Docket 05-243 changes

[CAwasinNJ]

The Big Shakeup just got a little stranger. News items of changes were released Monday.

It looks like what's happening is that KAOX and KQEO up in Idaho are proposing to swap the channels (107.1 and 107.9) that they'll be using after everything settles. KKAT-FM also says that now its application isn't mutually exclusive with KUDD's Humpy allocation, although I can't figure out why. Originally KKAT-FM was actually going to be in extreme southern Davis County rather than on Farnsworth, wasn't it? When they originally filed the change application, did they specify the Farnsworth allocation that's showing now or another location?

Anybody else getting a headache?

[dxstuboy]

Wow.

KAOX is actually in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The last time I heard them was probably a month ago while in Evanston. Wonder if this means KAOX will increase power so that their IDs will be correct again. They announce "KAOX.... Kemmerer, Evanston, Rock Springs, Green River." In the latter two, the signal is weak to non-existent.

[CAwasinNJ]

KAOX is changing city of license to Shelley ID, which is not too far from Idaho Falls. The new primary service area won't even touch Wyoming.

tinyurl.com/kaoxnew or
www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/FMTV-service-area?x=FM1268371.html

[dxstuboy]

Aww, I used to like that station. Now I guess I'll be stuck with the crap in GR and RS.

[CAwasinNJ]

In where and who?

[dxstuboy]

Green River and Rock Springs

[michaeljwyo]

Just a few quick notes as I know this is straying off-topic. Stu, the ID you heard for KAOX was me. I put that together back around 2001 when they changed format from "Music of your life" to the eclectic music-on-hard-drive and re-branded as "107-3 the X". It was my idea and we were trying to sound "big". Not that KAOX makes it into Rock Springs any better than it makes it into Evanston. Yes it does but I'd say you could probably only listen on a car radio. It's pretty scratchy on a home tuner if you can get it at all. Hey at least the signal actually MAKES it into Evanston and Rock Springs. On a side note, it tes me that the Simmons sales-people (I won't mention names) are trying to sell people here in Evanston and telling them that the humpy stations cover Rock Springs. THEY DO NOT. NOT AT ALL. Anyway....before Simmons bought the cluster, the Kemmerer stations (KAOX, KDWY and KMER) were sister-stations of ours here in Evanston so I did a lot of the engineering work up there. I actually built the studios for KAOX and KDWY. I also wired up the satellite receiver a few years ago that brings in the SAM network from Dial Global. I tried telling them they needed to re-brand the IDs and stuff so it all matches but nobody cares - hence you still have a local announcement or weather forecast or sportscast calling it "The X" or "X 107-3" and meanwhile the satellite is calling it "SAM". Anyways.....I'm not sure who is doing engineering now but at least 107.3 is back to full power. Hadn't been for quite some time. Now it is, but there's a channel missing. They are broadcasting only one channel of audio over the air and that one channel is fed to both sides. Kinda wierd and I'm not sure what's going on but probably something in the studio. I haven't done much over there since Simmons took over and not sure that they would want me to. Otherwise I'd be happy to go up there and fix it.
I had also heard something about the cable company up there in Kemmerer having bought the whole cluster and they were going to totally remodel the building and put in all new equipment and so forth. Don't know how much truth there is to that. It's been a while since I've been up there or talked to anyone up there. Obviously if this WERE the case then we probably wouldn't be having this discussion about KAOX moving.

Anyways....there's some notes for you.

Michael n Wyo

[seattlefollower]

Too bad the local cable company doesn't own the cluster. They'd probably put the audio on their digital tier AND provide some (what sounds like is missing) decent local content.

[dxstuboy]

Thanks for the notes Michael, that is cool to know you did those IDs and such. That used to be my favorite station (from my listening post in Green River) and it was a preset on my car radio for quite some time. When SAM took over, it reminded me too much of JackFM in SLC. The music is still good but I don't get a chance to listen to it much any more, being here in SLC and all.

By the way, I'd like to invite you to edit the Wikipedia articles for KEVA and KNYN. They could use some more expanding. Also, you can take a look at the articles for stations in Rock Springs and such. I created that template on the bottom of the pages. Any expanding information on those stations will make the articles a lot better. Thanks ahead of time .

[CAwasinNJ]

I'm quite sure all three (KAOX, KDWY and KMER) were all bought to improve Simmons' Salt Lake cluster. KAOX moving allows KEGH (ex-KRAR 106.9) to move to 107.1 on Humpy. KDWY moves to Humpy on 105.5, so that's direct. KMER moved to 940 to allow KOVO to move.

[dxstuboy]

Darn them getting rid of or changing better stations!

[michaeljwyo]

Thanks Stu! And yes, SAM is supposed to remind you of Jack. That's exactly what it's geared at. a "Jack" clone. Dial Global put the format together for stations that wanted to do Jack but do jack by satellite. Personally I want to say it's more eclectic than Jack is. But that is just me. Meanwhile, the music-on-hard-drive before SAM actually came to be during the time that Chaparral Broadcasting (who also owns the cluster in Jackson) owned things. The guy in Jackson actually cloned one of the computers from one of their stations up there and sent it down to Kemmerer and hooked it up and hence, the X was born. Eclectic as hell - if you've ever been to Jackson, give 96.9 KMTN or 95.3 KZJH a listen and you'll see. The stations over there are all like "college stations" filled with ecelctic stuff and non-hits. Anyways....I digress. I really didn't like it much although there was some halfway decent stuff in the library. I went in and did some major revamping to the music scheduling software and geared it a LOT more toward hits and a lot less toward non-hits. The other thing that always bugged me was that in Jackson the guy encoded ALL the libraries and EVERYTHING at Microsoft ADPCM compression at 22khz. Hence, everything from the original libraries sounds crappy. KDWY 105.3 still runs music on hard drive and if it's stuff from the original library you can hear it. Has no high end. The highs are almost "crackly". Basically when you use that compression algorithm yeah you get much smaller files but that 22khz actually equates to 11khz per channel. Crappy stuff. Since they started adding their own music to KDWY's library they are just using uncompressed WAV files or MP3s so it's sounding a lot better these days.

Will check out the WIKI entries. Seems like I had checked a while back and I was pretty impressed. Most of it was correct. I've also done some work for one of the clusters in the Rock Springs / Green River market and I've always kept tabs on that market so I may be able to add a few things there. By the way it was yours truly that finally got the "missing channel" problem fixed at KRKK 1360 in Rock Springs. I swear it must have ran that way for 9 years. I finally mentioned it to our engineer who is also THEIR engineer and he took care of it. I guess he hadn't noticed either and since hardly anyone listens to that station, nobody cares. Fun stuff, eh?

Michael n Wyo

[dxstuboy]

LOL I used to listen to KRKK a lot and I always was horrified by the fact that the right channel was missing. Older stereo songs would sound completely different. One day, it just popped back to regular. Now they need to fix the commercials and other audio on KSIT, it sounds really tinny with no life probably like the 22khz thing at KDWY. One thing I have to commend KUGR and its FM sisters for doing is actually caring about audio quality. When I worked there, they were pretty adamant about good sounding audio.

I had no idea that KRKK had a missing channel of audio for almost 9 years and nobody fixed it. I just moved to the area in 1999.

From what it sounds like, Simmons doesn't really care much about the Kemmerer stations, they obviously don't send anyone up to check on them that much.

Any chance we'll see any of the southwestern Wyoming stations streaming online any time soon?

[michaeljwyo]

Hey Stu - with all the stuff going on about charging stations for streaming and crap (and it IS crap) like that no you probably won't see much streaming unless something changes. Here in Evanston, we DO do SOME streaming. KEVA 1240 streams certain things. I have it set up on a timer. Things that don't require royalties - such as local programs - we can stream. For instance....local high school games, we stream. Or if you listen between 9:30 and 10:00 weekday mornings you'll hear me doing KEVA Classifieds (our local swap shop program) streaming. The way I see the rules, you can stream stuff that's local and doesn't involve royalties since it's the royalties that they are worried about. Meanwhile I won't say here on this forum but I just MIGHT have a link to live streaming from our FM (KNYN Magic 99) and it MIGHT be on sometimes Email me off-list if you'd like the link.
I think KUGR feeds their high school sports games and that's about it over there.
I'm not sure how all the ClearChannel stations and the other big guys do their streaming but I would guess they have people that sponsor the streaming and the sponsorships are what pay for the streaming. Unfortunately here in small-market-land there's not enough interest in that sort of thing. URL for the KEVA stream (when it's on) is www.1240keva.com/kevalive.asx . And a special thanks to the moderator(s) for letting this go on as long as it has....I know it's kinda veered off-topic.

Michael n Wyo

[dxstuboy]

LOL Michael.

I heard KAOX loud and clear as I drove back to UT this AM. When I got to Evanston the signal dropped considerably until I was actually in town. There is about a 5 mile stretch there through the sisters where no radio stations (FM of course) at all make it through...except rimshotters of SLC.

Back on topic... Any news on KUDD moving to Humpy?

Also, heard "The Blaze" loud and clear in Evanston.