Sale of Windsor's CKWW in the works

[Marcus]

Birach Broadcasting is the one who blasts into a good portion of Southern Ontario during daylight hours with WTOR. Now two Windsor stations will be doing it to WNZK's coverage area if this application gets approved in February. In this case it will be day and night.

Some of the languages I'd expect to hear on 580 include Polish, Mandarin, Punjabi, and Urdu.

[Marcus]

After reading about this on another board, it is possible that AM 580 will continue to do what it does now for 85 % of the time each broadcast day.

https://gta.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=10966

[edj]

I admit, I am not the most knowledgeable when it comes to CRTC rules. I do know Ray owns a hip hop station in Toronto, on FM of course, so he has programmed other formats.

I still believe he will amend CKWW’s license to “third language” if allowed to. As much as many of us including myself want the oldies to remain, there just isn’t enough of a market for it unless he spends a lot of money on promotion and perhaps even hire a DJ, and even then returns on a 500 watt AM station would be minimal. He could potentially file to move to the vacant 540 and increase power by putting up additional towers, but that is highly unlikely too.

If Ray files to amend 102.3 to 100% Arabic and use 580 for the other languages, he could argue he’s still offering programming to Windsor in other languages, just on AM. Again, I am not sure if the CRTC will allow that, or if they are aware the FM targets a portion of Metro Detroit instead of Windsor.

The real loser in this proposed deal is WNZK.

[lidoshuffle]

Damn, if this is true, I will miss the format , I also like when they play a Casey Kasem AT40 show Sunday nights...

[Deleted User 16093]

My late Grandpa on my mom's side knew how to speak Polish and German. I can make some sense out of German but know very little. Polish is very hard to learn for an English speaker and Hungarian is extremely difficult. It is interesting to see different languages get some airtime.

I was going to mention 770 WTOR in Buffalo but yeah it is heard fairly well throughout The Toronto area. Daytimer only signal obviously.

[48125er]

I've not listened to 102.3 for any material length of time in probably a couple years, but whenever I did listen to the station and hear commercial breaks, I recall 100 percent of the spots were for businesses located in Metro Detroit - usually Dearborn, Sterling Heights, Warren, Troy, Southfield, or Farmington Hills. I cannot recall ever hearing an ad for a Windsor area business.

It's like those stations registered in Mexico, but Almost all of their advertising is for places in such as Laredo, El Paso, Brownsville, san diego, etc.

[Ben Zonia]

I was going to mention 770 WTOR in Buffalo but yeah it is heard fairly well throughout The Toronto area. Daytimer only signal obviously.

I'm sure WABC wasn't too happy about WTOR. It's kind of a slap in the face for another station to be on the same frequency in the same state as a Class I/Class A. There's a lot of Catskills, Adirondacks, Finger Lakes, and other hilly areas in between to attenuate the WABC ground wave signal that allows it.

[Deleted User 16093]

I was going to mention 770 WTOR in Buffalo but yeah it is heard fairly well throughout The Toronto area. Daytimer only signal obviously.

I'm sure WABC wasn't to happy about WTOR. It's kind of a slap in the face for another station to be on the same frequency in the same state as a Class I/Class A. There's a lot of Catskills, Adirondacks, Finger Lakes, and other hilly areas in between to attenuate the WABC ground wave signal that allows it.

Yeah, how did that one ever get approved? I guess because the transmitter is directed at Canada. Wikipedia says it's 13k watts days only and signed on in 1991.

[rugratsonline]

Yeah, how did that one ever get approved? I guess because the transmitter is directed at Canada.

Exactly -- WTOR's signal is directional towards Ontario from its transmitter north of Niagara Falls. When it's on the air during the day, the signal blankets the GTA and Southwestern Ontario, though begins to degrade once you go towards Buffalo.

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?c ... ice=AM&h=D

[Ben Zonia]

Yeah, how did that one ever get approved? I guess because the transmitter is directed at Canada.

Exactly -- WTOR's signal is directional towards Ontario from its transmitter north of Niagara Falls. When it's on the air during the day, the signal blankets the GTA and Southwestern Ontario, though begins to degrade once you go towards Buffalo.

https://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?c ... ice=AM&h=D

They also used measurements to demonstrate no overlap between WTOR's 5 uV/m ground wave contour to WABC's M-3 predicted 100 uV/m ground wave contour. With the mountain ranges in between, WABC probably doesn't get out as well as M-3 predicts, but if they had used measured contours, WABC likely would have challenged the application and held it up. Even on second adjacent frequencies, Class As have challenged or filed informal objections, WLW 700 to an application of WNZK 690 to increase to 5000 watts Day, and when WVIC 730 was first applied for in the 1960s, WGN 720 held it up. There is considerable overlap of WJR 760 and WTOR 770, but it is over Canada and there isn't much WJR can do.

[Deleted User 16093]

Yeah I mean they just shoehorned that one in but yeah it's a Daytimer, so it works.

[Ben Zonia]

Here's a handy link to M-3 detailed maps, but in hilly and mountainous areas, it likely greatly overestimates conductivity. That's true NW of WABC, where it says 4 mS/m, and in Western NY, 8 mS/m, but probably mostly <1 mS/m, based on an interactive topographical map which shows not only New York, but similar areas in Michigan. The WTOR APP uses measured conductivities. The APP was prepared by Munn Reese.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/FCC_G ... y_Maps.htm

Over Lake Ontario, it's likely much more than 8 US and more than 10 in Canada though, which is why many Toronto Area stations locate in that Golden Horseshoe Region.

[Marcus]

This map shows part of Canada and Mexico.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q5zrWbUtreo/ ... M3_map.gif

In New York State there will be no groundwave overlap between WTOR and WABC. Close to Dusk and Dawn WABC will be heard under WTOR in Ontario.

[Colonel Flagg]

Was WTOR a "New" AM? Or moved in/modified from somewhere else? 1991 seems a little late for a new daytime AM to have signed on. Seems to me that new daytime AM's were already not allowed by that time. Perhaps the objections dragged it out?

[Deleted User 16144]

I can’t even imagine how much 580’s ground system has deteriorated over the last 60 years. Someone in an earlier post mentioned that the new owner should consider moving to 540. The reason 540 was turned off and moved to 1550 was due to the deteriorating ground system, which would have cost $500,000 back in 2015. CKWW was built in 1963 and began broadcasting in 1964, that ground system is 60 years old and is the reason that the signal is so bad these days. I bet that ground system replacement is around $750,000 today. This station should have been turned off at this point considering the state of AM radio in 2023, the new owner may have purchased 3 stations for $445,000, but one station is going to cost $750,000 to fix. The license should have been turned into the CRTC, 580 is a total waste at this point.