99.9 WHCH on the air

[cckadlec]

WMOM had been advertising a special announcement coming Monday at noon, which was quite clearly about 99.9 given the fact my comment about the frequency on their Facebook post was quite promptly deleted to keep their surprise alive. And it looks like at least one person here got the WHCH calls as Hot Country Hits spot on (in a different thread) too.

I managed to record their announcement live on WMOM here from Fremont, but hadn't expected them to turn 99.9 on live on the air, though did figure it would turn on around the same time. Obviously with that, I didn't get the actual station sign-on as I can't record both at once, but I did flip it to 99.9 for the remainder of their first song which is fine with me.

Announcement + 99.9's first song and ID
99.9 TOH ID at 1pm

My personal opinion on it all:

It's not a bad choice to have the frequency as country (though it would have been nice to have something... else... something more community-oriented or something more eclectic, though perhaps the local population isn't into that). There is always 94.9 as a country local too, but frankly, most of those Ludington area signals are crap. Signals that barely get out anywhere despite their power, dead air on 97.7/98.7 far too often, poor quality engineering, etc. They're issues that plague most local stations in the area. WMOM knows how to run a good quality local station, so I don't see any downside and think listeners will be quick to flock to the new signal.

As I am a DXer, I'm certainly not thrilled about the further loss of a frequency, but... WHCH puts out a weak signal here in Fremont, just 38 miles away (that is essentially a very poor signal assuming the station is at full power). I'm not sure it will be reliable in the car at all, and Live 99.9 still very easily comes in here. At noon when they signed on, it was difficult to pick up WHCH at all with both Live 99.9 and BBN still dominating. I could walk around the house with the portable and find it, but not so listenable. And then there is Smile FM on the side of those. I do a lot of DX hobby listening at Silver Lake Dunes, Ludington, and Manistee though, so this will suck. But in my eyes, if you're going to sign on a new station and take up a frequency, do it local and do it right. And I'm quite confident that they will do just that.

[hunterw]

Here In manistee the Signal is weak right now but is coming in better than 94.9. Probably get better like WMOM did after time.
Station sounds really good and nice to have another local choice for music.

[ChrisWL1980]

Those of us who remember when 98.3 in Munising did a Hot Country format with those same calls in the '90s saw this coming.