WLAV Tower Relocation - new update 7/29

[statmanmi]

And WLAW is transmitting from the new site, the water tower. They can dot the i's, and close the book on both of these moves.
...

It's looking like today is indeed the conclusion of this whole WLAV / WLAW move saga.

Sure, WLAV has been set now for over three years from the GVSU on-campus tower.

But WLAW (FM 97.5 Whitehall) wasn't finalized, as their transmission site on the Montague water tower garnered enough blanketing interference complaints that the power had to be turned down, and new permanent location found.

As of today, the License to Cover for WLAW from about 250 feet up a cell phone tower west of Montague (only a mile inland, along Eilers Road) has been filed. [Tower ASRN 1273834]

Looks like it's also the highest ERP that WLAW has ever broadcast at, now being 6kW. They only had a 3kW ERP from the tower south of Whitehall per a 2015 filing. That location is now their auxiliary site, but only with 0.04 kW allowed, should they ever activate it.

Cheers! ~~ Statmanmi

[MWmetalhead]

Radio-Locator appears to have inaccurate info. Instead of 4.1 kW from 122 meters HAAT, I believe they are indeed using 6 kW from 99 meters HAAT.

https://www.radio-locator.com/info/WLAW-FM

(Post has been corrected to reflect proper unit of measure.)

[Ben Zonia]

Looks like the License to Cover is pending as of today.

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&facid=53960

The 78 meter/256 feet is the COR AGL. The location is slightly above the surrounding terrain.

https://recnet.com/haat?lms=25076f91880 ... e6795908c2

https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/datae ... 2&goBack=N

[Ben Zonia]

The application says it's 1.0 km short spaced to WLAV-FM. But with rounding, it's only 0.5 km short spaced. Either way, they probably can't let the pattern out to 1.000 in that direction, because it's 170 meters HAAT in that direction, instead of 160 meters average HAAT. They might be able to let it out some by changing the panel power distribution somewhat. Whether that would allow a better pattern for some reduced directions, they'd have to model it. Click the Section 73.215 compliance pdf at this link to show the overlap situation.

https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/datae ... 2&goBack=N

[Ben Zonia]

The WLAW License To Cover was Granted today.

https://www.fccdata.org/?lang=en&facid=53960

Here's the Proof Of Performance and Panel Diagram of the WLAV-FM DA. Click on the Special Conditions PDF. There is no panel toward WWDV. Most likely the Northwest panel bays could get more power to lessen the null toward WLAW now. But since radio waves are coherent, it's not as simple as putting more power in the NW panels, like an incoherent random phase light beam source could increase intensity in that direction. Everything affects the whole pattern.

https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/datae ... 7&goBack=N

[ftballfan]

It's impressive how WLAW managed to get 6kW despite being short-spaced (or nearly short-spaced) to WLAV and WJIM

[Ben Zonia]

It's impressive how WLAW managed to get 6kW despite being short-spaced (or nearly short-spaced) to WLAV and WJIM

Section 73.207.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/73.207

If you look further into the rules, you'll see the rules about rounding the distance calculation. If the computed distance is 68.5 km, it rounds up to 69 km. If it requires 177.5, it rounds up to 178. They don't show that in this exhibit. So it's fully spaced to WJIM-FM 97.5 by 0.83 km, and only about 0.5 km short spaced to WLAV-FM 96.9.

WLAV-FM LIC-Z 245B Grand Rapids 68.01 69.0 -1.0 (rounded 68.5 -0.5)

WJIM-FM LIC 248B Lansing 178.33 178.0 0.33 (rounded 177.5 0.83)

Rounding rules are in Section 73.208.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/73.208

But notice that they have to practically push it into the Lake to get 6 kW. Wouldn't be the first time. Look at WMRR 101.7 Muskegon Heights. 101.3 Grand Rapids, then WCUZ-FM, wanted to collocate on the WLAV-FM tower. Pathfinder bought WKJR-FM 101.7 and moved it very close to the Lake to do that. WCUZ-FM never moved to the WLAV-FM tower though.

[cckadlec]

97.5 has been broadcasting at 6kw for a few weeks now already. Their signal went from poor in Fremont to dominant perhaps two weeks ago or more. When I first noted that it was really strong, I checked and saw the 6kw info. Heck, looking at my browsing history, I looked it up on April 3rd, so it may have been much longer than just a few weeks even.

Sure would be nice if they would ditch their 99.1 signal since it's no longer needed; it is constantly interfering with WMYX here, eating away at the signal, which has been one of my presets for more than a decade. Of course, that isn't going to happen. But yes, sure does seem like the conclusion of a few years of this mess with both stations at their full power and getting out well.

[MWmetalhead]

99.1 will probably flip back to Sports.