Couldn't agree more. One should have their facts straight before posting.
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New FM for AM Seattle translator apps
- Thread starter Roxanne
- Start date
Couldn't agree more. One should have their facts straight before posting.
Are you speaking of the four towers that appear to be in a square?
Interesting stuff! So in theory, two stations could apply for 101.3 with the goal of one of them to move to 100.7 and the other to 101.9 assuming those are both viable channels in the area being applied for? Btw, I just subscribed to your podcast, Top of the Tower a month or so ago, when is it coming back?
The 4 towers near George are supports for one of the decommissioned Loran antennas, which is still strung between them. The site appears to be in remarkably good shape, given the level of monitoring it seems to have had since it was shut off in late 2010 and replaced by GPS. The driveway (1/4 mile or so) is used for joggers, pretty much every day.
So far as I've been able to learn, the only outside signals the staff could see from there were from other Loran stations, used to verify calibration of the signals' timing.
If there's also an over-the-horizon site that far in from the coast, it would also be interesting to see.
I got ahold of the Coast Guard maintenance office (Seattle) a year or so back, as the tower lights had slowly failed until none was left. After they decommissioned the station, nobody was sure who had responsibility for the towers. Unlit 600-foot towers can make a pilot nervous. Don't know that it had anything to do with that call, but it is good to see they've got the strobes going again.
Google and Youtube have some interesting information about the site, and the Loran system in general, if you care to look it up.
Also:
http://www.loran-history.info/George/george.htm
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If people are turning to streaming, it isn't because of translators or crowding on FM. It's because they prefer streaming. Period.
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No, it's because they have better programming.
So you believe that streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and the like have better programming than terrestrial radio?
Because Crainbebo's point, which I was responding to, was that crowding of the FM band may push people to streaming services online, due to the crowding from translators. I don't think translators are pushing people away from FM. I think the average FM listener tunes to the local stations, most of which are unaffected by translators.
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In many cases, yes.
Take a drive from Boston down to Washington, D.C. and hit the scan button, those main carriers seem to survive.
Stations with boring or just plain stupid content do more harm to radio than perceived overcrowding.
KBRO 1490 just got an app approved. 100.3 on the FM dial from their Forest Ridge Park site here in Bremerton. Wish the station was a different format though and more local.
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Agreed, but the problem for both of our local stations started to get complicated by the mid '90s.
KITZ (formerly KTNT / KPMA) moved here in '86, with the idea they could make their living by peeling some business from then-successful KBRO and generating some of their own. They pulled that off, maybe, 3 or 4 months out of the time their first owners had it here, but consistently lost money after that. Too many live bodies and an over-optimistic budget. The well-heeled investors that moved it here poured a lot of money into the day-to-day operation before finally giving up. No subsequent owner could make it fly, either.
For those of us working in the building, the first years were a lot of fun... live and local, news van, remote RV, new building and good equipment. They paid us well and included a family insurance package with a very low deductible. Several future notables got their start there, the most familiar being the son of Larry Nelson. But stuck with 1,000 watts, a false budget and everything else going against this part of the industry, we weren't paying the bills, so the end was enevitable.
The current owner has very low rent, a format that's about 98% automated and uses the station as a vehicle for his political action activities. In that sense, it might be worthwhile to him. He's kept it running longer than anyone else has since it moved here from Tacoma.
KBRO faced its downward spiral after it was split from its FM (now KRWM). Unfortunately unbeknownst to KITZ, the owners of KBRO had been booking FM business over to the AM during its KHIT days, artificially boosting the perceived ad value of the station. They split the stations and separately sold them. The FM proved to be well worth the money, but the price paid for KBRO was not. Without the FM to carry it along, KBRO's impact became more-or-less equal to KITZ's. With no public interest or loyalty to its legacy in the community, KBRO's future was the same parade of failed owners and ideas. It moved studios 3 times, went through bankruptcy twice and, like KITZ, had a couple of extended runs with off-air STAs.
Commercial sales over here, given we're in the shadow of everything that spits from Seattle, are nearly impossible. Neither signal works well at night, so Poulsbo and Bainbridge don't take them seriously. Just about every format imaginable is already being broadcast by a mega company across the water with much deeper pockets. Local sports? Nope. Not enough support to make that fly, though KITZ has taken an occasional stab at it.
So... this is what you get... robo-talk and church... neither of which adds a whole lot to their respective company's overheads, especially now that the main studio/staff rule has been trashed.
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Bremerton demographics - 'Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.6% of the population' (population over 40,000). Aren't they listening to 93.7 for religious music if they even do at all? I consider this 100.3 a waste of a decent frequency unless KBRO gets bought out and flips it to some full-service format that serves the Kitsap community. Could work, but most of Bremerton probably listens to Seattle FMs (and AMs) anyways.
Well, you've made your argument and answered it.
Unless a format shows up that satisfies whomever is posting at the moment, the only solution that will ever satisfy those listeners the stations don't already have will be to turn in their licenses. That's not going to happen, because there's still an economy behind the operations, comparatively small though they might be.
This phenomenon isn't reserved to Kitsap. Take this particular company as an example. They have similar stations in Lacey, Sunnyside, Othello, Ephrata and near Portland and Boise, as well as a couple of larger signals. Down in Olympia, one of the first stations in the state was recently sold to the Catholics for the same reasons these others were affected. These are all areas that once supported and depended on their local stations, but that support for mainstream, full-service programming declined. Other formats were tried and failed, so those who don't care for this sort of channel usage can't really say the community didn't have a chance to stand up for those stations. They are what they are today because, like it or not, their current incarnations appear to be working well enough to keep the transmitters running.
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On the technical side, i'm wondering if they will add on to the top of the tower. Last time I checked, FM doesn't transmit well through trees. Especially at only 100w ERP.
The CP does specify that and, not having talked with them about it to this point, I'd expect that's what they'll try to do. The consultant that did the CP engineering is not from around here & wouldn't have known anything about the site.
Roxanne was right about the 94.5 application for KTTH from the Studio building. Hope you can forgive me my mistake.
This translator will fill in where capital hill shields/shades the Cougar mountain translator...Kinda an on channel booster for Lake Union area. While not free, it is cheaper than the Cougar translator to install.
This translator will fill in where capital hill shields/shades the Cougar mountain translator...Kinda an on channel booster for Lake Union area. While not free, it is cheaper than the Cougar translator to install.
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