Acceptable registrations in the queue through March 16 at 11:00a ET have now been activated. Enjoy! -M.W.

Terms of Use have been amended effective October 6, 2019. Make sure you are aware of the new rules! Please visit this thread for details: https://www.mibuzzboard.com/phpBB3/view ... 16&t=48619

WGVS Sale

Discussion pertaining to Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Muskegon, Battle Creek, Big Rapids, and Michiana
mocom70
Posts: 19
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:06 pm
Location: west michigan

WGVS Sale

Post by mocom70 » Fri May 13, 2022 10:24 am




paul8539
Posts: 1108
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:20 pm

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by paul8539 » Fri May 13, 2022 8:03 pm

So what does this mean for us?



ChrisWL1980
Posts: 813
Joined: Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:36 am

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by ChrisWL1980 » Sun May 15, 2022 6:02 pm

They have a translator on 102.5 in Muskegon that I believe rebroadcasts WSMZ in Oceana County. My guess is they switch the originating station for the translator to the AM once they get it back on the air.



User avatar
MWmetalhead
Site Admin
Posts: 11870
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:23 am

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by MWmetalhead » Sun May 15, 2022 8:37 pm

I wonder if that purchase price includes any of the real estate?

If so - that would be a steal.

My hunch is the only the license is being transferred and perhaps a single tower.



User avatar
48125er
Posts: 304
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:50 pm

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by 48125er » Tue May 17, 2022 9:08 pm

Im surprised BBN hasnt bought anymore Sticks here, they only have 102.9 and 90.1 in BC



radionut
Posts: 38
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 6:09 pm

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by radionut » Wed May 18, 2022 8:25 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Sun May 15, 2022 8:37 pm
I wonder if that purchase price includes any of the real estate?

If so - that would be a steal.

My hunch is the only the license is being transferred and perhaps a single tower.
License only. No towers or Real Estate.



cckadlec
Posts: 308
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:43 pm
Location: Fremont, Mich. / Seoul, Korea
Contact:

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by cckadlec » Wed May 18, 2022 11:19 pm

Smile FM really needs to calm the hell down with buying up stations and putting signals on the air. I was always rather critical of them for that practice early on some years back because it's no different from K-Love and other such outlets crowding out diverse content and just replacing it with Jesus stuff. However, I found that Smile's on-air content was decent, the engineering and everything else was too, and I could get on board with them having a decent number of stations they kept up but not so many that they are just snatching up everything they possibly can. They were doing well.

But my thoughts on that have drastically changed in the last two years as I see station after station after station being bought up but they aren't even keeping their existing stations up to par. Some sound like a pile of sh*t; mono-only and overmodulated signals (102.5 Muskegon, dang)... if you're going to expand like this, do so within your means and keep your stations up. Though I hate to do it, K-Love and Air1 (same company, I know) do a good job at that. They're on top of things and when a station flips, you know they'll take care of that signal the best a company can when they have signals from coast to coast. But if you're operating only in a single state, you need to do a better job really. Their website's station list is horribly out of date for the fact they have been snatching up every available signal in the state (that actually may not be an exaggeration at this point given everything I've read in the past few days - 105.5 and now this). 103.7 Hubbardston flipped to Smile but there was almost no mention of it anywhere and took months to confirm they were bought out. CPs go two or more years without being acted upon - 99.9 Grand Rapids sat on that CP forever before finally upgrading, 102.5 Muskegon bopped around needlessly from a 250w to 27w to 250w it seems.

I dunno... once I've got 5 or 6 of the same station on my dial at home and none of them are of particular quality, I think I can speak out and just say "wish they would maintain things better." If you're gonna crowd the airwaves, at least make sure the content is worthwhile and unique.


[ Radio and weather geeks, beware! Coastal tropo studies, the 3-hr. Seoul AM Radio Listening Guide, 6-hr. 500 Top-of-Hour IDs, and Chinese FM at www.chriskadlec.comTuner: Grundig G8 • Location: Fremont, Mich. ]

User avatar
Ben Zonia
Posts: 2143
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2006 10:35 pm
Location: Honor

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by Ben Zonia » Thu May 19, 2022 9:41 am

cckadlec wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 11:19 pm
Smile FM really needs to calm the hell down with buying up stations and putting signals on the air. I was always rather critical of them for that practice early on some years back because it's no different from K-Love and other such outlets crowding out diverse content and just replacing it with Jesus stuff. However, I found that Smile's on-air content was decent, the engineering and everything else was too, and I could get on board with them having a decent number of stations they kept up but not so many that they are just snatching up everything they possibly can. They were doing well.

But my thoughts on that have drastically changed in the last two years as I see station after station after station being bought up but they aren't even keeping their existing stations up to par. Some sound like a pile of sh*t; mono-only and overmodulated signals (102.5 Muskegon, dang)... if you're going to expand like this, do so within your means and keep your stations up. Though I hate to do it, K-Love and Air1 (same company, I know) do a good job at that. They're on top of things and when a station flips, you know they'll take care of that signal the best a company can when they have signals from coast to coast. But if you're operating only in a single state, you need to do a better job really. Their website's station list is horribly out of date for the fact they have been snatching up every available signal in the state (that actually may not be an exaggeration at this point given everything I've read in the past few days - 105.5 and now this). 103.7 Hubbardston flipped to Smile but there was almost no mention of it anywhere and took months to confirm they were bought out. CPs go two or more years without being acted upon - 99.9 Grand Rapids sat on that CP forever before finally upgrading, 102.5 Muskegon bopped around needlessly from a 250w to 27w to 250w it seems.

I dunno... once I've got 5 or 6 of the same station on my dial at home and none of them are of particular quality, I think I can speak out and just say "wish they would maintain things better." If you're gonna crowd the airwaves, at least make sure the content is worthwhile and unique.
As long as the FCC refuses to expand the FM band and or change the rules concerning second and third adjacents, like Mexico, Central, and South America have done, to move the vast majority of AM stations to FM, we'll see these things happen. If you add up all the 70 dBu translator or Class A service areas together, you'll likely be less than the 70 dBu service area of a Class B or Class C1 station. For example, it takes about four Class A service areas to equal one Class B, and nine to equal one Class C1. It would take about 20 250 watt, 100 meter HAAT translators to equal one Class B service area, and about 45 translators to equal one Class C1 service area.

DXers like cckadlec can obviously hear these stations and translators a lot farther, but the average person in an average location with an average receiver and antenna cannot.

There is a lot of translator hoarding and keep away going on with COMMERCIAL STATION TRANSLATORS also. They figure, since there are no limits on translator number ownership in a market, that they will grab all the possible translator frequencies. So it's not just NONCOMMERCIAL/PUBLIC (CMU and U of M) and Christian format stations that are grabbing all the stations and translators. And also, the Christian stations you cite have VERY DIFFERENT FORMATS. There are the CCM, traditional religious music, teaching/evangelical talk formats, and denominational formats, such as Relevant Radio.

The FCC rules concerting translators for AM stations also make acquiring abandoned and underutilized AM stations like WGVS attractive to expand translator options. Going from 10 watts vs 250 watts is a BIG improvement.


"I had a job for a while as an announcer at WWV but I finally quit, because I couldn't stand the hours."

-Author Unknown

User avatar
TC Talks
Posts: 10100
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:41 am

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by TC Talks » Thu May 19, 2022 10:45 pm

Given radio listenership's nosedive, AM in particular, who else but the bottom feeders are going to give any money for a signal?

WGVS was a throwaway 35 years ago, Grand valley just decided it's not worth the money to keep the station on the air so they sold it.

Adding more frequencies isn't going to solve the problem of reduced listenership.


“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”
― Noam Chomsky

Posting Content © 2024 TC Talks Holdings LP.

ftballfan
Posts: 875
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:38 pm

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by ftballfan » Fri May 20, 2022 7:43 pm

I feel like this is to ensure full reception of Smile FM on 102.5. I can imagine there were a few times in the recent past where 102.5 Muskegon was accidentally airing WCSG via its 88.3 Kalamazoo signal



cckadlec
Posts: 308
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:43 pm
Location: Fremont, Mich. / Seoul, Korea
Contact:

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by cckadlec » Tue May 24, 2022 12:38 am

Ben Zonia wrote:
Thu May 19, 2022 9:41 am
As long as the FCC refuses to expand the FM band and or change the rules concerning second and third adjacents, like Mexico, Central, and South America have done, to move the vast majority of AM stations to FM, we'll see these things happen. If you add up all the 70 dBu translator or Class A service areas together, you'll likely be less than the 70 dBu service area of a Class B or Class C1 station. For example, it takes about four Class A service areas to equal one Class B, and nine to equal one Class C1. It would take about 20 250 watt, 100 meter HAAT translators to equal one Class B service area, and about 45 translators to equal one Class C1 service area.

DXers like cckadlec can obviously hear these stations and translators a lot farther, but the average person in an average location with an average receiver and antenna cannot.

There is a lot of translator hoarding and keep away going on with COMMERCIAL STATION TRANSLATORS also. They figure, since there are no limits on translator number ownership in a market, that they will grab all the possible translator frequencies. So it's not just NONCOMMERCIAL/PUBLIC (CMU and U of M) and Christian format stations that are grabbing all the stations and translators. And also, the Christian stations you cite have VERY DIFFERENT FORMATS. There are the CCM, traditional religious music, teaching/evangelical talk formats, and denominational formats, such as Relevant Radio.

The FCC rules concerting translators for AM stations also make acquiring abandoned and underutilized AM stations like WGVS attractive to expand translator options. Going from 10 watts vs 250 watts is a BIG improvement.
Of course, the FCC is slow to change for the better, and when they do change, it's stuff like this... where we have a whole swath of new non-comm stations readying to come on the air. If you've seen the list for Michigan, it's almost all exclusively religious stations. We're talking about 95% of them. So yes, there are commercial stations nowadays that are in the mix, but sh*t, c'mon. Look at the non-comm list!! How is there no variety whatsoever? Was this an application opening solely for religious organizations (it seems that way, though you can see that Georgia Public got a handful of new ones)?? It actually makes Smile FM look good since they are among the very few to come on with Contemporary Christian instead of just bible talk. Among new stations locally are full-power 89.9 Greenville and 89.1 Shelby (luckily the bulk of the stations are elsewhere). Both religious, of course.

* But then we can't forget 89.7 WPHO Burtchville (Port Huron), a new 31 kw'er licensed to... Smile FM. 97.3 in Port Huron finally carried out the CP for a power upgrade a while back; makes me wonder if they'll ditch that translator because with a 31 kw station right there, there is no need for 97.3 anymore.
* 91.9 Midland is another new full-power coming on for Smile FM.
* 88.9 Litchfield too.
* Oh. 89.5 Carleton.
* And 88.7 Adrian.

None are translators either.

Yes, I agree that the average listener can't always hear semi-local stations on their radio. If you're a Smile FM fan and specifically seek them out (such as going to their site and knowing which frequencies they are on), a good deal of those stations are easily listenable on the car radio here. If you are the type who just listens to streaming audio for everything and just bops around on the dial in the car finding whatever, probably not so much. Funny enough: when stations upgrade from 10 to 250w, for example, the fringe signal often is relatively the same. Smile had their 99.9 in Grand Rapids at 10w all these years and when they upgraded to 220w, the signal is only about 10% better here (40 mi. out). I could always hear it at 10w though, but now it is more listenable on the car radio around town whereas it wasn't prior and is more likely to take out Live 99.9.

I also agree that, yes, there are numerous Christian formats. BBN is not easily comparable to Smile FM, for instance. Heck, I bet a lot of Christian broadcasters wouldn't want to be compared to each other either. Regardless of that, we should NOT be having an instance of what was posted recently (in the Northern Michigan forums) when 105.5 flipped to Smile up north, where EVERY STATION in Ogemaw County is now religious format. It's just overkill.

I think the difference is that religious broadcasters feel it is their duty to "spread the word" and will do so by any means necessary feeling it is a (their) service to the public and world... while networks like public radio are there to spread facts and information as a service to the public for the good of society. Except one gets more money (strangely not taxed) while the other - public radio - struggles.

Perhaps what I say or how I say it sounds like I hate religious people. I don't. Some religious content is perfectly fine on the dial. But I don't see any reason why these stations are clogging the airwaves like a disease aside from that they are being allowed to by the FCC. Every station that goes on the air, regardless of what they run, pays the FCC. So, more and more and more stations we get, so the FCC gets more money. You will never see overview like what is done in Canada in which stations are required to play a certain number of hours of local news, certain types of music, etc. and need to apply if they want to make changes to that, and are regularly denied things if it is found the changes they make may impede on another station in the market. With the FCC, it's just the Wild West.

Usually if I speak out about Smile FM, I get a nice e-mail from Ed at Smile. He is the founder, the president, and the engineer. I look forward to his e-mails and I have exchanged mails with him for a good decade now. He makes sure to correct any of my misinformation and explains why this or that was done. Big kudos for that, because we all know how commercial stations sometimes don't give a message or e-mail the time of day from even dedicated listeners, but Ed will message even someone with views such as my own. He's a great guy and we can agree to disagree. I'm speaking out more about religious content in general smothering the dial, not about Smile as a network, because I'll take 50 Smile FMs over 50 CSN (great engineering, btw!) or BBN or Strong Towers any day!!

To close, I was thinking of this the other day: how the *average* radio listener may view religious stations. When you have a long-time listener, for example, of a station like KLT on 98.9, and one day their favorite station switches to Air1, they might think some negative thoughts. So then they switch to another station and become a fan of that one instead (let's ignore the fact KLT does have other frequencies to tune)... and then another few years pass, and that station TOO switches to a religious format. Over time, it can give religious stations a bad reputation.
Last edited by cckadlec on Tue May 24, 2022 1:04 am, edited 1 time in total.


[ Radio and weather geeks, beware! Coastal tropo studies, the 3-hr. Seoul AM Radio Listening Guide, 6-hr. 500 Top-of-Hour IDs, and Chinese FM at www.chriskadlec.comTuner: Grundig G8 • Location: Fremont, Mich. ]

cckadlec
Posts: 308
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:43 pm
Location: Fremont, Mich. / Seoul, Korea
Contact:

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by cckadlec » Tue May 24, 2022 12:41 am

ftballfan wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 7:43 pm
I feel like this is to ensure full reception of Smile FM on 102.5. I can imagine there were a few times in the recent past where 102.5 Muskegon was accidentally airing WCSG via its 88.3 Kalamazoo signal
It's possible, but keep in mind that Smile on 102.5 is currently getting its programming not from 88.3 anymore but from WHLT-HD2 in Grand Rapids since the CP was carried out; the latter is very unlikely to have an interference issue. But with an AM station right in town, it would make things more local. 88.3 Kalamazoo isn't usually a big issue in Muskegon. More so with a bit higher elevation like here in Fremont. I miss the days I used to hear that station as a regular here, before Smile popped up. Then again, I used to hear 88.3 WEJC (Smile also) from the other side of the state regularly too.


[ Radio and weather geeks, beware! Coastal tropo studies, the 3-hr. Seoul AM Radio Listening Guide, 6-hr. 500 Top-of-Hour IDs, and Chinese FM at www.chriskadlec.comTuner: Grundig G8 • Location: Fremont, Mich. ]

User avatar
Ben Zonia
Posts: 2143
Joined: Sat Jun 03, 2006 10:35 pm
Location: Honor

Re: WGVS Sale

Post by Ben Zonia » Tue May 24, 2022 12:59 am

Yet in other states, EMF is gobbling up full power Class Bs and Cs, like WPLJ and WLUP, and STILL plays "keep away" with some of their translators. I think the FCC is going to have to address unnecessary translator hoarding soon. Commercial stations are doing it too. The rest are stuck now with boosters and their inherent interference fringes.


"I had a job for a while as an announcer at WWV but I finally quit, because I couldn't stand the hours."

-Author Unknown

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic