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WVKO signal

C

chrisalcorn

Guest
How many watts is this station? I am 35 miles south of Lexington, KY trying to listen to WXRA 1580 and I am hearing the Clippers games over my old school local station. This happens mostly at dawn and dusk. It's either talk or baseball. I now know all about Columbus area businesses!!! Maybe they should take over Power 107.5's moniker. Power 1580 and Blazin 610 TVN.
 
You are talking about last night?? The Clippers were on last night. At 9:00 PM I noticed
that WVKO had a strong signal in downtown downtown Columbus. So, they may not
have powered down last night at the correct time. WVKO has 3,200 watts during the day
and 240 watts at night. WXRA has very low power at night. That will not help you much.

I take it you don't miss the old Spanish format on WXRA 1580??
 
No I don't miss Spanish on 1580 at all. Regional Mexican already had a home in Lexington at 1440 AM. WXRA has REALLY taken a beating this morning as I had it on the car and music was "shaking" up and down and as I would turn a corner, I could easily hear something else in the background. When I was in Columbus a few weeks ago, I remember WPGC giving WVKO a hard time near dark and all night in Columbus near Whitehall. I could turn my Walkman and hear WPGC pretty well all night. 1580 must be a tough frequency to be at.
 
When I was in junior high our usual bus driver had WVKO on the bus radio every morning. I grew up on the Far East Side of Columbus - lived within sight of the 270/70 interchange - and I remember on the mornings when it was still dark, 1580 ("16 WVKO" in those days) came in terribly. It was listenable but hardly pleasant. Their recent power upgrade has come since I left Columbus last September, but I may try to take a listen next time I'm home to measure the signal for myself.
 
chrisalcorn said:
How many watts is this station? I am 35 miles south of Lexington, KY trying to listen to WXRA 1580 and I am hearing the Clippers games over my old school local station. This happens mostly at dawn and dusk. It's either talk or baseball. I now know all about Columbus area businesses!!! Maybe they should take over Power 107.5's moniker. Power 1580 and Blazin 610 TVN.
Click to expand...

I can say that WVKO did not turn down it power last night and that is why WVKO was clobbering
WKRA last night... Personally, I like it when they(WVKO) are on high power because the signal is much
stronger/clearer here in Columbus but that makes it harder for you to hear WRKA.
 
chrisalcorn said:
1580 must be a tough frequency to be at.
Click to expand...

It's better than it was about 10 years ago because since then 50,000 watt CBJ on 1580 in Chicoutimi, Quebec, has moved to FM. Within the past year, CKDO in Oshawa, Ontario, moved from 1350 to 1580 in order to increase night power, but it is very directional to the north, so its 10,000 watt signal is nothing in this directional compared to the former CBJ signal. Before getting the first upgrade to 250 watts night, WVKO was allowed to operate with 9.7 watts at night. CBJ clobbered them at Broad & High.
 
Have a question...In the early 1970s when WVKO was a daytimer,they had WSPO-FM to simulcast WVKO's R&B and Soul format and remained on after AM sign-off time. If I'm not mistaken(since I'm an out of towner here)didin't WSPO later become WSNY "Sunny 95"?

I was a bit perplexed back then why it just wasn't called WVKO-FM instead?
 
You are correct. Saga/Franklin Communications used to own WVKO-AM as well as Sunny 95.

In late 2002, Saga "swapped" 1580 for 107.9 with Stop 26/Riverbend, the company owned by Columbus attorney Percy Squires. Saga/Franklin continues to program the station with oldies, but the type of oldies B107.9 WODB plays have become more recent over the past year. Apologies for the use of an oxymoron.

After Squires and Stop 26/Riverbend filed for bankruptcy, Bernard Media ended up with Squires' stations in Columbus and Youngstown. The bankruptcy was what resulted in WVKO-AM going off the air for more than a year.

Saga/Franklin Communications also owns locally WJZA/WJZK, "Smooth Jazz 103.5/104.3," which were acquired from Scantland Broadcasting, a husband-and-wife ownership team which brought the format to Columbus in 1995. 104.3, licensed to Richwood, went on the air shortly before Christmas that year, and 103.5, a former oldies station in Lancaster, was purchased by the Scantlands a couple of years later. Saga then got the city of license moved to Pickerington.

I will leave it to other posters to fill in any missing details.
 
kirkiefan said:
Have a question...In the early 1970s when WVKO was a daytimer,they had WSPO-FM to simulcast WVKO's R&B and Soul format and remained on after AM sign-off time. If I'm not mistaken(since I'm an out of towner here)didin't WSPO later become WSNY "Sunny 95"?

I was a bit perplexed back then why it just wasn't called WVKO-FM instead?
Click to expand...

When 94.7 was WSPO their format was beautiful music plus some SPOrts play-by-play, e.g the Clippers as I recall.  All (or at least most) of the 94.7 simulcasting with 1580 was as WVKO-FM.  The calls had already been back to WVKO-FM awhile when the station flipped to Sunny 95 in the early eighties.
 
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