 100KW with a directional null toward Rome GA area to protect 95.7 licensed to Trion, GA and a very slight null off to the southwest to protect 95.3 at West Point, GA. A station at Anniston, AL on 95.5 will be moving to 95.3 to accommodate WSBB-FM. The application was filed in 2006 but had been on hold at the FCC until the FCC recently did away with the cross-ownership newspaper-radio-TV policy which prevented any radio stations owned by Cox, other than WSB-FM and WSB(AM), which were grandfathered, to provide 100% coverage of the city of Atlanta, where the Atlanta Journal Constitution is published. Moving WSBB-FM transmitter to midtown Atlanta will now give News Talk WSB full market FM primary coverage. This will be the second transmitter site move for one of Cox's FM stations. Just recently, WALR recently moved to a shorter tower at the Douglas/Carroll County line to maintain its 100KW power.
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WSBB-FM Application to move to midtown approved by FCC
- Thread starter MediaMan
- Start date
Is this the same station that was put on the air in Anniston when 100.5 moved to the Atlanta metro? I vaguely remember that, in order for the station to move, they needed give local service back to Anniston. The old call letters were WHMA, which are the calls of the station at 95.5
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No, different one. In order to move the original WHMA to Atlanta, they proposed an allotment for a new station in Anniston on 100.1. That allotment was converted to non commercial status and was just recently awarded to Anniston's Seventh Day Adventist Church with the call sign WRHP.
The FCC rules of moving stations to other markets soon changed after WHMA moved to Atlanta making it much easier to get done. The companies which opposed the move of WHMA into Atlanta, joined the band wagon and brought new FM signals to the Atlanta market. At the same time, several smaller FM stations in small towns outside Anniston, AL filed to move into the market to fill the void left behind by the big 100KW WHMA. The 95.5 WHMA is one of those stations.
WSTR-FM will be leaving that site but will still have its backup there.
Once this happens, you have to wonder what the point of WSB (AM) is.
L
LegalTender
Guest
Picking up Condace Pressley at 2am in Montreal.
Would they swap formats with 98.5 to bring the WSBs together?
Stations that change frequency always suffer from confusion and attrition. If they really wanted common call letters, they could flip them between the stations, with the AM/FM simulcast being WSB AM & FM and the AC station being WSSB or whatever.
Where is she meeting you?
There is no such thing as "WSB AM" The legal ID in the case you hypothesize would be "WSB, WSB-FM, Atlanta"
But Roddy is correct (and I am nit-picking). City of license is nearly irrelevant today, and even matching call letters are of minimal importance. This is due to the fact that listeners participating in radio ratings in Atlanta have not had to write down the name or frequency or call letters of the station they were listening to for a decade. All measurement is electronic, and the PPM does not care about any of those things.
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Unless you're Clear Channel and want to improperly ID your simulcast as "WGST AM and FM, Atlanta/Canton"
Isn't there some kind of inconsistent FCC rule that has to do with not being able to transfer three-letter callsigns to another station? I've heard that it can't be done; once the call sign leaves the station it's gone forever; I've also heard that the FCC has relented in some cases and allowed licensees to bring back old three-letter callsigns.
It's too bad that WSBE was taken. Then the callsigns would have sounded almost identical on the air. Double-you-ess-bee-ee.
Once the antenna and coax arrive are installed, and the transmitter and associated equipment brought on site, it can be a could be done on a good weekend with good planning. IIRC this is the old Channel 2 analog site so the building, AC power, air conditioning or big fan system for cooling, equipment racks, even a microwave dish pointing to the Digital White Columns should be in place. Getting a tower crew might take some time with the DTV repackaging and AM stations getting their translators.
The link that Google has for the coordinates is not the old WSB tower (although the mapping could be wrong). Is there a tower here off of Dekalb Industrial Way?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=33.759273,+-84.334647&om=1
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=33.759273,+-84.334647&om=1
They must be going on the WABE tower. This thing has rocked on for years and I should have checked. Somebody told me they were going on the old channel 2 tower years ago. I wonder why they would pay rent rather than use a Cox tower unless there is something wrong with the old channel 2 tower. I assume there is room in the building for WSBB's transmitter and a couple of racks equipment. They might have to buy a generator and a new AC "entrance" from GA Power. One would think they could have everything ready before the tower crew shows up.
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