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.
Friday, October 29, 2010
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ;)
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.
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.
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