The New K107.3 Flint's Classic Hits

[CK-722]

FMFool at 30 feet. I wish I could copy and paste, The units are dBm, not dBu, but the dB difference is what is relevant.

Neither WIOG nor WHNN is LOS, even at 30 feet AGL. WIOG is 1 Edge, WHNN is 2 Edge.

WFBE Minus 12.9 dBm
WWCK-FM Minus 16.7 dBm
WCRZ Minus 24.1 dBm
WDZZ-FM Minus 25.2

W293CA WSNL 106.5 250 watt Translator Minus 39.3

WIOG Minus 49.8
WHNN Minus 51.2

So WIOG is 25.7 dB WEAKER than WCRZ at this RL. Even a cross town TRANSLATOR 3.7 miles away is 10.5 dB STRONGER.

So while WIOG is quite listenable, their signal is considerably weaker than all full power local signals. In the old days, WNEM-FM/WGER was the fourth strongest signal, before WDZZ came on in 1979.

[Deleted User 3751]

WCRZ 107.9 is licensed as a class B 50,000 watt station with a max tower height allowed of 492 feet, but they are only 331 feet above average terrain. They don't have the full signal potential of their license from what I can see. Does anyone know why they have never upgraded to their max height allowable?

[bmw]

Here's a comparison to the numbers here in Tawas City of several stations in that strength range :

-45.1 dBm 102.1 WLEW
-50.4 dBm 96.1 WHNN
-50.7 dBm 100.7 WWTH
-51.8 dBm 95.7 WCMB

These 4 stations I would consider as "locals" around here as each one comes in fine inside of a building with very minimal effort and I've heard 3 of them (less NPR) in local businesses.

btw - WIOG registers a -64.8 per FMfool....and I can say with certainty that it comes in at least as good, if not better, than the 7 or 8 stations immediately above it, all the way into the mid-50s dBm.

[CK-722]

Regarding the WCRZ tower height.

Supposedly it's an FAA issue.

Bishop Airport eliminated a runway that as I recall was a 5/23 runway along about a 50/230 axis. It's probably in their database still, and they probably won't relinquish control of that airspace. WTAC-TV 16 had a transmitting tower that was 467 feet tall, but there has never been anything close since it collapsed in a tornado in 1956, the highest since being limited to about 370 feet. I would think that that would change.

When they imploded Genesee Towers though, the Mott Foundation Building two towers, which the top of are approximately 250 feet AGL, were required to put obstruction lighting on within 30 days of the implosion, according to the OP. Those towers date back to 1930, when they originally supported the hammock style top loaded vertically polarized antenna wires of WFDF. Bishop Airport also originally planned to build 10,000 foot runways, but the EW 9/27 90/270 axis runway remains at 7201 feet as I recall, the 18/36 is 7849 feet . All of that kind of thing is probably still clogging up the FAA database, which may affect the calculations. They also closed the Davison Airport, once called the Genova Airport. The late great Don McComb, who did all the work when they moved from the WAMM tower, said the Davison Airport affected the original site move location study.

[Deleted User 3751]

Thanks for the info CK.

[Willie108]

I asked years ago why the WFNT(At the time was WKMF) towers on Bristol Rd., in front of the building weren't lit. An engineer told me that it was because the towers were between the WTRX towers on Bristol and the WFDF towers at Bristol & Howe Rds. This was back in the late '80's, when WFDF was still a Flint station. I think these towers were right in the flight path of Bishop.

[fairbankshockeypuck]

I was able to listen on the stream earlier today, now it says stream not available in my location...WKCQ stream wants authorization through user name and password from ic2.sslstream.com....guess outside of Michigan no good???? I use to be abkle to listen to KCQ here in Alaska

[DAC]

https://radioinsight.com/headlines/2036 ... -in-flint/

They even mentioned Cumulus flipping WHNN. Can’t believe it’s been 5 years

I can't believe it's been five years either. More so, I can't believe it's been five years, and no station in the Tri Cities market has made a move to fill the gap left when WHNN went from fairly good to pretty awful. Seems strange to me that there is not a demand for a good classic hits station in this market.

[Deleted User 3751]

The closest to classic hits is 1250/99.3 WJMK.

[MWmetalhead]

CK and bmw - good info; thank you for taking the time to post those readings!

I agree with bmw that WIOG overachieves. 98KCQ is another station that overachieves in certain azimuths. Their reception in places such as Portland (eastern Ionia County) and even parts of eastern Ingham County is impressive.

The closest to classic hits is 1250/99.3 WJMK.

The last time I heard that station - it was using the very soft MeTV FM syndicated format.

WUPS, Sunny 97.7, and 97.3 Joe FM are far better substitutes.

Speaking of Joe FM - did they just undergo a format adjustment? Seems all recent song titles have been eliminated in favor of a heavily 80's focused station. Sounds good, actually. Music wise - the station now sounds noticeably different from sister station 101.7 Mike FM in Lansing.

If 96 WHNN were still around, my guess is the playlist would be something like 35% 70's / 50% 80's / 15% other stuff.

[MWmetalhead]

Some of you are going to hate me for saying this - but as far as Adult Contemporary stations go, I think 96.1 actually has a very well structured playlist. I prefer it to 107.9 and many other stations.

I've always liked the on-air jocks I've heard on the station, too, within the past few years.

The jingle package is the only thing I'm not fond of; a little too flimsy sounding for my liking. (I'm assuming the station still uses the same package it used a year ago.)

Cars 108's playlist suffers from inadequate variety, the voiceovers are boring, and the processing is too soft. I think 96.1 is a better programmed station overall.

[CK-722]

WIOG had big ratings in Flint as CHR before WWCK-FM 105.5 went to CHR. Then they fell dramatically because a strong local signal was avaliable.

I looked at that Bishop Airport Runway extension situation. It doesn't look like there is much room at the East end, as just beyond the safety zone just East of the end of the 27/9 runway, you run into I-75. You see all the short self supporting towers with strobe lights for runway marking along the safety zone when you go by on I-75, in between Bristol Rd. and where I-75 and US 23 bifurcate. I looked at the West end of the runway on the satellite map, and it looked like they have acquired all the land to Linden Road. If there is much of an obstruction, it looks like they could build the new longer runway a few hundred feet South and be pretty much in the clear to the West. But I can't find the source of the limited information about it.

My next door neighbor there was the Accountant for Metrocom, and was close to Don McComb, and she filled me in on their plans to move from the WAMM tower to Bristol and Vassar Rd. in 1968-1969. There was a pilot complaint on interference to the Aircraft Band, and for a while, they had to move back to the WAMM tower. Years later, Don McComb told me that if they were just about a mile East, like Irish Rd., they could have been 500 feet. I asked about going further North, but he said it was too close to the Davison Airport. It seems like Ed Rauch at WFBE said there was a problem with the Davison Airport when the FBE acquired land near Courtland Center to build a 500 foot tower for WFBE, where they could have been 10000 Watts Nondirectional at 500 feet under older Section 73.213 Short Spaced Zone rules. There was at one time an agreement between FBE and Goodrich (WVIC 94.9) to mutually go 50000 watts nondirectional. It was actually WKQI that precluded 50000 watts nondirectional, and that rule changed so it was in the clear.

[AuburnViewer]

FMFool at 30 feet. I wish I could copy and paste, The units are dBm, not dBu, but the dB difference is what is relevant.

Neither WIOG nor WHNN is LOS, even at 30 feet AGL. WIOG is 1 Edge, WHNN is 2 Edge.

WFBE Minus 12.9 dBm
WWCK-FM Minus 16.7 dBm
WCRZ Minus 24.1 dBm
WDZZ-FM Minus 25.2

W293CA WSNL 106.5 250 watt Translator Minus 39.3

WIOG Minus 49.8
WHNN Minus 51.2

So WIOG is 25.7 dB WEAKER than WCRZ at this RL. Even a cross town TRANSLATOR 3.7 miles away is 10.5 dB STRONGER.

So while WIOG is quite listenable, their signal is considerably weaker than all full power local signals. In the old days, WNEM-FM/WGER was the fourth strongest signal, before WDZZ came on in 1979.

I wish I knew what you were talking about.

[Deleted User 15475]

It seems The Rain Cloud is jettisoning there talk formats in medium sized markets, last year at this very time or so, The cloud brought The Zone out of storage once again in Toledo Ohio. I must admit, my knowledge of The Flint Market is a bit lacking but I will be curious to see how this new station will perform.

[CK-722]

I wish I knew what you were talking about.

It has to do with being able to tune in a signal in any random location on an average or below average radio with little or no fiddling with the tuning and a telescoping or twin lead antenna at near ground level. The greater the absolute value of the minus dB (decibels of signals), the harder it will be to receive.

I just put in a random location near the center of Grand Rapids, and found that at 6 feet above ground level, WBCT, WSRW, WGRD, and many others are not truly LOS at that height, and are substantially weaker than about a dozen stations and translators with TLs closer to Grand Rapids. LOS does not tell the whole story. There are usually hills and trees and other obstructions in the Fresnel Zone, an odd shaped virtual cone of increasing then decreasing diameter through which the whole signal travels, as it really doesn't travel in an small straight cylindrcal volume between the transmitter and receiver.