River's Edge on 97.7

I noticed today that WSRV HD-2 is now playing on 97.7 FM. It's pretty clear up in Buford. Is this new and where is the tower located?

According to the FCC database, it's about 2 miles south of the Mall of Georgia, not far off Highway 20. I looked at the satellite view and didn't see a tower; just what looked like vacant land. So it might be new.

So what are your thoughts on this:

1- News WSB should move over to 107.1 (consider where 107.1 signal is).
2- Move X107 format over to 95.5 and merge it with the RIVERS EDGE for more variety. The signal for 95.5 covers both Atlanta and Athens.

X107 is shooting itself in the foot for two reason: Signal mostly in northwest Ga which is not an area that would listen to Alternative music and the format is simply too repetitive. Combine the deeper cuts from the Rivers Edge and continue with the newer stuff f while on a signal that does something Radio 105.7 doesn't do and that is it would cover Athens - A hipster/alternative hot bed.

I don't think moving WSB News to 107.1 will hurt the ratings. Tell me where I'm wrong.

It was very clear near Hamilton Mill this evening but slightly shaky when I got closer to the Fish Stick in Loganville. This has also been a heavy DXing day all day long. Reception could be worse tomorrow.

acheron82 said:

So what are your thoughts on this:

1- News WSB should move over to 107.1 (consider where 107.1 signal is).
2- Move X107 format over to 95.5 and merge it with the RIVERS EDGE for more variety. The signal for 95.5 covers both Atlanta and Athens.

X107 is shooting itself in the foot for two reason: Signal mostly in northwest Ga which is not an area that would listen to Alternative music and the format is simply too repetitive. Combine the deeper cuts from the Rivers Edge and continue with the newer stuff f while on a signal that does something Radio 105.7 doesn't do and that is it would cover Athens - A hipster/alternative hot bed.

I don't think moving WSB News to 107.1 will hurt the ratings. Tell me where I'm wrong.

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Putting an alt station on an Atlanta/Athens signal is a good idea. Some have suggested something similar for 106.7, which also covers Athens well. The idea there was 100.5 and 106.7 swapping programming, to get better building penetration intown for news and putting rock on an Atlanta/Athens signal.

That said, Cox has asked the FCC to move WSBB intown, once they can get their AJC cross-ownership waiver re-upped. Not sure of the status of that, as that has sat out there for a while.

The problem with moving WSB to 107.1 is that reception east of Ga. 400 gets really dicey really quick. So, you lose the east side really quickly.

jabba17 said:

Putting an alt station on an Atlanta/Athens signal is a good idea. Some have suggested something similar for 106.7, which also covers Athens well. The idea there was 100.5 and 106.7 swapping programming, to get better building penetration intown for news and putting rock on an Atlanta/Athens signal.

That said, Cox has asked the FCC to move WSBB intown, once they can get their AJC cross-ownership waiver re-upped. Not sure of the status of that, as that has sat out there for a while.

The problem with moving WSB to 107.1 is that reception east of Ga. 400 gets really dicey really quick. So, you lose the east side really quickly.

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That is true but 95.5 doesn't cover areas west of say Cobb to Douglas to Fayette point west. Those areas go to 750Am for WSB programming.

Personally, Cumulus doing alternative on 106.7 would be better since IMO, Cumulus does a better job with alternative than COX or Clear Channel. Cumulus won't do it though because I think they have their "rock" eggs all in Rock 100.5's basket, even though it is classic rock.

Cumulus should kill Rock 100.5, make it variety hits or classic hits (pop not rock). Let 106.7 be the modern rock signal.

Went to fcc.gov. W249CK is located off of Friendship Road just east of I-985.

Currently 250W with a directional antenna to the ESE, with a CoL of Buford, 269m HAAT.

Cox has a construction permit to move W249CK to the WSBB/WSRV Chateau Elan tower about 20 meters below the WSBB antenna, go down to 75W, and become even more strongly directional WSW with a CoL of Duluth. Not sure what that gets them in terms of coverage.

The signal is pretty good all over Gwinnett until you get to South Gwinnett then it gets a little choppy. I find that the closer I get to the tower, Q100 20 gets heavy ingress from 97.7 bleeding over into it that it's almost unlistenable. Is WSRV and WSBB close to highway 316 and 81?

This is very interesting due to the fact that 97.7 WMGZ has a construction permit to move their tower just east of Athens, in Lexington, Ga. And go to 100,000 watts. The rivers edge is over running WMGZ in Athens now. It was listenable before.

RadioDoogie said:

The signal is pretty good all over Gwinnett until you get to South Gwinnett then it gets a little choppy. I find that the closer I get to the tower, Q100 20 gets heavy ingress from 97.7 bleeding over into it that it's almost unlistenable. Is WSRV and WSBB close to highway 316 and 81?

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WSB is doing just fine. They're not going to "split the signals," and do one thing on 750, and something different on 95.9. Move to 107.1? Really? This is the funniest, most ludicrous thing I have seen today...weeks. That signal is pitiful. X107 is a good format to possibly flank other rock stations, and not hurt the current CMG properties. Unfortunately not a whole lot of people will ever hear it.

RadioDoogie said:

The signal is pretty good all over Gwinnett until you get to South Gwinnett then it gets a little choppy. I find that the closer I get to the tower, Q100 20 gets heavy ingress from 97.7 bleeding over into it that it's almost unlistenable. Is WSRV and WSBB close to highway 316 and 81?

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You might be thinking of the Fish Stick in the 316/81 area. It's not far off of 81 south of 316, and has both WFSH and WYAY on it. As the crow flies, it's between Loganville and Bethlehem.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3...-83.8180036,13z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en

The WSBB/WSRV tower is on the north edge of Chateau Elan, north of I-85 boxed in between Spout Springs, Friendship Road, and 211.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3...,-83.855132,14z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en

acheron82 said:

Cumulus should kill Rock 100.5, make it variety hits or classic hits (pop not rock). Let 106.7 be the modern rock signal.

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Why would they do that? 100.5 is slowly improving rating wise 1.6 June to 2.1 Sept. Also The regular Guys are rumored to bill big bucks and are not real female friendly which any pop or variety hits station has to have a bunch of. IMHO being an option to 97.1 when they go in a "deep vault / cut" tangent will be a good thing financially.

My radio programming rule #1 There is no listener loyalty! If a radio station (100.5) is playing more recognizable tunes than another station (97.1) a huge percentage of the listeners will migrate to the station that plays the most recognizable tunes. If you will recall 97.1 crushed 96.1 playing around 400 well tested tunes.

jabba17 said:

You might be thinking of the Fish Stick in the 316/81 area. It's not far off of 81 south of 316, and has both WFSH and WYAY on it. As the crow flies, it's between Loganville and Bethlehem.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3...-83.8180036,13z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en

The WSBB/WSRV tower is on the north edge of Chateau Elan, north of I-85 boxed in between Spout Springs, Friendship Road, and 211.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/3...,-83.855132,14z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en

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Years ago, I wanted to see the 97.1 transmitter building. But to get to it, you have to drive through the campus of a home for boys from broken families. I got lost trying to get out and had to ask someone for directions. I was freaked out that he might ask why I was there, but he didn't. That would have been embarrassing.

Friendship road is a mess right now. They're widening it to 6 lanes. So it's probably even harder to get in or out of the WSRV site now. I've got my bearings straight now. Yes I've seen the fish stick just north of Loganville off to the right on 81 and I've seen the other tower coming up Friendship Road and Spout Springs. I've always seen a tower off to the right coming up 316 east near 81. I know the Fish Stick is much further south on 81 and can't be seen very well from this intersection. So I'm not sure what transmitter I am seeing near this area. I thought 95.5 the Beat was at this site when it first moved in from Athens. I could be wrong. Does anyone use that site at 81/316 anymore?

The tower which is on Friendship Road ~~ a mile East of 985 is the original 106.7 tower, built when then WDUN-fm moved from the AM tower in Gainesville 30some years ago. It was'nt tall enough to make a full Class C. When Katz bought the station, the old gent who owned the land next door refused to sell or lease more ladn to increase the height because "The cable company owns that station and they put on dirty movies." He would not budge at any price, so WYAY moved to the tall tower where 97.1 resides which is located off Union Church Road, behind Eagle Ranch, the boys and girls' home. Some years later, it moved to its current location.
The translator in question is currently located on the Friendship Road tower. There was in the 1980s an FAA Determination Of No Hazard to increase the height 200 feet if the old man had allowed the guying on his land. He's long gone, the current land owners would probably sell, but whether the FAA would again allow an increase - or whether the political situation would allow it - is open to speculation. American Tower currently owns it, their income is derived from communications stuff which doesn't need that much height anyhow.

RadioDoogie said:

Friendship road is a mess right now. They're widening it to 6 lanes. So it's probably even harder to get in or out of the WSRV site now. I've got my bearings straight now. Yes I've seen the fish stick just north of Loganville off to the right on 81 and I've seen the other tower coming up Friendship Road and Spout Springs. I've always seen a tower off to the right coming up 316 east near 81. I know the Fish Stick is much further south on 81 and can't be seen very well from this intersection. So I'm not sure what transmitter I am seeing near this area. I thought 95.5 the Beat was at this site when it first moved in from Athens. I could be wrong. Does anyone use that site at 81/316 anymore?

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I think that is the old 95.5 (WNGC/WYAP/WBTS) tower. I don't know of anyone using it.

Unregistered said:

The tower which is on Friendship Road ~~ a mile East of 985 is the original 106.7 tower, built when then WDUN-fm moved from the AM tower in Gainesville 30some years ago. It was'nt tall enough to make a full Class C. When Katz bought the station, the old gent who owned the land next door refused to sell or lease more ladn to increase the height because "The cable company owns that station and they put on dirty movies." He would not budge at any price, so WYAY moved to the tall tower where 97.1 resides which is located off Union Church Road, behind Eagle Ranch, the boys and girls' home. Some years later, it moved to its current location.

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IIRC WYAY wasn't a full class C until they moved from the Chateau Elan tower to the Fish Stick and could get the extra height (albeit at reduced power, only 77kW vs. a full 100kW).

I remember when 97.1 WFOX and 106.7 WWID were difficult to pick up in the Dunwoody area, in the early 80s. Was Fox was transmitting from their old location in Gainesville proper? Was WWID (formerly WDUN-FM) on the Friendship Road tower at that time? The 1980 Broadcasting Yearbook says that both WWID and WFOX were 100kw @ 540' (class C1, but very short for a class C1). Were they both on the Friendship Road tower at some point? This would have been before both of them moved to the Chateau Elan tower.

106.7 was much easier to pick up than 97.1, especially in the days of analog tuners. There really wasn't anything of consequence above V-103 on the dial; 103.7 didn't exist, 104.1 was still in LaGrange, 104.7 was still in Athens, 105.3 didn't exist, 105.7 was still at 105.5 and still in Canton, 106.1 was still in Toccoa, 107.1 was still in Rome, and 107.5 and 107.9 didn't exist. On the other hand, 97.1 kept getting walked on by 96.1.

In point of fact, the WFOX tower behind Chateau Elan did generate a Class C signal, from 1500 feet AGL. Remember, this was before the C0 distinction appeared. And also why the current location is power limited. Alls you had to do when it was moved over there was exceed 1000' HAAT and run it at 100KW in the main lobe. In that it had a half degree of beam tilt, it may have been listed at 99KW horizontal. What that did for it was kept outliers from moving closer. When it was built out, the signal lost to noise in pretty much every direction. Now, it loses to interference, at a substantially closer distance from the antenna.
It kicked ass and took names... I believe at one point when Neil was ops manager and Rhubarb was Banana One on the AM show it did an 8 share one book. In these days of fragmentation, that's not likely to happen again.

97.1 The River, with the exception of a few deeper cuts, is very "hits" based. I would argue that Rock 100.5 digs deeper. The difference is that The River is not classic rock. True, they lean more rock than most classic hits stations but they are not straight up classic rock. They stay away from lots of progressive rock and tend to focus hard on the cream of the crop pop/rock hits from the 70s.

Not sure what the river ratings were back when they turned and burned (which they still sorta do), but I know their ratings have went up over the past two years, on average, ever since they started double shot weekends and deeper cuts on the weekends.

The "top 40" attitude that stations have on all formats is killing FM radio. That's why format turnover is so high today vs yesterday. X107 is a prime example of this. It was nice the first week but alternative folks don't like top 40 repeats all day long which is exactly what X107 does.

I note one of the biggest classic rock stations in the country is the legendary K-SHE and they do it all with the cream of the crop classic rock songs like Stairway to Heaven, Sweet Home Alabama, etc and also the deeper classics like Jethro Tull, Floyd, Cream, and even Steely Dan.

secondchoice said:

Why would they do that? 100.5 is slowly improving rating wise 1.6 June to 2.1 Sept. Also The regular Guys are rumored to bill big bucks and are not real female friendly which any pop or variety hits station has to have a bunch of. IMHO being an option to 97.1 when they go in a "deep vault / cut" tangent will be a good thing financially.

My radio programming rule #1 There is no listener loyalty! If a radio station (100.5) is playing more recognizable tunes than another station (97.1) a huge percentage of the listeners will migrate to the station that plays the most recognizable tunes. If you will recall 97.1 crushed 96.1 playing around 400 well tested tunes.

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Off topic: In Georgia, would you all agree that either WSRV or either WVRK (Rock 103 Columbus) are the most powerful stations in the state (Height/power combination).