Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Radio’s Journal of Record since 1984 — now online & updated daily at www.TheRadioJournal.com
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Scott Fybush - Editor
[email protected]
Signals in the news (I) : A public/commercial tradeoff in Columbus, Ohio. Roger Vaughan is an Ohio State
alumnus, and now he’s selling his Columbus radio station to his alma mater. The Ohio State University already
owns two public radio outlets in Columbus: WOSU-FM (89.7) is a 40-kw DA/552’ class B FM signal that mixes
NPR news and classical music, while WOSU (820) is a two-site AM with a huge 5-kw non-directional daytime
signal and a highly directional 790-watt night operation aimed north from six towers south of Columbus. Now
WOSU is moving both its formats to FM. The full class B signal on 89.7 will go 24/7 news-talk (simulcasting AM
820) by the end of the summer, now that OSU is buying WWCD, Grove City, OH (101.1) from Vaughan’s Fun With
Radio, LLC. The 101.1 signal is a 6-kw DA/328’ class A from a site south of Columbus, and it will become a 24/7
classical outlet when the $4.8 million deal is complete. But Vaughan’s “CD101” modern rock format doesn’t go
away — it just moves up the dial:
+ New identity for a Columbus move-in. “CD101” is becoming “CD102.5,” as Vaughan relocates the format to
WCVZ, Baltimore, OH (102.5). That 15-kw/426’ B1 signal from just southeast of Columbus is a recent move-in
- it used to be a full B signal, WHIZ-FM, 70 miles east of Columbus in Zanesville. Southeast Ohio Broadcasting
System has been running a placeholder country format on 102.5 since moving it into the Columbus market last
year, where it’s been on the market for a buyer or LMA operator. And RJ notes this isn’t the first time Vaughan has
tried to do a deal with public radio: the 101.1 signal he’s selling to OSU was limited from moving into Columbus
by IF spacing to the market’s other NPR station, school-board owned WCBE (90.5). A few years back, Vaughan
proposed a deal that would have swapped tower sites, moving 101.1 to WCBE’s location atop the historic LeVeque
Tower downtown and shifting WCBE to a new site south of Columbus with higher power. That swap was never
consummated — and neither was another proposed deal that would have had WOSU take over WCBE, moving
its AM 820 programming to 90.5.
Signals in the news (II) : Atlantic Broadcasting gets “Wild” in Atlantic City. When Atlantic Broadcasting applied
last year to swap cities of license between WTKU, Ocean City, NJ (98.3A) and WJSE, Petersburg, NJ (102.7A),
moving the 102.7 signal some 15 miles north into Atlantic City, there was plenty of speculation that the move would
come with a format change for 102.7. Those rumors came true heading into the Fourth of July weekend, when 102.7
ditched its “Ace” rock format and the WJSE calls. It’s now WWAC, running a rhythmic top-40 format as “Wild 102.7”
- and it’s now transmitting from its new home on the roof of the Ocean Club Condominiums on the Atlantic City
Boardwalk, where it would run 4.1-kw/399’ DA. From there, WWAC loses some of WJSE’s old Cape May County
coverage, but it puts a much stronger signal over the population core in Atlantic City, for a net gain of more than
93,000 people within its 70 dBu contour.
A chief technologist for the FCC - but not a broadcast technologist. Not that anyone needed further evidence
that the current Commission is focused much more on broadband than on broadcast, but if they did, there’s last
week’s announcement of a new “chief technologist” to advise chairman Julius Genachowski on key technology
issues. He’s Dr. Douglas Sicker, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Page 2 of 3
News of the Week
of Colorado at Boulder with a joint appointment in the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program. Sicker has
also worked at the networking company Level 3 - and at the FCC, where he was chief of the Network Technology
Division. “I am delighted that Dr. Sicker is returning to provide the FCC with his broad and deep knowledge about
the communications networks and technologies of today and tomorrow,” said Genachowski. “His technical expertise
will help the FCC pursue policies that spur investment, create jobs, promote innovation, and advance our nation’s
global technology leadership.”
Proposed Channel 5 in Delaware creates static for radio consultants. It may look like a TV story, but there’s plenty
of radio engineering (and plenty of radio people) behind the petition for reconsideration the Broadcast Maximization
Committee recently filed with the FCC over its proposed allotment of channel 5 to Seaford, Delaware. That allocation
came out of the Media Bureau as a way to prevent PMCM, LLC (co-owned with Press Broadcasting’s radio stations)
from using an obscure FCC rule to move KJWY-TV (channel 2) from Jackson, Wyoming to Wilmington, Delaware,
where it would have fulfilled a Congressional mandate that every state have at least one commercial VHF station
- and where KJWY would have become a back-door Philadelphia signal. In its petition, the BMC, which has been
pushing hard to get the FCC to open TV channels 5 and 6 for FM broadcast use, argues that there was no need to
allot channel 5 in Seaford when channels 2 or 3 would have worked just as well there.
San Diego’s new booster-rimshot combo gets the FCC’s attention. Cherry Creek Radio got plenty of notice
a few months back when it moved KSIQ, Brawley, CA (96.1) 100 miles west from the sparsely-populated Imperial
Valley to Campo, CA, on the eastern fringe of the much larger San Diego market. KSIQ’s horizontal-only 25-kw/102’
B1 signal from Campo was quickly augmented by a 700-watt booster signal from Mother Miguel Mountain, much
closer to San Diego, and that’s when the buzz started around the market, as reports flew that KSIQ was running
only the booster and not the “main” signal from Campo. The FCC sent a field agent to check things out, and on June
17 it sent CCR a Notice of Violation alleging that two inspections in May indeed turned up no signal from the Campo
site. The notice points out that section 74.1231(i) of the booster rules requires a booster to retransmit the signal of
its main station - which it can’t do when the main station is off the air.
EMF makes its Chicago move. WJKL (94.3) was one of the few stations EMF Broadcasting has bought for its
national “K-Love” network that didn’t require a new callsign. But the calls were about the only thing EMF left alone: it
changed WJKL’s city of license from Elgin to Glendale Heights, and now it’s turned on a new transmitter site for the
suburban Chicago station. WJKL had been a 6-kw/328’ class A signal from its old Elgin location, but it’s now running
3.5-kw/440’ from its new transmitter site atop an office tower in Oak Brook, about a dozen miles closer to downtown
Chicago. WJKL’s new 2-bay antenna is the second radio facility atop the Oakbrook Terrace Tower, the tallest building
in Chicago’s western suburbs. There’s already an auxiliary facility there for SBS’ WLEY-FM, Aurora, IL (107.9).
+ A backfill for “K-Love” fans in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. The move of WJKL won’t leave listeners in the
area around Elgin without access to “K-Love” and its contemporary Christian format, thanks to another new EMF
signal. WZKL, Woodstock, IL (91.7) signed on last week as a 6.5-kw/354’ B1 facility transmitting from a site in
Marengo, IL, northwest of Elgin and not far from the Wisconsin border, and covering much of the area that WJKL
gives up with its southeastern shift into the core of the Chicago market.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Page 3 of 3
News of the Week
CBS tries again for a Baltimore FM auxiliary site. Earlier this year, the FCC granted - and then promptly rescinded
— an application from CBS Radio’s WJZ-FM, Catonsville, MD (105.7) to put an auxiliary transmitter at the big
candelabra tower on Baltimore’s TV Hill, just north of downtown. The grant was pulled back after a complaint from
Peter and John Fellowship’s WRBS-FM, Baltimore (95.1), which complained that the auxiliary site was far too close
to its own transmitter site to be acceptable under the FCC’s rules designed to prevent intermediate-frequency (IF)
interference to stations 10.6 and 10.8 MHz apart. Now WJZ-FM is back with an amended application that includes
a petition for reconsideration of the denial. CBS Radio says there’s plenty of FCC precedent that says those IFspacing rules don’t apply to auxiliary FM applications like WJZ-FM’s.
San Francisco’s “La Raza” gets the green light to cross the Bay. The Bay Area FM signal at 93.3 has been
something of a migrant over the years. As KOIT-FM and then as KYA-FM, it operated from the old KYA (1260, now
KSFB) tower site at Candlestick Point in southeastern San Francisco before moving across the bay to a new site in
the hills above Berkeley two decades ago. That site offered coverage benefits in the East Bay, but was problematic
in some parts of San Francisco itself and down into the South Bay. Now 93.3 — which is today owned by SBS under
the calls KRZZ — is once again on the move. The FCC has granted KRZZ a construction permit to move back to
the west side of San Francisco Bay, trading its present 50-kw/492’ class B facility for 6-kw/1362’ from the Mount
San Bruno tower farm that overlooks San Francisco International Airport from the antenna farm atop San Bruno
Mountain just south of The City.
FM move-in in Sioux City, Nebraska. Wayne Radio Works has received the FCC’s blessing to move its KCTY,
Wayne, NE (104.9) closer to the biggest market in northeastern Nebraska, Sioux City. KCTY’s newly-minted
construction permit keeps the station as a 25-kw/328’ C3, but it moves the station 15 miles northeast to a new tower
site in Hubbard, NE and a new city of license of Emerson, NE. From the new site, KCTY will cover all of Sioux City
with a 70 dBu signal, while Wayne will retain local radio service from KCTY’s sister station, KTCH (1590).
Allocations action in central Utah. Back in 2005, Micro Communications asked the FCC to swap frequencies
between its own KCFM, Levan, UT (96.7C) and Mid-Utah Radio’s KLGL, Richfield (93.7C), a move that would
have allowed KCFM to improve its signal north towards Provo and Salt Lake City. The FCC denied that move,
and rejected Mid-Utah’s counterproposal to move KLGL (on 93.7) north to Mount Pleasant. Mid-Utah sold KLGL
to Sanpete County Broadcasting, which returned to the FCC with an appeal, arguing that the Commission had
erred when it said the proposed new KLGL transmitter site would be within the Manti-La National Forest and thus
unbuildable. Last week, the FCC granted Sanpete’s petition for reconsideration, allowing KLGL to move north to
Mount Pleasant on 93.7C.
Copyright 2010. M Street Corporation. All rights reserved. No portion of the Radio Journal may be copied, faxed, retransmitted or reproduced in any form without written
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online at www.TheRadioJournal.com. Annual rate: $169. Scott Fybush, Editor. To advertise, call Gene McKay, General Manager, 800-640-8852 or Beth Dell’Isola, 770-831-4585.