Ratings - Fish

DavidEduardo said:

They also protect WAPA, the only higher power non-directional station on 680 in the Eastern USA.

So no signal to the southeast, either.

Click to expand...

That would eliminate Canton, then. The WCNN night pattern seems to aim mostly southwestward today, and that would explain why. But WDUN Gainesville would be an option if they could thread the needle and send all the power southwestward, basically along and either side of the I-85 corridor. That would pick up Forsyth and Gwinnett and Cobb countie$$$. Cherokee would be a wash or maybe a little improvement.

The WDUN night pattern looks like this: https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WDUN&service=AM&h=N
Just rotate it 90 degrees clockwise and up the power from 2500W to 10kW, and bigger nulls north of the site.
One concern from looking at both their day and night patterns is that they may be topographically compromised going towards the metro area--seems to be an ongoing concern with stations to the northeast of town, trying to get over Peachtree and the other ridges, which is evident with WXKT and WDUN-FM and WBCX as well.

They could continue to do days from their plant off Spalding in Ptree Corners, using two towers, and nights from the WDUN site in Gainesville. Covering Brookhaven (fka North Atlanta) shouldn't be an issue. And they could tear down 6 of their 8 towers and liquidate some of that real estate in a pricey part of town--although a lot of it is in a floodplain.

Of course, the usual questions remain--what is the ROI on improving an AM facility these days? Can they pull off the required night pattern? What would be the loss of using antennas tuned to 550kHz and not 680kHz?

I don't know enough to judge whether your WDUN site would work from an interference standpoint. But, isn't Gainesville awfully far away for a 10,000-watt AM station intending to cover Atlanta? I've gotten another station in the background of WCNN in downtown.

RoddyFreeman said:

I don't know enough to judge whether your WDUN site would work from an interference standpoint. But, isn't Gainesville awfully far away for a 10,000-watt AM station intending to cover Atlanta? I've gotten another station in the background of WCNN in downtown.

Click to expand...

IMHO if they could make it work, they should try for 25 or more KW. There are some really crowded Class B frequencies in the southeast like 1070* were you have 3 @ 50 KW within 200 miles. 1010 in NYC managed 50KW being really close to Canada thanks to a directional antenna farm. IIRC the nighttime sky-wave "protection" is not that tough outside the daytime coverage areas for class B's. The extra wattage should fend off Raleigh's 680


* https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/l...Y&format=&dx=3&radius=200&freq=1070&sort=freq

secondchoice said:

IMHO if they could make it work, they should try for 25 or more KW. There are some really crowded Class B frequencies in the southeast like 1070* were you have 3 @ 50 KW within 200 miles. 1010 in NYC managed 50KW being really close to Canada thanks to a directional antenna farm. IIRC the nighttime sky-wave "protection" is not that tough outside the daytime coverage areas for class B's. The extra wattage should fend off Raleigh's 680


* https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/l...Y&format=&dx=3&radius=200&freq=1070&sort=freq

Click to expand...

If they went hard directional to the SW, they could--and might have to--go 25kW or greater. I'm not an RF engineer but wouldn't a lot of that power be required to null out everything not going SW?

WDUN gets a decent night signal into Gwinnett with their 2500W DA--decent enough to do PXP for the G-Braves and the Glads until Cox snatched them and put them on TOSOTR.

WINS 1010 uses 4 towers at night (daytime too) and keeps the Canadians happy. I believe something like their nighttime pattern:

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WINS&service=AM&h=N

only going southwest rather than southeast would protect Memphis and Raleigh and allow decent nighttime coverage of 4 main population counties of the Atlanta market

Firebird61 said:

Someone commented on Rodney Ho's Facebook page regarding the recent ratings, and was speculating on what could occur in Atlanta. One of his suggestions was that Cumulus could sell 100.5 to Dickey for a more powerful FM signal compared to 93.7. The post also mentioned possibilities for EMF and Salem gaining another FM in Atlanta on 100.5. With Cumulus and now Urban One divesting stations, I suppose anything is possible these days that may have seemed unfathomable a few years ago.

Click to expand...

I don’t have access to any of the money demo’s but IIRC there as an article that stated 100.5 morning show was doing really well. I questioned Cumulus not putting Rock 100.5 on 106.7 and letting 100.5 go to K-Love, but the 106.7 / 104.7 antenna has the current #1 6+ station (The Fish) in the market so the antenna maybe it is one of the best “non unban” setups in the market*. The demos north of the perimeter are more favorable to K-Love. I have wondered why Cumulus never put 100.5 in the 106.7, 97.1 or the GPTV tower with a super directional antenna to protect WSSL and upgraded the power to 50 or 100 KW. They might have to swap COL with 101.5 or 99.7, but the COL really means nothing to anyone but the FCC which requires it to be in the ID, 60 DB coverage for the town and you use to do have to do some kind of “programming” for the needs of that town.

*Remember Jams 97.1. On paper signal the “pure” class C looked good but the station failed.

secondchoice said:

WINS 1010 uses 4 towers at night (daytime too) and keeps the Canadians happy. I believe something like their nighttime pattern:

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WINS&service=AM&h=N

only going southwest rather than southeast would protect Memphis and Raleigh and allow decent nighttime coverage of 4 main population counties of the Atlanta market

Click to expand...

Guys....WCNN has 8 towers now in order to get 10KW. Nighttime AM signals are all about what goes in the sky and across the horizon. They needed 8 towers in the early 1980s in order to get 10 kW. If you put the station any where in North GA, you are going to need at least 8 towers and have basically the same pattern. Once you figure out the "in air part" then you have to figure out where the interference free signal falls and WCNN has to place 32 mV/m over the North Atlanta Census District or what was that area. The reason it was licensed there is because even with 10,000 watts beamed in that directional on the good AM frequency of 680, that strength signal barely covered the census district boundaries. The greatest distance from the tower site reaches the 85/75 split near WSB Radio/TV offices. The southern boundary of that pattern runs just south/east of 85 all the way up to near Norcross where it cuts back to the 680 tower site. The western boundary doesn't reach Sandy Springs. There is a small lobe that reaches north/northwest about half way to 400 from the tower site. I bet it would take 12 towers to get 50 kw at night and all that additional signal will have to funneled to the southwest where the nighttime signal goes now because you won't be able to increase any signal toward Raleigh, Memphis, San Diego, Corbin or Boston. While there is a station in Florida on 680, they only have 140 watts at night so no protection required.

The days of AM radio in Atlanta are pretty much behind us. In September 2016, WQXI 790 sold for all of $850,000. $450,000 of that was for the 7.5 acre transmitter site on Cheshire Bridge Road!

One day, and I am surprised it hasn't already happened, maybe it's a wetlands or zoning issue, the WCNN site will be sold off to a developer and if they bother to keep it alive, it will end up on a single tower off Cheshire Bridge Road with either 5 or 10 kw like it once had before the daytime moved out to the present site, too. WCNN's FM translator is worth more on the open market nowadays than the 680 signal, not including real estate. That's where we are with AM radio.

MediaMan said:

One day, and I am surprised it hasn't already happened, maybe it's a wetlands or zoning issue, the WCNN site will be sold off to a developer and if they bother to keep it alive, it will end up on a single tower off Cheshire Bridge Road with either 5 or 10 kw like it once had before the daytime moved out to the present site, too. WCNN's FM translator is worth more on the open market nowadays than the 680 signal, not including real estate. That's where we are with AM radio.

Click to expand...

Could you get a narrow pattern--all to the southwest and no lobes anywhere else--with 3 or 4 towers? I thought the 8 towers was to get that funky night pattern with some signal due west and to the north. Could you do a figure 8 with a tiny NE lobe, and the rest all SW?

If WCNN moved back intown like where they were when they went on the air in 1968, they'd probably have to turn their night signal way down--much farther than the 5-10kW or downgrade to class D and essentially turn it off. They were a daytimer before and that's essentially what they'd have to go back to. I suppose they could use the Quixie 4-tower array if they wanted to go directional.

The WCNN tower site is in a 100-year floodplain. That's kept the interest in the land low.

WCNN could return to being a daytimer and keep the translator going 24/7, since daytimers can now do that.

jabba17 said:

Fish has more seasonality than any other station in the market, except maybe the sportstalkers (which pop in the fall). Fish does great during the holidays, and swoons during the summer, with "normal" performance during the rest of the school year.

Click to expand...

Fish appears to be running away with it.

K-Love WAKL pulled a .5, even with WYAY's last book.

LegalTender said:

Fish appears to be running away with it.

K-Love WAKL pulled a .5, even with WYAY's last book.

Click to expand...

What months does "spring" comprise?

Of course, Fish has been on a tear the last year or so so a summer swoon may still look pretty good in comparison.

jabba17 said:

What months does "spring" comprise?

Of course, Fish has been on a tear the last year or so so a summer swoon may still look pretty good in comparison.

Click to expand...

It's looking like the 8.8 is from the June book...which still has about 1/3 of May. Still impressive, though.

WAKL is showing 0.5 and WGST is getting the Nielsen PPM 0.1 participation ribbon. So, so far, K-Love isn't eating Fish and with WSB-AM/WSBB-FM flat, the WYAY talk fans have gone who knows where.