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95.5 Move-In Application Reinstated

RadioDoogie said:
95.5 (then 95-5 the Beat) was originally on a tower at GA-316 and GA-81 in Bethlehem when it moved into the market in September of 1999. At some point it moved to the same tower 97.1 the River and 97.7 TOSTR are on up in Chateau Elan near Spout Springs Road and Friendship Road (GA-347).
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I want to say it happened around the same time that WYAY moved from the Chateau Elan tower to the Fish Stick, near but not to be confused with the Bethlehem tower you mention. IIRC nobody is using the Bethlehem tower for FM radio right now, although it wouldn't surprise me if it had some random class A or translator on it by now.

Both WFOX 97.1 and WWID 106.7 were on the Chateau Elan tower when they first moved in to the Atlanta market.
 
jabba17 said:
Cox did have a CP to move WSRV to an existing tower near (IIRC) Flowery Branch, with a downgrade to I think C1, but I think that has lapsed. Also as I remember Cox wanted to get everything off of the Chateau Elan tower (WSBB to intown, WSRV to the Flowery Branch tower, and W249CK/97.7 TOSOTR to the big cell tower by the Hampton Inn at Discover Mills up on the ridge) because of structural issues with the tower. The CP for the TOSOTR move appears to have lapsed, too.
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I have a hypothetical question. I know this is a radio thread, but if Cox did get everything off of the Chateau Elan tower, would they take down the WSB-TV Channel 2 Tower Cam as well? Or would they keep the tower cam on the Chateau Elan tower? As far as I know, WSB-TV Channel 2 has 3 tower cams: one at Digital White Columns in Downtown Atlanta, one on the Chateau Elan tower (they call it the Braselton tower cam because of its close proximity to Chateau Elan), and one in Buchanan at the Storm Tracker 2 HD Doppler Radar site. I don't know of any other tower cams. Last year in 2016 on 2 separate occasions, I was tuning into Channel 2 Action News 6PM newscast, and Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns was showing off camera footage from the tower cams (one occasion was with the Braselton tower cam & the other was with the Buchanan tower cam). Once again, the question is a hypothetical question. Anyway, that is all.
 
When 95-5 The Beat first signed on from the tower off route 81, the station had some major signal issues in Atlanta, especially anywhere near the Richland (Briarcliff) site. It didn't take long for the station to move to the 97.1/106.7 tower near Chateau Elan. That was probably around a year or less after The Beat launched.

The current Fish stick is actually the second tower that The Fish has been on. At first, the station was on a shorter tower (that had been used when Kiss was on 104.7) at the same site. Of course the taller Fish stick makes The Fish a much easier catch in Atlanta.
 
secondchoice said:
IIRC: When Cox bought 97.1 it was already on it’s current tower. It was not a Cox engineering job. .
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That was an amazing tower site. All employees at the station (WFOX,) including part timers, were encouraged to take a tour of the transmitter and tower site. There was even a small studio at the site which, although they used some old equipment that was leftover, was nicer than many stations. Their "main" studio was in a little house in downtown Gainesville GA. Again, meticulously kept. Shamrock Broadcasting, which was owned by Roy Disney (yes, THAT Disney) was a great company to work for.
 
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RoddyFreeman said:
The FCC has reinstated Cox's application to move WSBB-FM to the New Street tower. The application was reinstated after Cox paid an FCC fee that was supposed to have been paid by WHMA/95.5 in Hobson City, AL, which has an agreement with Cox to decrease its power when WSBB moves into Atlanta.
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That poor station, WHMA, has had nothing but issues because of Atlanta. (And probably got paid lots of money over the years for all the changes.) Remember the application to move from Anniston AL to "Sandy Springs" as a full class C? (They made a deal with WSSL to move further away, which got killed when Clear Channel bought the station.) After Y E A R S of squabbling with the FCC, the guy finally sold the station, which ended up moving to "College Park" at a lower power and becoming WWWQ. (Part of the argument was that Anniston would lose an FM service and Sandy Springs wasn't a city at the time.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHMA-FM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNNX
 
If WSRV is to be moved in further once the FCC changes the cross-ownership rule, it will need to first find a new Community of License. The C1 stations from the New Street tower do not even come close to putting the required 70 dBu signal over Gainesville (WSRV's currently licensed community). Whatever new community, it needs to fall into the 70 dBu of both the current and desired move in contours. Think Suwanee, Duluth, Norcross, Lawrenceville, etc.
 
Ryan Williams said:
If WSRV is to be moved in further once the FCC changes the cross-ownership rule, it will need to first find a new Community of License. The C1 stations from the New Street tower do not even come close to putting the required 70 dBu signal over Gainesville (WSRV's currently licensed community). Whatever new community, it needs to fall into the 70 dBu of both the current and desired move in contours. Think Suwanee, Duluth, Norcross, Lawrenceville, etc.
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IIRC the only cities in Gwinnett with licensed radio stations are Buford (WLKQ and WXEM), Grayson (WPLO), WAOO (a LPFM in Suwanee) and Lawrenceville (WISK), not counting various translators. If someone at Cox wanted to give "first service" to a nearby city, they could pick Norcross, Duluth, Peachtree Corners, or Berkeley Lake, or one of the cities in North Fulton (Milton, Johns Creek, Roswell) besides Alpharetta (WLTA).

They could even pick Dunwoody or Chamblee, or Brookhaven on a technicality since WCNN isn't using it.
 
I thought is was 60 dBu coverage you learn something everyday.

IMHO there should rethinking of the COL. You could keep the current COL or adopt the Nielsen market name for your COL if you are a Class A. Class C's would have to choose a market if they have coverage in a market. There would be an automatic grandfather coverage waiver because some markets are too big area wise. Any major changes would be allowed only to improve coverage population wise in your market unless you lose your tower site. The tricky part of such a deal would be in the Northeast where the markets are too close. If you are a Nielsen COL your signal would be protected in that market only.

BTW:

One hour of lame programming @ 6AM on Sunday is not going to have any impact on the community.
 
jabba17 said:
I want to say it happened around the same time that WYAY moved from the Chateau Elan tower to the Fish Stick, near but not to be confused with the Bethlehem tower you mention. IIRC nobody is using the Bethlehem tower for FM radio right now, although it wouldn't surprise me if it had some random class A or translator on it by now.

Both WFOX 97.1 and WWID 106.7 were on the Chateau Elan tower when they first moved in to the Atlanta market.
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Actually the first site for WWID 106.7 outside Gainesville was not on the WFOX tower you refer to as Chateau Elan tower. The first tower still stands but no longer has radio station broadcast on it. The location is Friendship Road (Lake Lanier Parkway) and Ridge Road. It's 850 feet. The Jacobs Family built the site then soon sold the station to New City (which also bought 104.1) Those were the days of 106.7/104.1 simulcast. Later it moved over to the WFOX tower to gain more height. New City later sold out to Cox. When the Dickey Family sold 104.7 to Cox for $280 million, Cox spun off 104.7 to Salem and moved its programming to the 104.1 frequency which better served the African American populated areas of the metro.
 
MediaMan said:
Actually the first site for WWID 106.7 outside Gainesville was not on the WFOX tower you refer to as Chateau Elan tower. The first tower still stands but no longer has radio station broadcast on it. The location is Friendship Road (Lake Lanier Parkway) and Ridge Road. It's 850 feet. The Jacobs Family built the site then soon sold the station to New City (which also bought 104.1) Those were the days of 106.7/104.1 simulcast. Later it moved over to the WFOX tower to gain more height. New City later sold out to Cox. When the Dickey Family sold 104.7 to Cox for $280 million, Cox spun off 104.7 to Salem and moved its programming to the 104.1 frequency which better served the African American populated areas of the metro.
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The location of the Friendship Road tower sounds familiar; that might have been the tower that Cox had the now-lapsed CP to move 97.1 to from the Chateau Elan tower.
 
MediaMan said:
Actually the first site for WWID 106.7 outside Gainesville was not on the WFOX tower you refer to as Chateau Elan tower. The first tower still stands but no longer has radio station broadcast on it. The location is Friendship Road (Lake Lanier Parkway) and Ridge Road. It's 850 feet. The Jacobs Family built the site then soon sold the station to New City (which also bought 104.1) Those were the days of 106.7/104.1 simulcast. Later it moved over to the WFOX tower to gain more height. New City later sold out to Cox. When the Dickey Family sold 104.7 to Cox for $280 million, Cox spun off 104.7 to Salem and moved its programming to the 104.1 frequency which better served the African American populated areas of the metro.
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Was there a "Shamrock" somewhere in 97.1's ownership past?
 
secondchoice said:
Was there a "Shamrock" somewhere in 97.1's ownership past?
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Yes. That's who Cox bought 97.1 from. It was mentioned above. A company owned by Roy Disney, separate from the Walt Disney Company.
 
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Ryan Williams said:
If WSRV is to be moved in further once the FCC changes the cross-ownership rule, it will need to first find a new Community of License. The C1 stations from the New Street tower do not even come close to putting the required 70 dBu signal over Gainesville (WSRV's currently licensed community). Whatever new community, it needs to fall into the 70 dBu of both the current and desired move in contours. Think Suwanee, Duluth, Norcross, Lawrenceville, etc.
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97.1 can't move to midtown. They are blocked moving closer in by 97.5 and 96.7. I am told IF they dropped from 100KW to 50KW, they could move as close as Jimmy Carter Blvd where the 107.5 transmitter is located or could go on Stone Mountain as a C2. They would lose a lot of coverage over rural northeast GA but increase their signal strength over Atlanta metro.
 
When Shamrock owned Fox 97, they experimented for a time with a booster on 97.1 from a tower off Cheshire Bridge. There were (at the time) a LOT of signal problems in many parts of in town. In fact, driving along Cheshire Bridge, you'd lose the station completely. After fighting for it for a very long time (I'll guess YEARS) with the FCC, it was finally granted. They tweaked it for weeks, adjusting the power, but it just didn't work. They had too much flutter happening between the main 97.1 signal and the booster 97.1. Shortly after, they just turns it off.
 
MediaMan said:
97.1 can't move to midtown. They are blocked moving closer in by 97.5 and 96.7. I am told IF they dropped from 100KW to 50KW, they could move as close as Jimmy Carter Blvd where the 107.5 transmitter is located or could go on Stone Mountain as a C2. They would lose a lot of coverage over rural northeast GA but increase their signal strength over Atlanta metro.
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The Stone Mountain site has always been a mystery to me. You literally can see it when the leaves are off the trees in many parts of the market. The old “rule of thumb” for FM coverage was line of sight plus a third. Channel 8 in the analog days was supposed to have issues. Was circular polarization ever tried? Their signal in the “hinterlands” is not quite what the FCC map shows.* IIRC when the old analog 11 went circular polarization it really helped their coverage. Channel 11 (now10) does a lot better than 8 at least where I live.** I’ve been told a higher VHF frequency works better in digital so that might be part of the reason. The electrical ground reference issues should be solved tying the power company neutral to the tower. A lot of lightning protection schemes do this anyways. Has anybody tried 50KW or more from the Channel 8 tower?


*https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/map...ATHENS&state=GA&fileno=BLEDT-20090612ACE&.map

**https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/map...TLANTA&state=GA&fileno=BLCDT-20040302AAO&.map
 
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