Wetaskiwin loses it's Cat Country

[radiofan]

NewCap's CKJR in Wetaskiwin is now oldies W-1440 with hits of the 50s, 60s & 70s.

NewCap was overserving the area with country [there is still Big Earl in Edmonton, CFCW in Camrose, Stettler's Q-14 and CKGY in Red Deer].

The station took a run at playing oldies in the mid 80's when it was CJOI.

The 1440 signal doesn't cover Edmonton 100%, but it will be unteresting to see if they grab any audience from COOL 880 in South Edmonton and in the rural areas.

W-1440 Website and stream.

[Dan Sys]

I'm surprised that this station hasn't flipped to FM yet as the signal would likely blanket Edmonton as opposed to their current status as a rimshot South Edmonton AM station.

[jon]

So far, I've heard about a dozen songs, 75-80% of which are from 1969-73.

Signal is awful, even here in the South West corner of Edmonton -- 66-CFR had a much more listenable signal even with co-channel interference from local CHFA-680. Lots of electrical noise in the car on a receiver that routinely in the winter delivers a great signal from WOAI-1200 in San Antonio. On the ghetto blaster on the North side of the second floor of the house, you can clearly hear stations in the background both night and day. I originally thought it was other stations on the same frequency when I first heard it last night, but now believe it is probably a local mixing product/image in the daytime. Have to do the arithmetic to see what local station frequencies would mix to give me 1440 images.

[radiofan]

I wonder if the costs involved would be worthwhile for CKJR to go for a frequency switch? Why not move to the 1200 spot vacated by CHMG when they flipped to FM?

Or as Dan suggested, maybe a move to FM.

[pave]

As I'm not a DXer or a techie, I wouldn't know about these things.

Still, I wonder if a spot on the dial in the neighbourhood of 550-700 wouldn't be available.

[radiofan]

With the number of AMs that have flipped to FM in Alberta, there is a number of frequencies available that would give W-1440 a city grade signal into Edmonton as well as great rural coverage.

Big 105's former 700 frequency is Red Deer is available as well as CKSA's old 1080 spot on the dial.

[jon]

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.

[jon]

As you may have guessed, Radiofan and I were writing our responses at the same time, without knowledge of the other.

[jon]

This morning they were running paid Alternative Health products programming. This afternoon they are running Italian language programming. I did hear some Oldies later in the morning this morning.

[albertaboy4life]

I think CKRD was 50 KW day and 20 or 25 KW night during its Radio 7 days.

For a while 1200 was home to both MG 1200 in Edmonton and CKDA/CKXM in Victoria.

I think 1200 Victoria was 50 KW but the new 1200 for Vancouver is going to be only 25 KW? I'll defer to Dan on this one.

[radiofan]

Still no signs of activity at the proposed 1200 transmitter site in Richmond. I still say the folks who got the license for 1200 should call up Corus and offer them a couple of million $ for the 730 license and TX site.

Picking up a turn key operation would save them a lot of time and money. It would also take the responsibility of creating money losing formats away from the folks at Corus.

[jon]

The Italian show ran something like 6 hours. Now (8:24 pm), they are finishing off a Focus on the Family spin-off. 8:26 - finally back to Oldies. 8:37 - so far, a Supremes song and three CanCons in a row.

Hopefully this is just a Sunday thing. It is pretty hard to sell listeners on "Oldies are what we play when no one will buy the airtime."

If I was a senior Corus bean-counter, I'd be pushing to buy the most profitable non-Corus AM station in Vancouver (my guess would be CJVB or CHMB?), flip it to 730, and sell off the license and transmitter site of the station I just bought to the highest bidder. Actually, I'd take it a step further, following radiofan's previous advice, flip CKNW to 730 and flip my new acquisition to 980.

But, if I was the 1200 folks, I'd certainly follow radiofan's advice and try and buy the 730 license and transmitter site from Corus.

[jon]

Let's not forget that the #1 stations in Vancouver and Edmonton are AM stations! And have been, with only a few ratings period exceptions, for the last 80 years. So, there is no question that AM stations can make money. Plus, they have a range unmatched by FM stations, seemingly unrelated to line-of-sight. CHED, for example, still runs imaging that implies that they have listeners all across the province of Alberta.

And beyond CKNW and CHED, there is talk that CHQT (Cool 8-80) has been making money for more than a year now. Hasn't CKBD been making money, too? And even poorly rated stations can see nothing but black ink if they run enough paid programming, be it health cures, wealth management, religious or ethnic programming.

Give me a 50KW AM stick and a little of radiofan's creative thinking, and I could retire in a year.