Friday, December 17, 2010

WQJJ-LP receives permit to raise antenna height, lower power

Jasper's spunky little LPFM, WQJJ "Fox 97.7" has received a construction permit to alter their facilities.  The current TX site is off Brakefield Dairy Road (AL-195) north of downtown Jasper, with 100 watts from just 30 feet.  The permit will raise the antenna height to 135 feet, with a drop in power to 53 watts (all powers horizontal).

Although in theory the coverage may not seem like it would change much due to the decrease in power, gaining that much height is sure to improve the reception in the outer reaches of the city.

CP issued for new LDTV facility near Dothan

W18DY-D came across the desk the other day, as an original construction permit.  The facility's 54 dBu contour will cover Dothan, Headland, Enterprise, Ozark, Hartford and Graceville, Florida.  No word yet on what programming would be offered if the facility is ever built out.

Keeping an eye on a few translators…

A few translator moves have cropped up in the FCC database.  First up is W244CN, licensed to Enterprise but "transmitting" (I'm not convinced it's on the air) from the Highland Home area of south central Alabama.  It recently made a move on paper to the community of Ada, north up US-311.  An application is now pending to move it further up the road, this time to a site near US-331 and CR-23 in an empty lot of farmland.  The facility is predicted to throw at least some signal into the city of Montgomery, which may be the ultimate destination for this facility.

Second, there's the old standby W286AQ, ever on the move and never on the air.  It started out licensed to Northport and actually near that city.  It has since migrated across Tuscaloosa County to Vance and then Wilton in Shelby County, near Montevallo.  This facility also has an application in the works, moving it further south of Birmingham and towards Jemison.  This frequency is a real fruit-basket turnover in central Alabama.  Since this one vacated Tuscaloosa, a Demopolis-licensed translator on the same frequency has crept into Tuscaloosa County.  Meanwhile, another translator that's never been on the air as far as anyone knows, licensed to Alabaster, is hiking up the road to Hoover.  My original thoughts were that W286AQ would eventually be combined or replace the Alabaster facility, but now it appears to be moving further south.  The APP shows 218 watts and would put a good signal into the rural area between Jemison and Calera.

In other news, Selma's W232AN is to change over from relaying another FM to carrying WJUS-AM out of Marion. WJUS has been rumored to be getting this as an FM translator for a while.  Plans are to move the translator on into Marion in the near future.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Moving to new servers (again)

Our host, Bluebot, just announced they are shutting down effective the first of the year.  Starting today we've moved to new servers.  The change should be complete across the internet in about 48 hours, so in the mean time you may run into missing files or other unexpected errors.  I pointed the nameservers to the new address BEFORE uploading all the files, d'oh.  At least where I live the changeover hasn't happened yet and it's been a few hours, but I did see some error messages being logged off the new server, so someone somewhere got the change in a hurry!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

W298BG gets CP to change COL to Albertville, and move… out of Albertville.

For many of the entries on the translators page of ABMP, you may have noticed that I sometimes that to the city of license for a translator, I sometimes add another community name in parenthesis.  For example:

Blue Mountain (Albertville)

This is because the COL for a translator need not resemble its actual location or even its service area under some circumstances.  For the above, the translator W298BG, which relays local AM WAVU, is licensed to the Blue Mountain community but actually serves Albertville.  Blue Mountain is actually a suburban area of Anniston and nowhere near Albertville.

At some point translator owners will eventually change their COL to reflect the new location.  W298BG has done just this; they have received permission to change COL from Blue Mountain to Albertville.  Except, with their change to Albertville, they're actually moving the transmitter site outside Albertville, to a point well east of Sardis City, near I-59.  It is within the 2 mv/m coverage of WAVU and also within the 25 mile limit imposed by the FCC for translators, but will greatly improve coverage of WAVU's gospel music format towards Gadsden.

The translator will likely still cover Albertville well while adding a lot of Gadsden to the service area.  It will be co-located on the WQSB stick.

Friday, October 29, 2010

WFGX, a Selma translator and a Kiss for the Shoals…

A few quick tidbits of radio information for this Friday evening…  First and foremost WWFA St. Florian has finally debuted its actual format: CHR.  They've picked up the "Kiss FM" branding and signed on with a lengthy robotic voice countdown, followed by a slam of the competition, read with a bad Casey Kasem impersonation.  The competition is WMSR 94.9, licensed to the Tennessee town of Collinwood, which is why it isn't listed on this site.  (Perhaps it is time to include The Shoals as a metro area?)

In translator news, Selma-area W232AN has received a construction permit to move a bit further from Selma and relicense to the community of Suttle.  The power will remain the same but the height will be taller, so coverage shouldn't be affected that much in the Selma area.  Not that this matters as the translator has been silent for a while.  The current location is on CR-27 in Dallas County, between AL-14 and US-80.  The new site is further up AL-14 near the intersection with CR-6.

Finally, for our friends in Mobile, TV station WFGX has added another subchannel to its matrix.  35.3 debuted The Country Channel today.  It's all country music videos, complementing 35.2, which carries general music channel The Cool TV.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

W286AQ makes another move closer to the Birmingham metro

W286AQ (105.1 MHz) started out in the Tuscaloosa area and had moved on to West Blocton when I first began keeping tabs on its whereabouts.  It's now making another move, this time to a site just west of Wilton, a small community on AL-25 near Montevallo.

It's the same frequency and power (250 watts).  Will this be it's final resting place?  Who knows, but this one is worth keeping an eye on.  Lots of small AMs like WBYE Calera could use a boost, not to mention WHPH "Peach 97.7" out of Chilton County.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

WGAD and WJBY to switch… again.

The Gadsden Times is reporting that WGAD and WJBY will switch frequencies again.  The two stations switched frequencies several years ago, so this will put each set of calls back on its "original" station.  The oldies of WGAD is also expected to move to 1350 and sports to 930.  The 930 frequency is expected to go dark for a short time, however, while the studio is relocated.

The switch is scheduled for Sunday 17 October, however as I will likely be out of town on that date, changes have already been made to the AM section of the website.

Friday, October 1, 2010

A few updates for the first of October

First, in the LPFM world.  W286BV has received a construction permit to move from one rural area to another.  The currently licensed site is halfway between Greensboro and Moundville in Hale County.  The construction permit is for placement on the tower that currently houses WTUG and WFFN, in southern Tuscaloosa County.

Notice that neither is anywhere near the city of license, Demopolis.  Such is life for translators.

In low power digital TV, two new construction permits have been issued.  The first is for W28DX-D to Tuscaloosa.  It's authorized 2 kW from the site of WZBQ and WALN in Pickens County, south of Carrollton.  This station is licensed to King Forward, a spectrum reseller, so chances are it won't be built out unless they sell the license on to someone else.

Columbus, Georgia also scores a new entry, with W29EA-D.  This station will burn up the dial with a whopping 6 watts of authorized digital power.  Wow, I know.  It's shown to be emanating from an existing tower south of Crawford Road (US-80) west of Phenix City. It's licensed to Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN) and that is likely what they will carry should it be built out.

Monday, September 27, 2010

All profiled should be updated now…

The last 100 profiles needing to be updated with Wiki, Radio-Locator, FCC and map links have been uploaded.  Fingers crossed that there are no orphans hiding anywhere.  In the event anyone comes across a bad map link or missing data, please contact me and let me know!

Also, the search is offline for some reason.  Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Friday, September 3, 2010

More updates…

All the city-specific pages should now be up and running with full links to Wikipedia, Radio-Locator, the FCC and RECnet.  I tried to add as many street views as I could, too.  If you find a good view of a tower or studio in Google Street View you want linked on the site, here's how to send the exact shot you're looking at:

First, go into street view and select the shot you want to send.

Next,  click the blue "Link" in the upper right hand of the map screen.  Highlight and copy the URL under "e-mail or IM" and paste that into an e-mail.  Easy peasy!

I'll keep working on the remaining AM stations that haven't been updated, mostly ones between 900 and 1700 kHz.  They should be finished sometime before the year 2030. ;)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

More changes afoot on the website

Lots of work being done on the site data as I try to fix old errors and get new data placed.  You may have noticed that all the TV stations now have a "info and history" page.  All FM stations should now have "info and history" pages now, too, except for new station construction permits. Work in ongoing in getting the AM stations' data pages updated with the new links and info.

All these new data pages have new features.  Each one will provide a link to the FCC record and links to Wikipedia and Radio-Locator.  FM stations also link to RECnet, which has a lot of useful technical data.  Each page for FM and TV will link to the protected contour maps that the FCC still have online, and FM, AM and TV have links to polar plots of directional antennas, (in PDF format for AM stations), on the FCC site.

The big change comes with maps.  The government Tiger mapping service shut down, stranding not just this site but the FCC as well.  This happened right around the time stations were getting new map links, so it threw the site into even more half-assed territory than usual.  Well, that's being sorted out.  All the links are going to be to Google Maps overviews.  Many stations will feature a link to a street view of the tower site if one is available.

Street view isn't available everywhere, and many promising shots are ruined by sunlight, so it's a slow process to find the best angles, etc.

If you happen across a good street view shot of a tower site and want to see it added to the page, just send me the link and I'll take a gander at it.

Finally, since all the data is being off-loaded onto individual station pages, I've taken this opportunity to clean up the state TV and FM lists, removing direct links to antenna patterns.  This has shaved off a considerable amount of size and should speed up page loading for the few of you still on dial-up.  My goal has always been a plain and easy to use site, without any fancy bells and whistles (because that would mean buying and learning new HTML/CSS software, which I don't want to do!)  Plus, there's something reassuring about having a website whose layout is a throwback to the early days of the internet.  It hasn't evolved too much since its debut in 1998 and that's okay by me.

Anyway, I hope everyone likes all the new links.  If you find any of them to be broken, or find any station website links that are dead, as always, drop me an e-mail and I'll take care of them.

WWFA St. Florian reported on

Reports are that Flinn-owned WWFA is on for testing or stunting in the Shoals.  This is the first new commercial band sign on in several years and the first new Tennessee Valley sign on since WZZN moved up from Oneonta.

WWFA is currently playing classic rock and album rock music.  We'll keep an ear out to see if this is their permanent format or if they pick something new.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Website down for maintenance

Just a word to anyone who may happen on dead links on the website.  For the next 15-30 minutes it will be up and down as I upload some minor updates to the site.

Everything should return to normal shortly.

If you find any dead links, please drop me a line and let me know.  With 500 stations, it's possible a link got missed during testing.  Thanks!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Site search and counter now online

A minor update: For fun, I've added a few minor features to the site. One's a basic counter, located at the bottom of the index page. The other is a site search which seems to work fairly well. It's embedded in the news page, which is shown on the index page inside a frame.

If you have any problems with the site search, drop me a line through the contact button on the main page.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Gump gets “The Gump”

The people at Tiger Communications probably thought they'd have the Montgomery new rock market to themselves after an orchestrated flip of their two east Alabama properties a few weeks back. They were wrong.

After flipping 95.9 The Tiger and 93.9 The Eagle, it seems the folks over at WACV decided to jump into the fray. As announced on the great Montgomery Radio and TV site (linked on the right side of this blog), they are flipped Friday to new rock as "The Gump".

This will put modern rock on no less than four signals across the area, with Tiger on 93.9 and a deleted-but-operating translator at 107.1 and The Gump on 1170 and 104.9.

Let's not kid ourselves, though, the real battle will be between the two translators. And since they have nearly equal (and limited) coverage, I don't expect either one to make major waves.

By and by, this marks the second time 104.9 has been alt rock and probably who knows how many times now that Montgomery has lost an oldies station.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Several silent AMs, TV updates and a FM switcharoo

Reports are that several Alabama AMs have gone silent recently. WKZD "Crazy about the oldies" in Priceville is reported off, but still streaming online. No word on whether the FM translator is still going.

In Birmingham, WAYE is off, probably due to continued financial woes. They've been reported off for nearly two weeks. WENN-AM is also reported off, but the translator and online stream are still going strong.

No STAs or other correspondence has been filed for any of these stations that I'm aware of.

In TV news, Fort Walton Beach's WFGX (My Network TV) has finally moved from its FWB transmitter site to one of the tall towers in Baldwin County. This extends their broadcast range to both Mobile and Pensacola now, giving the area its first viable OTA or cable carriage of the once-network. No word on if any programming is available in HD. Also, a report of a weak analog signal present on the same channel in Mobile has people wondering if LPTV Christian outlet W50CF failed to vacate the channel for WFGX. It would explain the reception problems people in Mobile were experiencing when WFGX first signed on.

On FM, WTGZ (Tiger 95.9) and WQSI (classic country) have announced a switcharoo, bringing the Tiger's alt rock to a bigger signal that should penetrate the Montgomery market better. Or, at least it will once some more translators are in place.

Finally, slightly out of market but still worth mentioning, WDIZ Panama City has dropped their several years old nostalgia format for ESPN Radio. WDIZ's signal can be caught along the coast in the Mobile-Pensacola area.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

WZZN Union Grove (Huntsville) reported on

WZZN Union Grove is being reported back on the air today, this time airing Fox Sports Radio.  The station had a brief stint on playing classic hits during a testing phase, but filed to go silent with the FCC in December.

This represents the Huntsville market's only full power FM sports outlet.  WUMP and WTKI/WEKI have sports content but are only heard via translators.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Our tax dollars hard at work

A while back I ran into a problem with the government-run map server that the site uses to plot coverage maps and transmitter locations.  I figured it would resolve itself in a day or twenty, so I promptly forgot that the Tiger map browser was not loading maps anymore.

That was about three months ago.  And today, while working on the Montgomery page, I re-discovered the problem.  No only can we (and the FCC) not plot transmitter locations, the Tiger map browser interface is completely broken.

Since this entire site is hand-written because I have neither the smarts nor the money to do a fancy-dancy database interface, that means I gotta go through and change about a hundred links to the map server on all the Technical Profile pages.

Joy.

Since there are a multitude of plotting/mapping options available on other media websites like Radio-Locator, RECnet and FM/TV Fool, I am not going to be in any hurry to fix all those links.  (And I was in a hurry to do Montgomery but I still put it off for six months, so… buyer beware.)

Montgomery metro page now online!

The Montgomery AM/FM/TV pages are now online.  I know it's been a long time coming, so try not to be too disappointed.  ;)

If you have some historical information to contribute, corrections or just plain ol' kudos or criticisms, drop me a line at the e-mail address plastered all over the website.

Monday, May 24, 2010

AM radio station links updated

Links to station websites have been updated.  There were a ton of new links, dead links and all manner of madness but I think got most of it sorted out.  I left a few "under construction" pages linked just in case they become active in the next month or two.

If you know of a web site address that isn't listed, do let me know.  Contact info is on the website.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Follow me (I'm the Pied Piper)

That's a little something for the old timers.  You never heard that Crispian St. Peters song on the radio anymore.

If you want to keep up with the blog posts from the Alabama Broadcast Media Page, it's easy.  On the bottom right side of the blog is a little "Follow Me" button for Google Buzz users.  Click that and you'll have my useless rambling delivered to your inbox whenever I post!

If you're not a Google user, you can also subscribe by clicking the RSS feed button on your browser.

There you go, my friend… the choice is yours.  :)

 

Flotsam & jetsam

A few more notes from the week's changes.

In Birmingham, another translator move, although this one is a bit odd.  WAY-FM's ever silent W275AR at 102.9 MHz has a CP to move to 92.3, from the old 104.1 site in Hoover.  Call me crazy (everyone else does) but 102.9 MHz from atop Red Mountain seems like a much better signal to sell off than this one.  First, it's a downgrade in coverage, PLUS it's first adjacent to Crawford's WXJC-FM.  Granted, WXJC's piddly signal isn't exactly blowing down radios in Hoover, but it is possible to hear the station in some places.  That will change if this facility is ever put on the air.  WXJC-FM also runs HD (God only knows why) so it's conceivable that the HD sideband could affect the translator, or more likely vice-versa.

Up on the mighty Tennessee River, Priceville's LPTV WYAM has apparently cut over to digital and dropped their analog signal. The slightly directional signal should cover all of Decatur, Athens and a good chunk of western Huntsville.

Finally, the history for Fort Payne's WFPA has been sorted out thanks to the gracious help of someone in the know.  Thank you.  And remember, all the history is written by contributors, so if you have some dusty memories of radio or TV, be sure to send it off to me.  My address is all over the website.

Moves around Montgomery

A few TV notes to pass along.  WNCF and WBMM have both completed their latest construction permits.  WNCF-DT 32 upped their power from 35 kW to 83 kW.  WBMM-DT appears to have moved from RF channel 24 to channel 22, and increased power from the 300 watts on their STA to 65 kW.  WBMM may have already been on 22 with some other setup; the FCC database does not make it clear whether the listed STA is actively being used or not.

On to one of my favorite subjects now, translators.  WAY-FM's translator on 91.5 MHz (W218BG) has received a construction permit to slide down the dial to 102.3 MHz, with 250 watts.  Could this translator be rebroadcasting another local AM before long?  We'll see.  It'll have a dumbbell-shaped radiation pattern with lobes to the WNW and ESE so it won't exactly be an easy catch all over the Gump.

WPNN gets construction permit… for daytime only operation?

This is an odd one.  Pensacola's WPNN at 790 kHz on the standard radio dial has just received a construction permit to upgrade their daytime facilities.

Their current setup is odd: 1 kW days from a site in the heart of Pensacola, 66 watts nights from a site across Escambia Bay, south of Milton and I-10.  The construction permit will move the daytime service to the Milton site and be a 3 tower directional array, with a major kidney-shaped lope to the west to cover Pensacola.

Now here's the oddity: Radio-Locator lists the CP as a daytime only operation.  As far as I can tell, this new setup does not include any nighttime serviceIt's normal for daytimers to get nighttime authorization added, but I don't think I've ever seen a station go from fulltime service to daytime-only.

The nighttime/dayime CP transmitter site is the same 3 tower setup currently used by WEBY.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Translator move in the Demopolis area…

One of Edgewater's translators has moved a bit.  Previously on 104.7 MHz with 250 watts in the Greensboro area, W284BY has been relicensed to 105.1 MHz with just 75 watts.  The new TX location is near the community of Harper Hill, just south of Moundville.

A previous application lists WUAL as the parent station, not an Edgewater property.

The station seems to be headed towards Tuscaloosa, which is odd considering there was already a translator in Tuscaloosa on 105.1 MHz, which has made its way (but never on the air) to West Blocton.

Friday, May 7, 2010

History for Cullman's WMCJ added… plus a new CP for Greenville's WKXN

A thank you to regular contributer Travis for giving us a good review of the history of Cullman's WMCJ radio station.  It's off the air now, but has a history dating back to 1950 as WFMH!  This spurred me to finally re-write the history info for WYDE, which was a mess.  Hopefully it makes more sense now.

In other news, Greenville's WKXN (Power 95.9) has received a construction permit to move up the road a few miles and change to 95.7 MHz.  As part of this deal, they will re-license to Fort Deposit, but almost all of their Greenville area coverage will stay the same.

For some reason, the website already had listed the CP data as the actual license, although the contour map was linked correctly.  Dunno how that happened, but it should all be straightened out now.

A quick last note for Pensacola TV viewers:  HSN affiliate W19CO is now listed as broadcasting digitally instead of analog, on channel 19.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

New servers…

You may experience trouble accessing the main site for the next day or two as we migrate to new servers. If you have trouble with almediapage.info or www.almediapage.info, the old site will remain active until the DNS servers are updated.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Translator W239AP in Mobile sold by Edgewater to 550 AM, Inc.

Translator W239AP in Mobile, which is currently silent, is being sold to 550 AM, Inc. for $30,000.  550 AM, Inc., owns WASG, which is coincidentally enough at 550 on the AM dial.  And, strangely, it's also silent.

So what does a silent AM want with a silent translator?

Part of the deal has 550 AM agreeing to help relocate two more translators for Edgewater, W212CA 90.3 from Bay Minette to Pensacola and W214BW 90.7 Citronelle to Mobile.  Curious, to say the least.  Sounds like Radio Assist Ministry (a/k/a Edgewater) is going to try to sell them off to more AMs in those two markets.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Auburn's Wings flies to new nest.

Waverly's WGZZ, known as "Wings 100.3" moved today to their new place on the dial at 94.3, right on schedule.

Take a gander at the previous blog entry to see what else will happen now that Wings has moved down the dial.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Early April updates... Wings to move frequencies, WOOF-AM on FM now, WCKS moves into Georgia...

A few quick notes.  A blurb on WGZZ's website says they're moving on April 19th, but not to where.  The answer is, down the dial to 94.3.  There's been a construction permit for the move for a while now, which you wouldn't have known by looking at my site, because the CP somehow got removed from the FM list.

The new frequency should give them better coverage in Auburn and let their WANI-AM HD subchannel be better heard in the two towns.

WOOF-AM is now on FM, according to a recently filed license to cover with the FCC.  The translator W261AT at 100.1 had formerly relayed AM oldies WEEL before it went belly up.  Now WOOF has it and has given it a significant power boost to cover almost the whole metro area.

Finally, Fruithurst-licensed WCKS at 102.7 has received a construction permit to move TX site eastward into Georgia, just south of Tallapoosa. The existing site is very near the state line, but on the Alabama side.

Friday, March 26, 2010

The Wheel rolls out of Dothan, some translator updates, and Montgomery's new sports talk is offically a Ticket

The clever WEEL calls have disappeared in Dothan, much like the signal of the troubled station recently.  Looks like they've picked up the calls WCNF instead.  To be honest, I'm not even sure if this station is on the air yet or still silent.  Anyone know?

Montgomery's WQLS 1210 picked up a translator at 107.5 MHz recently and is now Montgomery's newest FM sports talk station as "The Ticket".  The calls recently changed to match as WTXK.  Well, sort of match.

The translator dances in Huntsville are getting more crowded each day.  This time it's the WEKI/WTKI talk duo that recently returned to the airwaves, picking up their second translator in the area, W232BX in Decatur.  This follows on them picking up a translator in the Huntsville area.  Presumably WEKI feeds the Decatur station and WTKI feeds the Huntsville one.  That means, for one station, you can now tune to them on four different dial positions: 92.9-94.3-1450-1490.  Crazy stuff.

Finally, the off-air-but-the-FCC-is-none-the-wiser translator W286AQ has received a permit to move again, this time from Vance to east of West Blocton in the quaintly-named Belle Ellen area.  The final destination?  Who knows, it's a puzzle.  Bibb County only has one radio station, the aptly named WBIB in Centreville.  And they already have an FM translator.  Birmingham seems to be the direction it's headed, but there's already a (silent but the FCC don't know it) translator on 105.1 in Alabaster.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Mobile-friendly home page for the site now up.

A mobile-friendly low bandwidth version of the site's home page is now available here.  I found the current page to be a bit user-unfriendly for people viewing on small screens, like the wonderful Opera Mini.  The mobile-friendly page is bare bones, with no CSS, javascript, images, etc.

The actual listings are all still huge and unwieldy on the small screen, but hey, it's a start.

Quick recap of recent moves, changes and what-not

Here's a quick rundown of some changes that have occurred recently.  WTAK is off its longtime translator in Huntsville on 106.5 MHz, replaced with the WBHP/WHOS multicast of talk programming.  This follows the move of another duo of AM talkers, WEKI/WTKI, gaining a translator in the area on 92.9 MHz.  And THAT follows big talker WVNN Athens moving to a full(ish) power FM a while back.

This brings the number of AM stations being heard on the FM dial in Huntsville to five.

Down in the big ol' salty Ham (curse you, Nick Nice) Cox's little country outlet WNCB rebrands itself from "New Country" to "The Buck".  The music seems the same.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

WTID receives oddball construction permit

WTID, the tiny station licensed to Thomaston, has received yet another construction permit.  It authorizes the station to increase power from 500 watts to 6,300 watts horizontal, 1,260 watts vertical, from the same 30 foot "tower" they're currently on.

This comes after a permit to move to Orrville that was never built out.  The station has had an interesting history, going through multiple silent periods and call changes.  So, my skepticism that anything will be done is high with this one.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Say "Bye" to "My"… 107.3 (ba da bum)

Looks like My 107.3 in Pensacola is going away.  Reports that they are asking listeners to move over to sister station Lite 99.9 in Mobile, and that "My 107.3 is going away" soon.

There's already a Clear Channel-registered 1073thegroove.com that redirects to My 107.3's website, so that sounds like an urban AC type format.  Of course, the rage right now for underperforming FMs is talk, and Clear Channel has plenty of talk in the Mobile-Pensacola market, so who knows what may happen.

WQLS on from Pike Road licensed location; FM translator in the near future?

Radio-Locator is showing WQLS, the AM that relocated from Ozark to the Montgomery market, to be rebroadcasting on W298BC, a translator located on the WNCF-TV tower in central Montgomery.  The format is no longer gospel but reported to be classic country, with no IDs or commercials.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

WENN's FM translator confirmed on the air from Graysville location

It has been confirmed today that WENN's FM translator, W270BW (licensed to Haleyville) is on from its Graysville location and not the Red Mountain construction permit as I had previously believed.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

A curious translator APP in the Gump

I don't usually talk about applications to change facilities because they are so early in the process of making changes that a lot can, well, change before they're granted.  But one down in Montgomery has caught my eye:  W218BG on 91.5 MHz, a WAY-FM translator in the noncomm band.

They have filed an application to begin rebroadcasting commercial station WXFX and change frequency to 102.3 MHz.   But for the time being, the FCC database shows a noncomm translator as relaying WXFX, a commercial station.  I don't know if that's actually happening or not, but it is a curious sight since that is technically prohibited.

If all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed and this thing gets granted, I forsee yet another AM-on-a-translator move in Alabama.  The state, in my opinion, has led the way for the migration of small AM stations to FM via translators, and Montgomery is proving itself to be a magnet for translators no matter what they relay.

WAPI's FM simulcast begins 12:01am Monday

So says Bob Carlton over at the Birmingham News.  Looks like those 20,000 fans of the “Save Live 100.5” Facebook page only generated 4,000 signatures on their petition.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

WENN picks up FM translator, not WAGG!

Kind of a surprise for me, but oh well, this is a surprising business sometimes.  W270BW, licensed to Haleyville, is now broadcasting from the Birmingham area, either from a site in Graysville or from atop Red Mountain.  I'm not sure since the FCC database has crapped the bed and says nothing below 91.1 MHz exists anymore.  Government for ya.

I had predicted that WAGG would take on this translator, but in a surprise move it went to 1320 WENN instead.  It's been rebooted from repeating WBHK to originating a new format called “neo soul” as “101.9 WENN, Birmingham's Neo Soul Station.”  Sweet.

Of course, this doesn't mean WAGG might not wind up on FM at some point anyway… There are still a few possibilities…  

Monday, February 15, 2010

The impending demise of Birmingham's Live 100.5, AM radio and WYDE

No central Alabama radio station has garnered as much press lately as Citadel's adult alternative Live 100.5 has in the last several days.  A rumored flip to talk radio has fans of the format up in arms, with over 13,000 fans on a "Save Live 100.5" Facebook page.  This is quite the outpouring of support for a station whose primary signal barely reaches half the Birmingham metro area.

It's all going to be for naught.

For all the faces that have shown up on Facebook to support the station, those people simply did not materialize in the ratings.  In the 12+ books (which are useless to advertisers but give us an idea of a station's popularity) WWMM placed 16th, behind three AM outlets.  Smaller companies can eek out a living there at the bottom, but for a big company like Citadel they need a bigger return on the numbers.

Right now, numbers are everything to Citadel.  They've filed for bankruptcy.  Cutting costs to the bone is par for the course for these big media companies, but it's taken on a more serious note with Citadel.  Staffing a station with seasoned jocks and a competent programmer who knows the genre costs money, money Citadel does not have.  The cheaper alternative would be music playing off a computer, but music still costs royalty money, too.  So the next cheapest option is to simply put on an existing format that the company is already paying for.  With WERC's move to FM and WYDE already there, all of WAPI's competition has moved off AM, so it was a no-brainer to throw this talk on FM to put them on a more even footing.

Citadel, for what it's worth, is not who you want running your music format in Birmingham, anyway.  They're the ones that ruined “The X”, the much-loved modern rocker, by first putting it on a big signal (and taking away one of Birmingham's heritage black stations) then killing off most of what made it special.  They're making it work with Hot 107.7, but dying on the vine with Rock 99.  Is it rock, or classic rock?  Who knows.  But I digress…
 
A lot of the comments on the Save 100.5 Facebook page have been along the lines of “I'm going back to my iPod.”  Well, that's why this station is going away in the first place.  The majority of people who might listen to this are generally technically savvy and already get most of their hipster music from iTunes.  They're the people who abandoned radio during the great wave of consolidation in the early 90's, or never grew up with radio to begin with.  To them, radio is passé and not worth the effort, especially with 15-minute long commercial blocks during drive time.



If WAPI is to compete today, it must be on FM.  It should have been on FM years ago.  It stinks when people passionate about radio and the music they love lose their jobs, but losing a gig is what radio broadcasting is all about.  It's par for the course.  With music radio's future so bleak, look for more and more talented and passionate people to be out on the streets.

Whether WAPI will see a ratings boost from moving to FM, though, remains to be seen.  One last piece of the Live 100.5 problem is its coverage area.  It has never covered the Birmingham area well, being something of a shoehorned-in rimshot from Tuscaloosa.  Moving WAPI to this frequency won't overlap WAPI's coverage so much as supplement it in Tuscasloosa and points south.  

The real loser in all this, in the long term, is AM radio.  For some reason, people of a certain age forgot that there is an AM and an FM on their radio.  The talkers that have done so well on AM are slowly losing listeners who don't even know those stations exist.   Hence the accelerated move of talk to FM.  It seems strange to a radio fan such as myself, but the ratings magically double, sometimes triple, when a talker moves to FM.  AM will continue its slide into dollar-a-holler preaching, paid programming and decrepit, silent facilities too far gone to bring back to life. Whether the medium manages to survive on this and super-niche formats like regional Mexican and nostalgia remains to be seen.

Finally… We can only hope this will be the wakeup call to Crawford that their experiment with WYDE is not working.  Is it a talk station?  Is it a music station?  Who knows.  Is it a Cullman station, or a Huntsville station?  Or Birmingham?  Not sure.  It doesn't cover any major market well enough to survive, but it's too big a facility to let go to pot in Cullman.  It's future is in as much doubt as that of niche music on FM.  ¿Que Buena? 101.1 anyone?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Rumor mill: Live 100.5 to give way to "News talk 100 WAPI"

Listen up, AAA fans: it looks like Citadel has plans to pull Live 100.5 off the air and replace it with a simulcast of talker 1070 WAPI.  There's nothing here yet, but it may well point to the future home of WAPI's talk lineup.

I had previously opined that WAPI might pick up a translator, but having a full power FM outlet would put them on much more competitive ground with the other two FM talk stations in town, WYDE and WERC.

Time will tell…

Friday, February 5, 2010

Translator updates for Clanton, Citronelle

WKLF-AM has been on Clanton-area translator W238BS lately, at 95.5 MHz.  The signal, however, isn't so great all over the city.  That will change, as a construction permit has been issued to raise the power, from 19 to 175 watts from the current TX site.  The new facilities should allow WKLF to completely blanket the Clanton city limits now.

In Mobile County, Edgewater is making moves with translator W214BW, licensed to the fresh-sounding Citronelle.  It's on 90.7 MHz, with a currently authorized 13 watts.  The new permit will move it south of the city limits to the Gulfcrest community, with 225 watts.

Interesting tidbit #1:  W214BW doesn't appear to exist, from looking at Google Maps Street View.  The FCC data shows it on a structure 190 feet above ground level in a residential area of Citronelle, but such a structure clearly does not exist on the Street View.  No structure exists at the CP location, either.

Interesting tidbit #2:  This sucker's on the move towards Mobile.  There's an application behind the CP already to move it further down the road, to right outside Pritchard.

Interesting tidbit #3:  While checking out the situation in the area, I noticed that a translator licensed to Malbis in Baldwin County is shown with a CP to move from 90.7 to 90.9 MHz.  That would seem to facilitate Edgewater's move into Mobile-proper.  “But however comma” there's a rub — that permit expired November 2009.  So who knows what is going on down on the bay.

Interesting tidbit #4/annoying thing about religious translators #1,334: W214BW is listed on this site as relaying Mobile religious powerhouse WBHY, but Radio-Locator has it relaying WPAS from Pascagoula.   The construction permit data says WAOY Gulfport. The application most recently accepted says WPAS. Damnit people, pick a station and stick with it!  We're going with WPAS.  For now…

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Low power digital updates

According to FCC reports, the low power HSN affiliate in Mobile on channel 30 has flash cut to digital.

Also in the list is W17DJ-D, a digital construction permit for W38BQ in Huntsville, which carries the 3 Angels Broadcasting Network.

Down in Tuscaloosa, WVUA has a second construction permit show up in the database.  WVUA-CA is analog on channel 7, with a permit to move to 14 as a digital LPTV channel.  That is likely superseded by a permit for WVUA-CD on channel 23, from a site near Moundville.  I'm going to leave both digital construction permits in the list until I know for sure which one they pick.

WBMA-LP, the actual ABC affiliate for the city of Birmingham, has received a permit to go digital on channel 11.  For some reason it varies slightly from the existing permit that has been listed on the site, but it's hard to tell what exactly would be different, coverage-wise, because the map doesn't work.  Your government at work.

Odds and ends…

Several Mississippi-coastal FM stations got updated RDS data the other day.  For now it looks like the formats are still the same.  I didn't get a chance to log the AM dial, unfortunately.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the LPTV/digital LPTV sections. The whole LPTV situation is a mess right now, with some stations flash cutting on their existing channels, some displaced ones relocating for a second time, etc.  It needs some serious TLC but I just don't have the time right now.  Getting that cleaned up, updating some of the data pages and creating the Montgomery metro pages are tasks that need to be done but I just can't find the time to sit down and bang them out.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

More translator updates. Joy.

W268BH in Montgomery leads our translator updates.  No changes to this one other than antenna model, as far as I can tell.  But it got a construction permit for the exact same facilities from the same site, so in it goes in purple.

W298BC, also in the Gump, and another antenna model change.  This is getting boring.  Stroh owns both of these, by the way.  The first one up there is relaying WVRV Pine Level, but this one's still being listed as a relay of pubcaster WVAS.  I expect that to change soon, if it hasn't already.

Still hanging 'round the capitol, we find W220DS, Snowdoun, has a change in height and power (up and down, respectively) and a change of city to Montgomery.  It's already in the city, so it doesn't actually go anywhere with this move.  Last I heard this was relaying the WAY-FM religious format.

On to Sand Mountain now, where we find W296BZ on 107.1 MHz.  This station is another in a long line of translators relaying AM stations, this time WAVU.  The translator's licensed to Blue Mountain, but is halfway up the WAVU tower in Albertville.  The AM station currently has a gospel music format.

W261AT in Dothan doesn't have any technical data to update, but I thought I'd pass along that it has passed hands from Wiregrass Media to WOOF INC.  The translator, when it returns to the air from east of Dothan, is expected to pick up sports WOOF-AM.  This translator, at 100.1 MHz, was previously known as the FM home of another AM station, oldies-oriented WEEL.

Monday, January 18, 2010

WTOT AM/FM combo in Marianna, FL to go religious

Longtime standards station WTOT out of Marianna will be switching to a religious format come the first of February, reports the Jackson County Floridian. It appears they will be one of the many victims of the impending shutdown of Citadel's “Timeless” satellite format.

(If you're wondering why I'm even reporting this, WTOT is a fairly distant rimshot into the Dothan market.)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Alabama 810 gains FM coverage with translator

Jacksonville's WCKA, known as Alabama 810, has been on the FM dial for a little while at 94.3 MHz.  According to FCC records, they've just completed an upgrade to the translator, and it's now kicking out a full 250 watts.  Judging by the coverage map, it's putting a good signal all the way up into Gadsden and down into most of Anniston as well.

Translators can't generally exceed the daytime coverage of the parent AM station, but that'll be no problem for WCKA, which enjoys a massive signal covering most of east Alabama during the day.  I listened from time to time to their classic country format while commuting to work in the Birmingham area and found the signal (and the music) to be pretty good.  

Saturday, January 9, 2010

WAGG to pick up FM signal in Birmingham. Who's next?

All Access is reporting that translator W270BW, licensed to Haleyville but forever on the move, is as I postulated going to relay AM gospel powerhouse WAGG.  Radio Assist Ministry is said to be donating the translator to Allan Stroh for no money.  Stroh owns a few commercial radio properties in Huntsville and Montgomery, but nothing in Birmingham.  The name of his company for this transaction, Iron City Radio, makes me wonder if he has plans to enter the state's largest radio market.  Also, why didn't Cox buy the translator outright?  Although FM stations aren't allowed to own the translators they rebroadcast on if they are commercial properties, the same does not apply if the originating station is on AM.

It seems Stroh was on the ball when it comes to moving translators to serve as AM relays, and was able to capitalize on that.

There are at least five other translator move-ins possible that I am aware of:

W277BW (103.3) is the most likely next candidate.  Currently licensed and active on 103.1 in the Pelham area, this station has a permit to move to higher power on Red Mountain.  What it will pick up, however, is anyone's guess.  It's currently relaying the wonderful Alabama Public Radio schedule from WUAL out of Tuscaloosa.  That could easily stay, but the temptation to sell to an AM looking to expand could be very, very tempting.  The only bug in the ointment could be Montgomery's WMXS.  Being co-channel to them might restrict the translator to lower power.  The move to 103.3 was necessary, though, because staying on 103.1 would put them as a third-adjacent to WDXB, which is not allowed under current rules.  In a strange twist of rulemaking, a translator can't be on a station's third adjacent, but it can be on a station's second adjacent.  So being on 103.1 is bad, but being on 103.3 (on WQEN's second ajacent) is okay.  That's the government for ya.

W286AQ/W286BK (105.1). The first is licensed to Northport but the facilities are near the Mercedes Benz plant in Vance.  The second is licensed to Alabaster but has facilites in Pelham.  With cooperation, either one could easily move onto Red Mountain.  Neither is on the air as far as I know.

W271AM (102.1) is licensed to Tuscaloosa and is currently on the air, relaying WJRD 1150 AM's True Oldies format and doing a great job of blanketing the market.  BUT — it has a CP to move to the Tuscaloosa Tall Tower, with 250 watts from nearly 1800 feet.  It'll be a massive coverage area, size-wise, but cover nearly no one.  WJRD is already lined up to pick up a second Tuscaloosa FM from a translator on W292DU  (106.3), from the same Jug Factory Road location as W271AM's currently licensed facility.   Now, here's where this gets interesting.  The construction permit for W271AM appears to extend the translator's service area well beyond WJLD's permitted service contours.  In other words, it couldn't be used for WJRD anymore if it were to get put on the air.  My guess is this is an intermediate step before moving on to Red Mountain.  Anyway: a dial position between The Bull and The Q?  Sign me up!

W241AI (96.1) is licensed to Gorgas, which doesn't exist.  It's already on the air from the east side of Birmingham, relaying Glen Iris' WGIB, with 10 watts.  This one seems to have huge potential for upgrade, but I am not sure Glen Iris would be willing to part with it.  You see, WGIB was once broadcast from atop Red Mountain, but relocated to Double Oak Mountain off 280, probably due to the DTV switchover a while back. This translator might allow them to regain some coverage in Birmingham proper (where the actual church is) that has been lost to shadowing from the mountains.  On the other hand, the church could gain a huge donation by selling the thing. Getting a dial position between 95-7 Jamz and Magic 96?  Sign me up!

W275AR (102.9) is the far-est of the far flung possibilities.  Owned by WAY-FM, this station was not ever on the air that I can recall, but has been licensed for years.   It's hemmed in by WKXX Attalla and WNPT Marion, though, so blasting a full 250 watts from a tall stick on Red Mountain may be iffy.  But something could be done.  A move off the mountain and into a valley to be a true local relay could work for one of the Spanish-language rimshots, or even one of Crawford's properties, as if they need more dial presence. ;)




I'm a firm believer that the AM-to-translator gig is far from over for the Birmingham area.  It'll be fun to watch and see what happens.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Mike O'Meara (and friends) are back broadcasting — with a free podcast!

If you read the old blog, you'll recall one of my first posts was a lament over former Don & Mike co-host Mike O'Meara getting canned from his long long longtime gig at DC talker WJFK-FM, which flipped to sports a few months back.

He and his cohorts are now out from under CBS' contract restrictions and have come back together to give us BM eaters an all new one hour show in podcast form.  How 21st Century!

Mike, newsman Buzz Burbank and all around good guy Robb Spewak have teamed up with Oscar Santana from the also-expired Big O & Dukes afternoon show for the new gig, recorded each day in Mike's own living room.  Nineteen hour-long netcasts are in the can and the show is already hitting its stride.

If you remember the show (and if you listened to talk radio in Mobile any time in the 90's, you probably do), you'll like what the new show has to offer.  Lots of sound bits, spot-on impressions, pop culture talk and general ballsing-about.

You can stream or download the show by going to http://www.mikeomearashow.com/.  It's also available via RSS feed and iTunes subscription, so get yourself a big ol' piece of chocolate pie a mile wide, climb into the nearest crawlspace and get ready America, cuz here comes funny.

The show is also being broadcast on Iowa City's KCJJ, and I'd be remiss if I also didn't mention that Robbay also has a weekend music show on the station, and it too is available for download.  Every show is a reminder of how great radio used to be, so I recommend it as well.

The first updates of the new year…

And a hearty thanks to regular contributor Travis for updating me on some things going on around Auburn.  He notes that the translator on 106.5 MHz (licensed to the nonexistent Ridge Grove, but near the Auburn/Opelika line) is carrying AM talker WANI now.  Also nearby is a Tallassee-licensed translator on 101.1 carying WACQ-AM fulltime, even when the AM signs off at night.  Sweet deal.  It had formerly hosted a hodgepodge of programming, carriny WACQ days and FM'er WRLD at night.

He also noted that the Chinese Christian LPFM station in Auburn appears to be off the air.  I can't imagine there's a big market for a Chinese language Christian teaching station in Auburn anyway, but what do I know?

That's all for now.  Hope you all have had a safe and happy New Year!