K223CW Has Returned to the Air

...and now operating from its new coordinates at Neyland. Ah, but it ain't Hector Guevara preaching, oh no, Joe-FM in its full glory, loud and clear in the 4-4 @ 20:45, 09-23-2016.

Well, Joe, is this more anything goes whilst it tests programming, or have you finally reached your goal of programming your own format on the Houston dial? It is a refreshing alternative to hear this on a legitimate facility. If only it was to be a permanent fixture on the Houston dial.

Now, this is what I had hoped for the old Neyland tower, and if left alone, will be a fantastic use of both the translator and the tower associated with it, serving the ever increasingly affluent areas of the Greater Heights, Garden Oaks, Oak Forest, Norhill, and Woodland Heights. The bonus is that we in the ruins of Acres Home, Studewood, Northside, and Highland Heights get to enjoy the spectacular music selection employed.

Alright, Joe. Care to provide some insight? Would it be premature to program a memory button for 92-5?

It is repeating the primary KZHO-LD subchannel 9 right now, while it tests the from new coordinates. Once that is complete, Guevara and the brothers Villarreal have apparently made a deal with one another as its going to end up rebroadcasting KCOH.

Edit to add: Not sure why Joe deleted his post explaining the same. This one is a legitimate facility, covered by a CP to operate from his tower.

Ok Imma ask again lol.


Which KCOH are they going to rebroadcast? Well since you're saying The Villareals are involved I'm assuming Another Radio Aleluya?

Because I had read that the former KCOH was going to be on FM by the end of the year.

OK, Señor, here's the scorecard for you.

KCOH: licensed 1kW graveyarder located on Ennis tower, East End.
KKBQ-HD2: subchannel of 93Q, nothing to do with the current KCOH. The only bridge between it and the former 1430 KCOH is Ralph Cooper. If I ever reference what's on 92-9 HD2, it is done so by calling it "Q2" to alleviate any confusion. KCOH is owned by the brothers Villarreal, and no matter what Ben Hall and his associates may have said in the past, he does not own KCOH. What you hear on 92-9 HD2 currently, has no association with KCOH radio in any way.

Decent signal level but dead air on 92.5 during a check a few minutes ago at my Cy-Fair location.

When K223CW starts rebroadcasting KCOH we'll have to be careful identifying what is what on 92.5. The three existing LPFM CPs in the Houston area are owned by Hispanic religious organizations that will almost certainly have similar programming.

purpledevil said:

OK, Señor, here's the scorecard for you.

KCOH: licensed 1kW graveyarder located on Ennis tower, East End.
KKBQ-HD2: subchannel of 93Q, nothing to do with the current KCOH. The only bridge between it and the former 1430 KCOH is Ralph Cooper. If I ever reference what's on 92-9 HD2, it is done so by calling it "Q2" to alleviate any confusion. KCOH is owned by the brothers Villarreal, and no matter what Ben Hall and his associates may have said in the past, he does not own KCOH. What you hear on 92-9 HD2 currently, has no association with KCOH radio in any way.

Click to expand...

Doesn't make sense for the Villareal Brothers to lease the translator from the Guevaras. The signal seems to cover lots if not less of the same coverage Aleluya already has here in Houston. Does this mean the Villareals will actually have a music station?

purpledevil said:

It is repeating the primary KZHO-LD subchannel 9 right now, while it tests the from new coordinates. Once that is complete, Guevara and the brothers Villarreal have apparently made a deal with one another as its going to end up rebroadcasting KCOH.

Edit to add: Not sure why Joe deleted his post explaining the same. This one is a legitimate facility, covered by a CP to operate from his tower.

Click to expand...

Since when is it legal for a FM translator to repeat a DTV subchannel?? HMMMM

Mrtejano said:

Doesn't make sense for the Villareal Brothers to lease the translator from the Guevaras. The signal seems to cover lots if not less of the same coverage Aleluya already has here in Houston. Does this mean the Villareals will actually have a music station?

Click to expand...

Perhaps it's to give them a presence on the FM dial. Listeners have been abandoning AM since the early 1980s.

ContinuousWave said:

Since when is it legal for a FM translator to repeat a DTV subchannel?? HMMMM

Click to expand...

Anything goes on the Texas gulf coast apparently. You have no further to look than the illegal 87.7 in the triangle.

stan said:

Anything goes on the Texas gulf coast apparently. You have no further to look than the illegal 87.7 in the triangle.

Click to expand...

There you go, another one topic getting closed due to this. Can't you guys follow rules?

DavidEduardo said:

Try "listeners have been abandoning AM since the late 60's when the FCC mandated the end to most simulcasts and new formats were created for FM "sister" stations.

FM became the majority band in 1977 at the national level. In the younger demographics, the change was even faster, dating at least 2 to 3 years earlier.

Click to expand...

The big question is - "why"? Was it sound quality, or other factors. Given the poor quality of FM radios at the time, with crummy selectivity, ridiculously over aggressive AFC, poor sensitivity, bad alignment on the top portion of the dial, no PLL in the multiplex section leaving a lot of radios in mono - I just don't see sound quality as the mover. Sure - classic tuners and receivers from that era were a lot better, but I don't think that the primary FM audience was at home, certainly not the AM top-40 audience - which was on the move more. Even FM car radios at that time were poor. As further evidence - sound quality still isn't the primary mover, because people are content with MP3 and earbuds, which are little better than a six transistor "all Japanese" AM radio with earbud.

Station glut was beginning on the AM band, with worsening interference at night. Even in the early 70's, formerly clear channels were being degraded by daytime stations that stayed on the air illegally at night, and got away with it. Finally being codified into law with low nighttime power and "critical hours"

That leaves content - and the heavy censorship of content on AM radio at the time. The cover artist era was long past - thankfully - but songs had to be three minutes, and certain lyrics were taboo. Rock FM, in the mean time, was playing album cuts with no censorship, because it could fly under the radar. There was no censorship of content, no length restriction on the song, and no real charts to limit the playlist to 100 songs. It was also the era of rebellion, anti-Vietnam war, burgeoning civil rights, and political activism - the things a lot of top-40 stations wanted to stay away from. Some artists adapted - some did not. The ones that didn't - faded away.

So - what did radio learn from the switch from AM to FM in the 70's? Not a lot. In spite of the lessons of the past:

- Continue station glut on the AM band, and start station glut on the FM band.
- increase interference many times with HD radio, and make sure anything creative on HD-2 and above drops out completely for several seconds on dropout (what is the tune-out spec on dead air again? A lot less than 5 or 6 seconds.)
- Reduce playlists and formats on both bands.
- Play what owners want people to hear, rather than what the audience wants to hear.
- Make sure those with money get on the air, those that don't have money are shut out.
- Censor content to that acceptable to legal departments.
- Make sure all content - music and talk - conforms to accepted political correctness norms.
- Reduce the audio quality on both bands by allowing hum - ridden local high school football over phone lines, LPFM that broadcast hum, translators that don't work or pick up skip. Of course nobody cares about audio quality anyway.

In other words - set up radio as a whole for failure by the criteria that killed the AM band in the 70's.

Bravo, Mr. "C!" You said it in a way, so well,
that I am in 100% agreement. I agree anyway, though.
I love the AM band for fidelity and distance. It is a shame
that most 50Kwatt stations had to reduce power so that
other AMs could have their moment in the sun (and moon)
such as Wolfman Jack on XERB-AM, the 100,000 watt station,
broadcasting out of Los Angeles via transmitter out of
Rosarito Beach, Mexico, The Mighty 1090, KAAY, Little Rock,
Arkansas, WLAC (w/ The Spider Man), WLS, WCFL, 93 KHJ
(Boss Radio) and so on and so forth. Radio today is quite
crappy compared to the above aforementioned radio stations.
That's all. And that's enough......SAVVY!!!

AMs running 50KW didnt reduce power over the years unless it was a downgrade...few did that!! Class I-As or current Class As are 50KW Unlimited....only the Class Ds running 50kw day are flea power at night (or daytime only)..thats been the case for decades....

> Quality had something to do with it, but mostly it was the availability of new formats as a product of the FCC's severe limits on further simulcasting; AM operators did not want their AM cash cow to be hurt by a separate FM so they picked formats very different from the "big" formats on AM.

By that logic, HD radio should be a resounding success. It is not.

> Add in the fact that in the first years of FM growth beginning in 1967 the commercial loads were very low... generally about half that of that of AM stations... or less.

Again, true of HD radio - but it hasn't elevated HD radio out of microscopic ratings territory. The only reason creative formats exist at all is because stations have nothing to lose.

> You exaggerate. At the time FM began growing, AM clears had not been "broken down" and station count was about the same as it had been through most of the 60's.

Possibly - KOB sure made a mess out of trying to get WABC in Texas. Only Houston had a decent shot at it. I didn't even know about WABC until my cousins in Houston started calling me "cousin Brucie" - then when night came, out came their radio, a simple null, and I understood who Cousin Brucie was!

> You are talking about a very limited perspective from your own personal experience in a limited part of the USA.

Conceded - McLendon also censored songs in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. And I wasn't the only nighttime DX'er - half of the kids in Midland were listening to KOMA and other stations at night. I suspect there was massive DX going on with kids in small towns around the country. Another kid at a community pool had a radio tuned to WFAA 570 during their top-40 days. It did very well in Midland.

> Yes, stations wanted shorter songs but they made lots of exceptions.

McArthur Park by professor Dumbledore, Hey Jude, Bye Bye American Pie. Occasionally somebody would play the full Light My Fire or the full Magic Carpet Ride. Those are the only ones I remember.

> And for the most part, lyrics were limited only if they contained the most obvious "dirty words" which more or less guaranteed FCC action if a complaint was filed.

Ohio by CSNY - no play on KCRS. So were a lot of other political songs. And songs that had controversy, even if it was misunderstood lyrics.

> Shorter playlists came as a product of competition where the more powerful, shorter list tended to win essentially every time.

Just as it does now (note sarcasm)

> In the 70's callout research was invented to make sure we were playing the right songs.

So - when did it change to research confirming a pre-determined opinion?

> Pure BS.

What is BS about the auction system - giving frequencies to the highest bidder? If I had a lot of money, I could win an auction and program nothing but toilet flushing. Money doesn't equal serving the public interest.

> Yeah, we try not to offend people based on their language, ethnicity, race, gender and so on... as it should be.

Just because somebody is offended doesn't make them right. And creative things like Dr. Demento wouldn't make the cut today.

> There are a few poor stations, just as not all auto mechanics are good and not all restaurants serve great food.

Bad mechanics and restaurants tend to go out of business. Bad radio gets donations and stays on the air because somebody has an agenda and pours money into their hobby. They get a thrill out of hearing their own voice on the radio. Nobody else does.

> As FM stations grew, they maxed their facilities while the AMs, mostly licensed decades before, did not even cover their growing markets. AM sounded poor by comparison, and FM had more formats, and less commercials. AM started its rapid decline as a music medium and within 10 to 12 years (depending on the market), only around a third of music listening was on AM any more.

I agree that those all Japanese six transistor radios with three IF cans, limited to 3 to 4 kHz response at best, and the standard 2 1/4 inch speaker sounded terrible. But have you listened to your phone playing music lately through its speakers? The more things change, the more they remain the same. Only the phones are thinner than transistor radios were. The problem is, portable radios just added an FM band still playing through that same 2 1/4 inch speaker, or maybe a 3 1/2 in those portable radios that just made transistor radios three times as wide and added a handle. I have a bunch of them on the attic. They have one thing in common - they sound little better than the little transistor radio. And FM is chronically out of alignment, especially on the high end of the dial. So I am not convinced sound quality had anything to do with it. Ironically, today's cheap AM radios are inherently wideband and sound great - if they haven't put in low pass filters on the audio.

Wow Bruce. Just Wow. I don't know if I should laugh or feel sorry for you reading some of the comments. Do me a favor, just smile! Do something that brings you joy. Please.

I won't comment on your post.

Is K223CW still testing?

According to the always regularly updated radio-locator, K223CW is repeating KCOH.

Did K223CW ever repeat KCOH?