WWCS suffering dead air…
October 28, 2024Observers have noted WWCS (540 Canonsburg) has been carrying dead air since Saturday. Owned by Birach Broadcasting in Michigan, it’s unknown if the studio at the transmitter site is being managed locally or if there is an issue elsewhere in the company. Still though, if there is nothing being broadcast, the station should sign off until things are back in order.
Keeping an eye on this one.
I’m torn on my response to this.
1) If a tree falls in the forest…
2) Well it’s certainly an improvement over what they were airing.
3) Maybe it’s just an homage to the original WZUM.
4) Given that the star of that programming died 3 1/2 years ago this is overdue.
5) Maybe Downtown sandwich board legend Bob Lansberry was onto something about secret radio.
6) Time to change the callsign to WOGE, Waste Of Good Electricity.
7) Stunting just isn’t what it used to be.
Seriously, carrier but no modulation? Maybe the system didn’t pick up the tones to switch back to local program when the football game ended. Happens to W**S all the time. But they usually pick it up within a few hours.
You can look up Sima Birach, his e-mail is on his site, I don’t have it with me right now, but I’ve written to him in past and he was responsive.
I’ve gotten on them about distortion and reverb that made them unlistenable, because I’m a radio busybody, as a few stations in the area know. I don’t listen to his programming much, but I think station owners don’t always know what their transmitters are doing.
WWCS has been back on the air for at least the past day and it might have come on earlier than that, but I didn’t check earlier. The audio quality of the feed is also improved.
I liked 540 from the time it was WARO with startup DJs, and oldies, some crazy sounds came out the ‘station all the way at the bottom of the dial’. We used to keep the classical music on, when they did their big upgrade, and went to 7500 watts in C-QUAM AM stereo. I liked the BBC and freeform format after that for a few years, they introduced me to Scott Walker of the Walker Brothers and avant garde bands like The 5 UUs, and I’d listen to the BBC chart show.
After that they went to satellite with a new format every year it seemed like, the only one I actually listened to was Radio Disney.
Boomer
Nothing lost. Overcomer ministries is scarry stuff, besides Brother RG Stair has been dead for years.
Yeah, I’d rather hear something more mainstream on any commercial station, so more people could listen, but would any other format make money on AM 540? It doesn’t seem to have an FM translator, but does have great signal coverage. It seems like a “last chance” format, literally.