NPR to migrate Waynesville broadcast
Haywood County listeners accustomed to tuning into 95.3 FM for their National Public Radio fix will have to look elsewhere on the dial after Asheville-based WCQS switches its Waynesville broadcast to 102.9 FM, beginning Friday, Nov. 18.
The switch is the culmination of a years-long tug-of-war over the future of the frequency, which WCQS had been using as a radio translator. Translators, unlike transmitters, are lower in power and are not protected from encroachment by other stations. A domino effect triggered by a station in Georgia that has likely never even heard of WCQS resulted in the 95.3 frequency coming available for licensing as a transmitter out of Jackson County — but WCQS was not eligible to apply for the frequency, as federal rules require that the station operating on the frequency be headquartered locally, in this case in Jackson County.
The 102.9 station was “by far the best frequency” available to replace 95.3, according to Barbara Sayer, program director for WCQS. Though the new owner of 95.3, Western Carolina University, had offered WCQS its old frequency of 90.5 as a replacement, that signal would not have carried the strength needed in the Waynesville area.
“We hope that it will be somewhat comparable, but we have never moved a transmitter or a translator where we didn’t lose some people,” Sayer said. “It’s just impossible to get a complete overlay with a different frequency.”
Coverage varies depending on the frequency and the location of the tower broadcasting it, so even the coverage that the previous owner of 102.9 realized would not be a reliable indicator of the station’s reach once it becomes WCQS. There’s really no way to predict what the coverage will be before the change goes into effect, though Sayer is hoping that the continuity of coverage that 95.3 had provided along U.S. 74 through Haywood County will be preserved.
“We are very interested to hear what we will hear from people,” Sayer said. “We want people to call us, and I can pretty much guarantee you that they will.”
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Over in Jackson County, WCU’s radio station is busy getting its ducks in a row to start broadcasting on 95.3, which will provide much broader coverage than the university’s current home on 90.5. But the transition is far from complete.
Before work can start on the new tower — to be located on Brown Mountain about 5 miles south of Cullowhee — an analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act must be completed, and a notice of the project will be sent out to Native American tribes who have lived in the area at some point in their history. Those tribes will have a chance to review the site for any cultural or historical artifacts.
The university is already heavy into the design phase, which is a time-consuming part of the process.
“This is the stage of the design that involves all the little details, and this is the stage of the design that takes the most time,” said Don Connelly, head of the WCU Department of Communications.
WCU is currently working with the engineering company, Raleigh-based Tower Engineering Professionals, on the civil engineering portion of the project. A road capable of bearing heavy loads must be built up to the tower site, and a fenced-in compound will be constructed around the tower. Then, of course, there’s the tower itself. The design work encompasses myriad variables that must be identified and decided upon before construction can begin.
“Our goal is that it will be happening before 2017 is over,” Connelly said of the station’s broadcast start date. “Then there’s this other factor called weather.”
Despite the fact that WCU will not be using its new frequency for some time, WCQS did not have the option of continuing to use 95.3 until the university needed it. After applying for 102.9, the station had a limited window of time to begin broadcast at the new frequency.
Sayers is hopeful that 102.9 will serve WCQS’s Waynesville following well.
“We have made strategic moves (in the past) when we realized we could get a better signal somewhere else, but to have to abandon what we know has been a really strong signal was a tough pill to swallow,” she said. “But it is what we have to do, and we are not interested in not serving that area.”
