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WUCO/WILE

It was announced over WUCO-AM last Tuesday that they are raising funds for their capital
campaign to upgrade the power of WUCO. They said they want to rise 1.5 Mil to increase
the power of WUCO which will allow them to cover all of Columbus and into Zanesville
to the Ohio border. The said the Engineer, who used to be an FCC official, is working on the project. They said if the can rise the money today then they could upgrade the signal tomorrow!
 
CatFM said:
St. Gabriel Radio, owner of WUCO Marysville, is buying WILE Cambridge for $750,000. My guess is that they are only buying WILE to shut it down so they can increase the daytime signal of WUCO into Columbus. That is a lot of money for a 1 KW daytimer! One has to wonder if St. Gabriel wouldn't have been able to do better by just buying WVKO if they want a Columbus signal so much. The owners of WILE will be smiling all the way to the bank. If I had a dead in the water daytime AM in a market like that and someone offered me that much, I would make them sign the papers right then and there before they had a chance to change their minds!
Click to expand...

The purchase of WILE by St. Gabriel Radio has already been approved by the FCC.
This following article from August 5, 2007, mentions that WILE will go dark.
Click here for the rest of the article:

http://www.daily-jeff.com/news/article/2358812

WILE AM 1270 being sold as a 'buffer zone'
Dan Davis/The Daily Jeffersonian
August 5, 2007

As early as next spring, listeners of WILE AM 1270 may find that spot on their radio dial vacant here.

AVC Communications General Manager Joel Losego said that an application for the purchase of license rights to broadcast on the 1270 AM frequency has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission by St. Gabriel Radio.

However, Losego said, in an effort to increase the power of the station, and therefore the coverage area, St. Gabriel Radio sought to purchase the license rights to broadcast on the 1270 AM frequency here.
 
St. Gabriel Radio, owner of WUCO Marysville said on the air last week that their plans
for high power operation on 1270 has been approved and it will be built. They said they will reach millions and millions with their new upgraded 1270 signal.

Ten months ago they said this would go on the air by this May but they have yet to even
buy WILE.
 
This sounds pretty strange. FCC records show WILE still licensed to AVC Communications, Inc., yet FCC records also show that the application for transfer of WILE from AVC to St. Gabriel was granted on 8/29/07.

Also, there are no FCC records showing any applications for increased power for WUCO.
 
From what I can tell from the FCC grant, it would be good for only 90 days. So if I'm correct,
that FCC grant to allow WUCO to buy WILE would expire on 11-29-07.
I guess they(WUCO) could apply again to buy WILE.

From what I'm told, WUCO can't apply for a FCC C.P. to expand their coverage to the East
and South of Marysville until they actually own the WILE license. At this time, it doesn't
look like this is going anywhere.
 
???So, with the post concerning WHIZ-FM it was stated that the frequency 96.7, now WCMJ in Cambridge, would be a new WHIZ moving to Frazeysburg. If this is so, and WILE is sold, what is Grant Hafley doing with his stations there..and is he selling the FM frequency?
 
steveo49 said:
???So, with the post concerning WHIZ-FM it was stated that the frequency 96.7, now WCMJ in Cambridge, would be a new WHIZ moving to Frazeysburg. If this is so, and WILE is sold, what is Grant Hafley doing with his stations there..and is he selling the FM frequency?
Click to expand...

Here's the story of how the dominoes fall in the mess of contingent applications.

WHIZ-FM filed to move to a Class B1 allocation at Baltimore, Ohio and stay at 102.5. Their application was approved by the FCC. Tower construction, however, has been held up by local zoning.

WKOV-FM licensed to Wellston, Ohio has applied to move to another Class B1 allocation to Frazeysburg, Ohio and stay at 96.7. Their application has not been approved by the FCC, as several objections were filed against the move. There were some rumors of them seeking zoning approval for a tower site, but they still do not have FCC permission to move. This station is owned by a different group than the WHIZ ownership. It is presumed that WHIZ will sell after their move and then buy WKOV to continue FM service to Zanesville.

WCMJ (FM) has filed to change frequency to 102.7 and remain a Class A licensed to Cambridge. This would be to clear the way for the WKOV move, and this application is contingent upon WHIZ moving towards Columbus.

------------------

Now, on the AM side, the situation is independent of those FM moves. WUCO ownership wants to buy out WILE and take it dark to clear the way for a daytime power increase on WUCO. Apparently the sale has been approved by the FCC but may or may not have been completed by the two parties to the sale.
 
techie2 said:
Now, on the AM side, the situation is independent of those FM moves. WUCO ownership wants to buy out WILE and take it dark to clear the way for a daytime power increase on WUCO. Apparently the sale has been approved by the FCC but may or may not have been completed by the two parties to the sale.
Click to expand...

WUCO has yet to even buy out WILE and take it dark. WUCO had a target date of
May 2008 for their expanded broadcasts on 1270 AM. This date is STILL on their website
here: http://www.stgabrielradio.com/about/expansion.html

It says: "Our target date for expanded broadcasting is May 2008!"
 
CatFM said:
St. Gabriel Radio, owner of WUCO Marysville, is buying WILE Cambridge for $750,000. My guess is that they are only buying WILE to shut it down so they can increase the daytime signal of WUCO into Columbus. That is a lot of money for a 1 KW daytimer! One has to wonder if St. Gabriel wouldn't have been able to do better by just buying WVKO if they want a Columbus signal so much. The owners of WILE will be smiling all the way to the bank. If I had a dead in the water daytime AM in a market like that and someone offered me that much, I would make them sign the papers right then and there before they had a chance to change their minds!
Click to expand...

It looks like the deal to buy WILE-AM 1270 in Cambridge, Ohio is not going to happen.

WUCO-AM has taken off their website plans for the 1270 power upgrade and no
progress has been made in buying WUCO-AM. These plans may have been dropped
because of engineering and/or money issues but for now the WUCO-AM 1270 upgrade
is dead in the water. They originally said the upgraded 1270 AM signal would be up and running
by MAY 1st of THIS year.

WUCO-AM has been trying to get a station to serve the Columbus marked ever since they purchased
1270 AM three years ago.

So, for all that thought the deal was to good to be true, you were indeed correct.
That was $750,000 to buy 1270 AM in Cambridge, Ohio.

Here is an old article on the topic:

http://www.daily-jeff.com/news/article/2358812

WILE AM 1270 being sold as a 'buffer zone'
Dan Davis/The Daily Jeffersonian
August 5, 2007

(Quote)
As early as next spring, listeners of WILE AM 1270 may find that spot on their radio dial vacant here.

AVC Communications General Manager Joel Losego said that an application for the purchase of license rights to broadcast on the 1270 AM frequency has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission by St. Gabriel Radio.

However, Losego said, in an effort to increase the power of the station, and therefore the coverage area, St. Gabriel Radio sought to purchase the license rights to broadcast on the 1270 AM frequency here.
(QUOTE)
 
Found this interesting youtube video on WUCO AM 1270. Here station manager, Mile Barone, gives us a tour of the WUCO studio and then discusses the power upgrade for WUCO. He shows us a current map of the WUCO coverage area and then another map that shows the WUCO Coverage after the station increases it's power. The problem I see with the coverage map entitled, "Following Expansion" is that it shows WUCO covering Cambridge, Ohio, but at this time WUCO dose not even have permission to buy WILE AM 1270 in Cambridge, Ohio. The FCC approval WILE had to sell the station to WUCO expired many months ago.

Click here for that video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMc_IlBGbD4

Mr Barone has posed on this thread before so hopefully he will give us an update on how and when
WUCO will be able to proceed with it's power/tower expansion plans..
 
I looks like WUCO has dropped their original plans on buying WILE and turning it dark so they could expand WUCO
coverage area into the Columbus metropolitan area. Instead, they have agreed to purchase WVKO-AM and plan to drop progressive talk on WVKO-AM for Catholic teaching programing. Also, see thread on WVKO.
 
Chris Gabe said:
Yes we are running on night pattern. It had been intermittent. We were having problems with the Potomic. We hired 2 different engineers to fix it. They both failed. We were able to get it to switch to day pattern but it would quit working after a few weeks. We bought a rebuilt unit from potomic to fix the problem but it isn't working now. We hired a new engineer to fix it. Unfortunaltely there is a short somewhere and now when we switch to day pattern the whole thing shorts out and we go off the air. I hired a 4th engineer to help the 3rd engineer thinking we could clean this up but he flew in and said it will take a long time to sort this out and we need to file a STA with the FCC asking for 6 months to rebuild. Which we are doing. The engineer wrote it up and sent it to our FCC attorney this weekend.

The problem we encountered with this station is that none of the other owners made any money on it (which is why we were able to buy it) so they didn't put any money into it. 2 of the former owners filed bankrupcy. We had to rewire the studio and the transmitter site. You would not believe the mess of wiring we had when we started. We were off the air at least once a week. We have been working night and day to get the station brought up to code. To make things worse we have a local owner of a tower that is reradiating our signal toward Columbus. We have begged and pleaded with him to detune the tower but he will not. We even offered to pay for the detuning so we could finish adjusting our array but he just refuses. We hired Jack Layton to come out and do field measurements and adjust the array but he said unless we detune Dave Moots' tower we are wasting our time. This is all going to the FCC in the next 30 days.

So to answer your question, the intermittant night pattern is not from lack of effort. We have spent 100's of man hours and 10's of thousands of dollars trying to fix it. We are willing to accept anyones help in this matter. So if any of you gentlemen in the know wants to give us a hand we would deeply appreciate it.

Chris
Click to expand...
 
This got posted by mistake but since it is here, WUCU was FINALLY able to get their transmitter site fixed. Mr Gabe is the president and GM
of WUCO 1270 radio. ALSO, see the WUCO format change thread.
 
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