Old WFOX tower

Way back when, when Shamrock did a "move in" to Atlanta with 97.1, they built a massive tower between Gainesville and Atlanta. I believe it was the tallest structure in the state of Georgia. Eventually, Y106 moved to that tower, too. I think it was around the time that Cap Cities owned them.

I know WSRV 97.1 has moved off that tower to be closer to Atlanta and slightly downgraded their signal. Is WYAY still on it? Or any other station?

I remember getting a tour of the transmitter shack for Fox. It was an amazing and clean set up.

AMRocks said:

Way back when, when Shamrock did a "move in" to Atlanta with 97.1, they built a massive tower between Gainesville and Atlanta. I believe it was the tallest structure in the state of Georgia. Eventually, Y106 moved to that tower, too. I think it was around the time that Cap Cities owned them.

I know WSRV 97.1 has moved off that tower to be closer to Atlanta and slightly downgraded their signal. Is WYAY still on it? Or any other station?

I remember getting a tour of the transmitter shack for Fox. It was an amazing and clean set up.

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The current 97.1 tower is near Chateau Elan. WSBB 95.5 is also on that tower, as are some of the Cox on-again, off-again translators. Cox has a CP to downgrade from a full class C to a C1 and a shorter tower near Lake Lanier Islands; why, I have no idea. They have also applied to move ITP along with WSBB.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=wsrv&x=0&y=0&sr=Y&s=C

It has an elevator that will take you part of the way up, I have heard.

106.7 (another full class C) used to be on that tower too. Now 106.7 is on the same tower as 104.7, between Loganville and Winder. 106.7's antenna (not to be confused with tower height) is about 70 feet higher than 97.1's.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?sr=Y&s=C&call=wyay&x=0&y=0

I am also a little perplexed by 97.1's CP to move to a shorter tower near Buford.

The tower referred to was built for WFOX when it was owned by Shamrock. WYAY located on it shortly after being purchased by Katz Communications. During consolidation both have been sold/swapped/etc. Currently Cox owns WFOX, Cumulus owns WYAY.
Moves and dowgrades are often made in order to open areas for other stations to move about. A look and what might move if WFOX moves will open several areas of speculation. Cox would only do so if their management thought the entire shuffle would show a profit in the long run.
The downside of downgrading to move gives the result one can see with WYAY today - it now falls to interference in the outlying areas, where previously it faded to noise. The end result is a slightly smaller coverage in reality due to outlying adjacent stations being able to move closer to the city.

I believe Cox wants both 97.1 and 95.5 both on in town antennas. 95.5 has a COL of Doraville and as soon as their lawyers get the cross-ownership waiver it will be moved in-town with the CP filed:

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?list=0&facid=11710


Cox in the past is not afraid to "maximize" their antenna sites like the shopping center built on the 750 AM site. I am not familiar with property values around the the 97.1 tower but is this a really valuable tract of land? Does Cox own the existing 97.1 site? If not then they might have to move. But why not go on the 106.7 / 104.7 tower? They most likely could keep their C and maybe even gain a few feet of antenna height.

Old Fox Tower

I heard from a former ABC engineer that the old WFOX tower had some serious safety issues. Not sure if they were ever corrected. Can't remember what they were specifically but seems to me the repair almost required disassembly and re-erection of the tower.

I've always thought between 97.1 and 106.7 that 106.7 had the most impressive signal. In Carrollton, which is clear on the opposite side of Atlanta next to the Alabama line, I can easily pick up 106.7 on an old radio with a broken antenna. I can barely get 99.7 and 96.1 and can't get 97.1 at all. In the car, it's a similar situation. 97.1 is a struggle and depending on the day, can have lots of interference from other stations in Alabama but 106.7 is nearly crystal clear.

97.1 had an impressive signal to the south. Use to pull it all the way to the Dublin/Glenwood exit about 60 miles southeast of Macon on Interstate 16. That is no longer the case though with a recent addition of a translator in Swainsboro Ga at 97.1. I also lose 106.7 basically in Macon going south because of the 106.7 in Douglas Georgia which is 100k watts.

To the northwest (up 75), I think 97.1 has the best signal because of 106.5 in Chattanooga (obviously).

Not sure which signal is best up 85 north. Always heard 97.1 could be heard in Greenville/S'burg.

Oh and considering the lack of power, 100.5 is a respectable signal. Always impressed considering its only 13K.

acheron82 said:

Not sure which signal is best up 85 north. Always heard 97.1 could be heard in Greenville/S'burg.

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I have picked up 97.1 as far away as Columbia, SC.

kf4rca said:

I heard from a former ABC engineer that the old WFOX tower had some serious safety issues. Not sure if they were ever corrected. Can't remember what they were specifically but seems to me the repair almost required disassembly and re-erection of the tower.

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Are you talking about the current one near Chateau Elan, or the ones they used before that? Is that one reason WYAY moved off of it? I know they got a coverage increase with the move to the Fish Stick, but were there other reasons as well?

kf4rca said:

I heard from a former ABC engineer that the old WFOX tower had some serious safety issues. Not sure if they were ever corrected. Can't remember what they were specifically but seems to me the repair almost required disassembly and re-erection of the tower.

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If there is a safety issue, I can understand getting off and taking it down before it falls. I still believe it would be cheaper to go on the 106.7 / Fish stick.

Uninformed, out of the area observer here, but I'm siding with the unsafe 1700' tower. The C1 delivers a slightly less potent signal to Atlanta, but the economics are not with maintaining or rebuilding a super-tall stick as a rimshotter.

joebtsflk1 said:

Uninformed, out of the area observer here, but I'm siding with the unsafe 1700' tower. The C1 delivers a slightly less potent signal to Atlanta, but the economics are not with maintaining or rebuilding a super-tall stick as a rimshotter.

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At that point you might want to just put all of your efforts behind getting the AJC x-ownership waiver re-upped and move all the way intown...the C1 near Lake Lanier Islands doesn't get you anything besides getting off that tower.

Where does 97.1 have their backup tx?

WYAY gained population within their signal range because the Mrs. Paul's Tower, aka the Fish Stick, is closer to Atlanta than the former WFOX tower.

acheron82 said:

I've always thought between 97.1 and 106.7 that 106.7 had the most impressive signal. In Carrollton, which is clear on the opposite side of Atlanta next to the Alabama line, I can easily pick up 106.7 on an old radio with a broken antenna. I can barely get 99.7 and 96.1 and can't get 97.1 at all. In the car, it's a similar situation. 97.1 is a struggle and depending on the day, can have lots of interference from other stations in Alabama but 106.7 is nearly crystal clear.

97.1 had an impressive signal to the south. Use to pull it all the way to the Dublin/Glenwood exit about 60 miles southeast of Macon on Interstate 16. That is no longer the case though with a recent addition of a translator in Swainsboro Ga at 97.1. I also lose 106.7 basically in Macon going south because of the 106.7 in Douglas Georgia which is 100k watts.

To the northwest (up 75), I think 97.1 has the best signal because of 106.5 in Chattanooga (obviously).

Not sure which signal is best up 85 north. Always heard 97.1 could be heard in Greenville/S'burg.

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The old WFOX was a monster! I had spotty reception of them every time I went through Lake City, FL, on I-10. I also heard them well into North Carolina. Any time a station does 300 miles on a car radio - they don't need to change their tower, they don't have coverage issues!

secondchoice said:

If there is a safety issue, I can understand getting off and taking it down before it falls. I still believe it would be cheaper to go on the 106.7 / Fish stick.

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You can't just pick and choose where you want to move. In today's crowded spectrum even a big signal like 97.1 is limited in where it can move. Downgrading might help but still look around and see what's on 96.5, 96.7, 96.9, 97.3, 97.5, 97.7. I'm thinking 97.5 precludes use of the Fish tower. 97.7 at Rome and Eatonton are factors as is the 96.7 at Peachtree City. Wherever they go they can't increase their signal over the city of Atlanta because of newspaper cross ownership rule and if the Cox chain with its deep Democratic ties can't get a democratic majority FCC to change those rules, one wonders if it will ever happen.

Unregistered said:

You can't just pick and choose where you want to move. In today's crowded spectrum even a big signal like 97.1 is limited in where it can move. Downgrading might help but still look around and see what's on 96.5, 96.7, 96.9, 97.3, 97.5, 97.7. I'm thinking 97.5 precludes use of the Fish tower. 97.7 at Rome and Eatonton are factors as is the 96.7 at Peachtree City. Wherever they go they can't increase their signal over the city of Atlanta because of newspaper cross ownership rule and if the Cox chain with its deep Democratic ties can't get a democratic majority FCC to change those rules, one wonders if it will ever happen.

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IMHO 97.1 could move to the Fish stick. 106.7 was on the tower that 97.1 is on. They might have to take a power decrease like WYAY did to 77 KW. But they should do what ever it takes to keep the full class C status just for the adjacent channel protection that C's get over C1. Atlanta is only going to grow. History might repeat itself. Forgetting about the "fringe" areas is why with the exception of WSB AM 750 no AM station in Atlanta has a night time signal that covers all of Gwinnett and Cobb counties. Also I believe there are PPM units in Douglas county which is on the west end of the market. 97.1's signal is not great out there now and going from 1585 feet to 696 feet HAAT will not help.

secondchoice said:

IMHO 97.1 could move to the Fish stick. 106.7 was on the tower that 97.1 is on. They might have to take a power decrease like WYAY did to 77 KW. But they should do what ever it takes to keep the full class C status just for the adjacent channel protection that C's get over C1. Atlanta is only going to grow. History might repeat itself. Forgetting about the "fringe" areas is why with the exception of WSB AM 750 no AM station in Atlanta has a night time signal that covers all of Gwinnett and Cobb counties. Also I believe there are PPM units in Douglas county which is on the west end of the market. 97.1's signal is not great out there now and going from 1585 feet to 696 feet HAAT will not help.

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The reason no AM other than WSB covers Gwinnett and Cobb counties is also because of FCC spectrum rules. All other AMs except WSB had to protect other AM stations on their frequencies hundreds of miles away. WSB being a Class A clear channel could run non directional with 50,000 watts as their 750 channel was cleared of all other stations at night meaning all other stations on 750 had to sign off at Atlanta sunset. The other AMs did the best the FCC allowed. Getting a class A AM frequency for Atlanta was possible only due to the political pull of the Atlanta Journal which started WSB.

97.1 can't move to the Fish stick at any power because the FCC rules require it to maintain a minimum mileage separation to other existing stations on adjacent channels. 106.7 could move south simply because they didn't bump in to those limits on their frequency going in that direction. The reduction to 77,000 watts is a result of their antenna height not protection to another station.

Due to FCC spacing rules 97.1 will never be able to put a stronger signal into Douglas County. Back when people could pick up 97.1 great distances it was because there was no other station on that channel for hundreds of miles. Not so any more.