the old WJPW-AM 810

[dwp49423]

I miss the former WaY-FM 89.9. Wasn't a big fan of the music personally, but that station had quality air staff, quality imaging, and great sounding audio. I never understood why Cornerstone didn't attempt to improve coverage into Ottawa County, which is an area where that programming likely would've had great appeal.

I'm guessing this is due to the fact Hope College's WTHS also broadcasts on 89.9. According to Wikipedia, the new owners (West Central Michigan Media Ministries) did move down the dial to 89.7 and go non-directional so other than money, I'm not sure why Cornerstone didn't do the same thing.

[bosco]

For the record, Cornerstone moved the signal to 89.7. I paid a very good RF consultant to find a frequency to move WTHS, Hope College to, so we could increase power/coverage of the WAYG 89.9 signal. Not a chance. The consultant sent me all the data, there is no frequency in the NCE band to move WTHS to. But he said, looky here. If we took WAYG and moved it to 89.7, it could have a 60 Dbu signal over Jenison. So we did.

Unfortunately for WAYG, other people at the East Eeltline site killed the Way fm format. Simocast WCSG for a short time, and then it was sold to WNHG.

And yes, going way back, the WEHB/WBYW signal was very conservative hymnal music for about 4 months, while we got the 68th/Kalamazoo TX site and studio to transmitter link operational. A satellite fed signal with a single cart machine for top of the hour ID, with the same ID every hour!

The 89.7 signal was directional when I moved it, and it still is. .

[Ben Zonia]

For the record, Cornerstone moved the signal to 89.7. I paid a very good RF consultant to find a frequency to move WTHS, Hope College to, so we could increase power/coverage of the WAYG 89.9 signal. Not a chance. The consultant sent me all the data, there is no frequency in the NCE band to move WTHS to. But he said, looky here. If we took WAYG and moved it to 89.7, it could have a 60 Dbu signal over Jenison. So we did.

Unfortunately for WAYG, other people at the East Eeltline site killed the Way fm format. Simocast WCSG for a short time, and then it was sold to WNHG.

And yes, going way back, the WEHB/WBYW signal was very conservative hymnal music for about 4 months, while we got the 68th/Kalamazoo TX site and studio to transmitter link operational. A satellite fed signal with a single cart machine for top of the hour ID, with the same ID every hour!

The 89.7 signal was directional when I moved it, and it still is. .

Was that determination made before or after the Vertical Only and Mixed Lower ERP Horizontal Polarization loophole was full explored? The way the FCC wrote the rule, it looked like unless the facility was collocated on a Channel 6 tower, only very low ERP was allowed, and particularly near the Channel 6 Grade B contour. There were all kinds of exceptions, but until the section was fully explored, very few, and very low power was applied for in the lower half of the NCE-FM reserved band. This also became more possible when reasonably priced software became available to do the concentric U/D ratio rings, at least until the companies that made the reasonably priced software were bought out. Without a nearby Channel 6 restriction like now, I would think that a channel could have been found. Look at all the new NCE-FM APPs and CPs during the recent window, with WJIM-TV/WLNS and other Channel 6 restrictions totally gone in all or most of Michigan. There were three Channel 6s that practically limited the whole state.

[Ben Zonia]

89.7 would not have worked for WTHS due to proximity to 89.3 WGNB, I presume. 90.1 and 90.5 are too close to WBLV. 90.7 evidently wouldn't have been spaced properly to WCSG, and perhaps wouldn't have met co-channel requirements relative to WAUS.

WNHG has a null in the general direction of Lansing and Mt. Pleasant.

There's an exception called the Raleigh Waiver which allows second and third adjacent channels to coexist quite close to each other on the NCE-FM Band, which like the V Pol ERP >> H Pol ERP (or 0) Channel 6 clause was used a lot in the past, but now Raleigh Waivers are getting more attention. In the old Days of FM, second adjacents were allowed quite close, including the commercial 92-108 part, before 1962 as I recall. Very early on, there were collocated second adjacents as I recall. Section 73.213 made that difficult to impossible on 92-108 as FM developed with 73.202, 73.203, and 73.207, and keeps changing, and not in a good way, despite receiver improvements. Look at the stations that had to go directional with deep nulls, affecting the whole pattern due to the Laws of Physics plus the FCC Rules.

[Doktor No]

As I have been told over the years the 'basement' in question is the remains of a home that the tornado in 1956 destroyed. The same tornado that came through Hudsonville and Standale and killed 17.

[originalzzmfmjock]

Tornado damage yes, 1956 Tornado no. It was damaged in the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado. WJPW wasn't on the air in 1956. WJPW first went on the air from that site in 1964 from an above ground building that was there before the '65 tornado.

[Duceii]

WJPW in Rockford was pretty much a one man show as I recall- Jack (or was it Jerry) Payne would pre tape (reel to reel) shows so he could go out and sell advertising. He also would work out of his mobile studio which was a small travel trailer that he would take to fairs and the Rockford start of summer celebration. He was a neighbor of my parents on Big Brower Lake and mowed his lawn once a year weather it needed it or not. Surprisingly he was not a very social guy for being a media personality. The station was later purchased by Randy Disselkoen (the jewelry store owner) and it became WBYY with a format of giveaways to callers. It was then broadcast out of the lower level at 28 th street and Radcliff by woodland mall. I think there were only about a dozen listeners who won everything.

[Ben Zonia]

I talked to Jack Payne once. He noted, correctly, that WJPW got out farther with 500 watts than WOOD with 5000 watts. However, the strongest signal was over a rural area, and quite a ways from the center of population. Despite poor conductivity for both, WOOD covered the center of population much better from 60th St. and Eastern, even though the signal wasn't that great in downtown Grand Rapids. Lots of areas in central Grand Rapids got better signals from WJEF/WCUZ/WTKG 1230 and WGRD/WNWZ 1410 with 1000 watts than WOOD. FMs with Nighttime service and partial simulcasts made FM take off earlier due to signal problems on AM.

[Ben Zonia]

Jack Payne was talking about the predicted 0.5 mV/m I believe. In the Winter, WJPW with 500 watts came in quite well in Genesee County, stronger than WOOD. The signals to the East, and from further East, like WGRD 1410, were better as you drove that way. M-3 is not a good way to predict signals. Look at the WCCW 1310 application from Chum's Corners for 50000 watts Day, and you'll see that WOOD radials are nowhere near M-3 in Kent County. The WCPT 820 application for 5800 watts Day from Northwest Chicago shows the measured radials from WMJH 810, and to the West and Northwest are nowhere near M-3. The WOOD 5000 watt Night signal was stronger at Night toward central Grand Rapids.

I had a relative who lived about a mile from WGRD 1410 and from WJEF 1230 in another direction back in he 1960s. He built a one transistor radio in an Electronics class. He got WGRD in the Daytime, and WJEF at Night. Not a hint of WOOD. We stayed at the Beltline Motel. I had a Hearever Rocket Crystal Radio. I couldn't get anything on it there. You could hear 25 mV/m stations easily with a connection to a lamp. Had a very good Germanium Diode. The Motel looked like the one story part on the post card linked below in the 1960s.

https://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/l ... 45&type=14

Did I tell you about WKZO having to stay on Night Pattern from 6:00 PM to 10:00 AM every day until 1968 to protect WOW 590 Omaha? That doubled their signal into Grand Rapids, and gave Fetzer a near de facto duopoly with WJEF during Morning and Evening Drive times. I'm sure John Fetzer was happy about that aspect, and few people lived in the nulls around Kalamazoo at the time.

The Quaternary Geology Maps show what is apparently less sandy sweet spot toward Holland. The WHTC radials on the now defunct WKPR 1440 application show better the the M-3 2 mS/m also. I'm not sure if WMFN 640 did any radials because it was nondirectional from there. WJBL/WPNW 1260 did radials for that area that exist somewhere.

[Ben Zonia]

I just figured out the distance to the 0.5 mV/m to the East based on the old 500 watt facility of WJPW, and the 0.5 mV/m to the East based on the old 5000 watt nondirectional Day facility of WOOD. Based on M-3, they would both get out 53 miles. A lot of assumptions. WJPW is a couple miles further East though, so the 0.5 mV/m contour with 500 watts would actually extend further East than old WOOD 0.5 mV/m with 5000 watts. So based on all those assumptions, Jack Payne was right. At closer distances and contours, WOOD would be stronger.

[Colonel Flagg]

Trophyhead brings up a good point.

Did Sima, or his successors, ever get any "working johns" at the Rockford station? The way I remember the story, the porta-crapper only showed up after complaints from adjacent property owners. What a classy business we're in!