WEBY AM-1330 becoming area's "Link to Life"

For Escambia residents west of Ninth Avenue in Pensacola, and north of Nine Mile Road, it's here, it's gone, and then it’s back again. What’s going on with the signal for WEBY 1330 AM, “Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio,” this week, and into the next two?
 
"We are field testing for our new 25,000-watt transmitter," explained station owner Mike Bates. "We will pump up the power to its full strength while we take FCC-required readings. We project final approval sometime in May. Then we will be at 25,000 watts everyday.
 
"But for now, we will switch between our old 5,000-watt transmitter and our new 25,000-watt transmitter for tests through the rest of April. Sometimes listeners will get the 25,000-watt signal, and sometimes not, depending on whether or not it is being tested that day, which will be most days in the week."
 
Once the station gets the OK from the FCC to stay at 25,000 watts, WEBY will be the most powerful AM radio station on the Gulf coast between New Orleans and Tampa. Bates reports he is already getting calls from listeners burrowed inside downtown Pensacola's steel-framed buildings, and north into Century and Brewton, Alabama. In fact, one caller told him WEBY and WRNE 980-AM are the only AM signals he can get on Perdido Key.

The total coverage area will blanket all of the Pensacola Bay Area, fully covering Santa Rosa and Escambia counties into the southern half of Alabama’s Escambia and Baldwin counties, and the western portion of Mobile County including the city of Mobile and Dauphin Island.

This coverage will make WEBY particularly valuable when tropical storms hit the area. Bates is ensuring Santa Rosa residents in particular receive EOC information. He has arranged the station’s own network of hurricane experts to explain what is going on in the Gulf.

“Radio stations forget Santa Rosa County,” Bates said. “This year, WEBY will be primarily focused on the county, with the strength to also cover residents in the rest of the Pensacola Bay Area. Our mission is to be the community’s ‘Link to Life’ with its hurricane coverage.”

Bates is asking for help from area residents in getting the station’s signal coverage tweaked.

“Listeners can help us with our hurricane coverage by calling the station whenever they pick up our 25,000-watt signal during this test period,” Bates said. “Give us your location. This will validate in real-world conditions our theoretical projections.”

The station’s phone number is 850-623-1330.
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Mr. Lamb will serve this hurricane season as one of WEBY’s hurricane experts. Be sure to set your dial to WEBY 1330 AM, “Northwest Florida’s Talk Radio,” – watch for word when the station goes to 25,000-watts and covers the entire area.

You can try to get the station now if the testing is active at the time you try to tune in WEBY. But if you don’t get it now, it will be available sometime in May. Call WEBY for details on testing and for information about when they will go to 25,000 watts of pure power.

Stay abreast this hurricane season by clicking on the following hyperlink and then bookmarking Mr. Lamb’s “Hurricanes and the North Gulf Coastline” blog – or copy and paste this URL into your browser’s address box: http://hurricanesandthenorthgulfcoastline.blogspot.com/

Click on the hyperlink to reach Mr. Lamb’s index of all of his several blogs – or copy and paste this URL into your browser’s address box: http://www.blogger.com/profile/14444338