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SOWNY » Corus Has Drex - On KMOX » April 17, 2019 1:35 pm

And our Jets came back to life last night... albeit in overtime.  Are the Blues feeling a little nervous as this series resets to a best of 3?

WHITEOUT!

SOWNY » Hey IKEA Play (radio station name) » April 17, 2019 1:30 pm

First, there is no such thing as privacy as soon as you expose yourself to the internet.  You think a smart speaker has security concerns.  Use a smart phone?  You have no idea.
Even better, wait for 5 G to make your life interesting.  Having a foreign government having a back door to your network is only a small concern there.   5 G makes the internet of everything possible and you may have to be concerned about your fridge spying on you.

SOWNY » The Trivago guy...arrested on a DWI » April 17, 2019 1:23 pm

So much for that country music career.

SOWNY » who's buyng CJR-B? » April 17, 2019 1:21 pm

Hate to rain on the parade.  Think storm clouds brew.

SOWNY » MyFM 101.3 Milton Asks For Urgent Power Boost » April 17, 2019 1:00 pm

A number of thoughts here...

When your trying to set up one of these jukeboxes with an antenna that play commercials on a dollar store budget, where you really all that surprised your signal is just not there?  You shoe boxed yourself and doubt no matter how dire the situation you are going to get a power increase.  You also have to find the cheapest place to put up an antenna and that limits 'best location' and further exasperates the situation.

The transmitter is not going up the escarpment and The Grand and the Rexdale station are not gonna give on the adjacency.  This is an overly crowded spectrum where they have relaxed some of the old rules.  I believe CJSA is running HD... oh that is gonna hurt an adjacent!  That may explain hash and interference issues.

I have no clue why the CRTC licences these type of stations.  Shoehorning in community stations who with proper leadership would much better serve the community makes more sense than these commercial dollar store jukebox with an antenna operations.  Personally I have no idea why this or even that 960 AM station were even approved.  It makes no sense to me whether that on a technical basis or as a business case.

SOWNY » Mike Cleaver » February 11, 2019 5:05 pm

Thank you Mike Cleaver for your contributions and unique news delivery in the grand top 40 days of radio that I grew up listening to.  Rest in peace.  One of a kind and legend from radio's hey day.

SOWNY » FLOW 935 is back » February 11, 2019 4:39 pm

Is there really brand equity in The Flow?  Will the community forgive and forget?  Will it live up to the expectation of the brand?

Isn't this the station that represents a long time trying application that was made by the black community to have their own station.  Seems to me it didn't take long for it to be taken over and ruined by the corporate radio players.  I think there is history here that can't be ignored,

I am almost certain the target audience has long moved away from radio.  Unless you are hiring people who actually know and have connection to the hip hop community, you're wasting your time.  This is someone thinking that bringing back a brand will bring back an audience.  Well good luck with that.

SOWNY » Is This Really Why You’re Having Trouble Getting WBEN-AM In The GTA? » January 24, 2019 11:29 am

The real and currently employed broadcast engineer has arrived on scene to explain...

The have deployed MDCL.  Modulation-Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) control technologies or algorithms, used on AM transmitters to reduce transmitter power consumption.  Broadcasters reported seeing anywhere from 20 to 40% savings on their power bills.  This is usually deployed on high power stations (50 kW). 

So before we call Entercom cheap... maybe understanding how much money is involved will give you the understanding on how this is mot a bad business decision and could be good for the environmentalists out there.

As an example, BC power rates are far less than Ontario.  My former 50 kW Nautel transmitter sent me a hydro bill of just under $5,000 a month.  God only knows what that would be at Hydro One rates.  However, the last time I was running a solid state AM in Ontario (a late 80's vintage Nautel) just about the time Hydro One introduced a 28% increase around 2012, the power bill was around $ 2,500 a month on a 10 kW transmitter.  In practice I have heard you really save about 21%.  So shaving $500 a month off the power bill for a free feature (on recent Nautel transmitters) that is FCC and ISED approved is worth a try. 

So, a 10 kW transmitter is worth $500 a month in power savings or a 50 kW could see $1,500 a month savings. In one example that is 6 grand a year, in the other 18 grand a year.  Sure maybe the mother corp is just going to put it into bank, but it could also a significant contribution to paying for a new transmitter if the one you have is getting to its 20 or 30 year mark of service.  Now since I don't have power bills in frot of me, I'm not sure what kWh load that takes off the grid, but it is also a significant amount of power.
 

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