• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

WMEX 1510 Boston

Motown said:
This is my first post but I have been a long time reader of this website. I absolutely agree with Mr. Fybush that posters who post third party Facebook or other website info without validating that information does a tremendous disservice to all who read their posts. Very basic FCC law and rules are easy to find. Clearly, a station has one year to get back on the air per law. Very basic. No exceptions. I would encourage the posters here to check their facts BEFORE posting misinformation. With WMEX, Mr. Perry is clearly a very knowledgeable professional who knows the rules. I believe he really doesn't care about the AM signals, so he will spend the least amount possible for AM coverage. The FM translators are the valuable commodity. My guess he will use both translators to transmit WATD to a wider audience.
Click to expand...

Wow

someone complains about not checking facts and posts that they GUESS he will use the translators to transmit WATD to a wider audience?

WATD what? AM or FM?

Trust me, when it comes to spending the least amount possible, Ed Perry is a genius.... just ask everyone that worked there for nothing on the overnight shift for free in violation of all sorts of laws.

IMHO the purchase of the Brockton AM , now dark was a waste of money and a huge mistake, and the 1510 signal also is a huge waste of money. I DGARA about the translators. they can be forced off the air by complaints from other stations right? If the translators are reduced to flea powered poor coverage operations, what value do they have?

And as for 2 of the recent posters. One of you is a big time industry professional, the other is we don't know.

This website is not an industry only board, it is open to enthusiasts, and not all of us read FCC filings as part of our business ventures.

come off your high horses
 
fybush said:
The new translators will also have to protect other nearby signals, including Bob Bittner's 101.3 WJIB translator. In practice, as I've said previously, the Weymouth signal will reach from Quincy and Braintree to Cohasset and Hull, while the Brockton translator will mostly cover Brockton. They won't be Boston signals.
Click to expand...

The real question is whether there is enough local business in the Brockton area to support a station.

I don't know that area of the market, so the question is whether it's all chain stores and big box operations, or are there enough locally owned business that are big enough to advertise?

The approximate coverage of 101.1's 60 dbu is around 120,000 persons. Considering that even markets of 15,000 to 20,000 can support one or more stations, the coverage area is "big enough". But is there enough economic activity that is not controlled by national or regional and agency accounts?
 
Brockton is one of the poorest cities in New England, but it is in the midst of a variety of large suburban communities (suburbs of Boston, not Brockton) ranging from lower middle to middle class (Stoughton) to upper middle to upper class (Sharon). I can't see Brockton itself having enough potential advertisers to sustain a radio station, so the suburbs may have to pick up the slack. Brockton also is 32 percent black and has a significant Cape Verdean population, hardly fertile ground for WJIB's brand of nostalgia.
 
CTListener said:
Brockton is one of the poorest cities in New England, but it is in the midst of a variety of large suburban communities (suburbs of Boston, not Brockton) ranging from lower middle to middle class (Stoughton) to upper middle to upper class (Sharon). I can't see Brockton itself having enough potential advertisers to sustain a radio station, so the suburbs may have to pick up the slack. Brockton also is 32 percent black and has a significant Cape Verdean population, hardly fertile ground for WJIB's brand of nostalgia.
Click to expand...

I was referring to WATD's translator (unless I got the frequency mixed up... it is really hard to keep up with who is who and what signal translates what other stations).
 
DavidEduardo said:


I was referring to WATD's translator (unless I got the frequency mixed up... it is really hard to keep up with who is who and what signal translates what other stations).
Click to expand...

The translators are first adjacents. WJIB's is on 101.3, the applications for WATD and (the possible) WMEX are for 101.1.

I think they are spaced far enough apart geographically that there will be little adjacent interference issues for their power/coverage.
 
channel99 said:
Effectively it will be a daytimer. Non-directional -10 KW days, 2 KW critical hours, 100 watts nighttime.
Click to expand...

This is on 1510AM, right?

I assume this is just temporary....no one wants to have a station they have to crank down to 100 watts at 4:15 in the Winter.

Funny, how much trouble they went through to give MEX 50kw fulltime....and now it's down to 100 watts at night. Although, some would argue that their move to 50kws at night was the begining of the end for 1510AM
 
Wimmmex said:
This is on 1510AM, right?

I assume this is just temporary....no one wants to have a station they have to crank down to 100 watts at 4:15 in the Winter.
Click to expand...

The AM is a way to get an FM translator. It is of no value today by itself.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The AM is a way to get an FM translator. It is of no value today by itself.
Click to expand...

I can't imagine that the translator will have much range....Stations for years have been trying to increase their range, and now it seems a step backwards to try to make a business model work with a small translator . But I guess thats just showing the state of AM radio nowadays.
 
Wimmmex said:
I guess thats just showing the state of AM radio nowadays.
Click to expand...

If the government agency charged with the management and regulation of radio signals refers to FM translators as AM revitalization, it doesn't leave the industry much choice, does it? There are days of the week when I wonder if the industry would be better off without an FCC. Since it basically contributes nothing of value to the conversation.
 
Wimmmex said:
I can't imagine that the translator will have much range....Stations for years have been trying to increase their range, and now it seems a step backwards to try to make a business model work with a small translator . But I guess thats just showing the state of AM radio nowadays.
Click to expand...

The station will be run on a shoestring by, essentially, a hobbyist. I don't think reaching the entire metro with a city-grade signal is what he's after. Whatever the format is, it will be something he likes and can program cheaply. A more cynical owner might just fill every time slot with paid preaching or colon cleaner infomercials, so I suppose radio geeks ought to be grateful for an owner who will try to entertain a small audience and not make much, if any, money, rather than selling every last minute to third parties and collecting regular payments.
 
Wimmmex said:
I can't imagine that the translator will have much range....Stations for years have been trying to increase their range, and now it seems a step backwards to try to make a business model work with a small translator . But I guess thats just showing the state of AM radio nowadays.
Click to expand...

Translators. I don't get it.

As I see it: you must have an AM signal with little reach and for which no one - not even the owner/operator, it seems - gives a hang OTHER THAN it enables said owner/operator to qualify for a flea-power FM channel allocation, shared with 3, 4, or more other broadcasters in the same market, and which itself isn't much better coverage-wise than its AM parent.

Am I over-simplifying, or is this it?
 
nowradioguy said:
Translators. I don't get it.

As I see it: you must have an AM signal with little reach and for which no one - not even the owner/operator, it seems - gives a hang OTHER THAN it enables said owner/operator to qualify for a flea-power FM channel allocation, shared with 3, 4, or more other broadcasters in the same market, and which itself isn't much better coverage-wise than its AM parent.

Am I over-simplifying, or is this it?
Click to expand...

The owner wants to create a station that serves a small subset of the metro, and then go after the local advertisers who can not afford full metro area radio stations. A translator is perfect for that, but it needs either an HD-2 (or higher) lease or an AM to permit it.
 
Wimmmex said:
I can't imagine that the translator will have much range....Stations for years have been trying to increase their range, and now it seems a step backwards to try to make a business model work with a small translator . But I guess thats just showing the state of AM radio nowadays.
Click to expand...

It will cover a portion of the market and perhaps be a viable advertising platform for local business that can't afford full coverage media.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The owner wants to create a station that serves a small subset of the metro, and then go after the local advertisers who can not afford full metro area radio stations. A translator is perfect for that, but it needs either an HD-2 (or higher) lease or an AM to permit it.
Click to expand...

It's happening all over the fruited plain...and along the coasts. A lot of AMs are selling off the land under their mutliple sticks, downgrading to Class D, and betting their future on the translator attached to the AM station. In Phoenix, KPHX 14~Eighty has gone from 5kw D, 500 N (3 sticks), to 950w D, 32w N (1 stick, diplexed) PLUS a translator.
 
How much and at what price

DavidEduardo said:


It will cover a portion of the market and perhaps be a viable advertising platform for local business that can't afford full coverage media.
Click to expand...

What portion of the market? Milton? Not much there to cover.

I'm sure that's the advertising/marketing plan, but as you know, the question is how much advertising can they sell and at what price. A lot of translators have gone on the air recently, I don't hear much of any advertising on them.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom