radiofan wrote:Why not move to the 1200 spot?
I'm a little rusty on the history of the frequency, but I was always "under the impression" that there was never more than one station (on the air at the same time) on 1200 in Western Canada. Since there seems like a good chance that the ethnic Vancouver area will make it on to the air, given that it is essentially a flip from an existing and successful FM subcarrier station, I wasn't sure that the CRTC would license two stations on 1200.
Thinking about it, it probably depends entirely on how the Vancouver station is licensed currently, specifically how their night-time directional pattern looks towards the North East. Alberta's pattern would never be an issue, as they could just shove a stick in the ground just South of Wetaskiwin, and have a tight Northern pattern at night, running as much as 50KW. But, unless Vancouver is at least partially protecting the NE at night, it could really harm Wetaskiwin. Sounds far fetched? In the '60s, 50KW WGAR-1220 Cleveland dominated at night in almost half of St. Catharines, Ontario, even though there was a local station on that frequency. Or, closer to home, XETRA-690 Tijuana, with its tight Northern pattern, frequently dominated on the frequency after dark in White Rock in the '60s, just a few miles South of CBU-690's Richmond transmitter. Victoria was hopeless at night.
All that said, I would like to see Wetaskiwin get a better signal, but I think it will have to be on AM if their secret agenda is to make a dent in the Edmonton market. 50KW CAM-FM is pretty tough going in many parts of Edmonton and Camrose is a lot closer than Wetaskiwin.
There must some frequencies available for a decent 25KW or 50KW license. Lloydminster's CKSA-1080 was 50KW day, 10KW night, and is currently silent. Wasn't Red Deer's CKRD 50KW day and night on 700 KHz before they flipped to FM? That is a really clear channel. Utah has 50KW days, but only 1KW nights. There is 10KW in Anchorage. And the original owner, WLW in Cincinnati, is still 50KW non-directional day and night (they were 500KW in the 1930s!!!).
As for the programming, so far I've heard two novel features on W-1400:
- Random Block Programming of Open Carrier (silence for about an hour), first heard at 5:40 this evening and over by 6:20 p.m.
- only one stereo channel of "For What It's Worth", muzzling Steve Still's vocal and guitar
Not sure if I'd label them Creative Programming Ideas. So far, only two '50s songs heard, including a CanCon staple by Paul Anka. The other was "Party Doll" by Buddy Knox.