WCPE in the News

June 16, 1997

Bottleneck of the bandwidths

By NED GLASCOCK; STAFF WRITER

Section: News Edition: Final Page: A1 Estimated Printed Pages: 3

Index Terms: Federal Communications Commission radio

Article Text:

On the left end of your radio dial, where the selection tends toward the offbeat, if not outright anarchy, an off-air turf battle is raging between the head bangers and the Fighting Christians.

The skirmish is over power and position. And the outcome, which lies with the Federal Communications Commission, will help decide the fate of an alphabet soup of nonprofit radio stations and start-ups elbowing for space on the crowded radio band.

In one corner, at 88.1 FM and 3,000 watts of power, is WKNC, N.C. State University's student-run station, where heavy metal rules.

In the other, at 89.3 FM and 500 watts, is WSOE, the tiny radio voice of Elon College, a school near Burlington affiliated with the United Church of Christ and home to the Fighting Christians.

WKNC, billed as "NCSU's Musical Edge," wants to crank up its signal to 25,000 watts so it can serenade areas west and north of Raleigh with the shattering strains of Fear Factory, Marilyn Manson and Corrosion of Conformity.

WSOE - whose call letters once stood for "Wonderful Sounds Of Elon" - wants to double its power to a still-paltry 1,000 watts to spread its brand of the gospel, now an alternative rock format promoted as "Your Unsound Alternative."

The problem: WSOE wants to move onto WKNC's wavelength as part of a jigsaw puzzle deal to accommodate an array of other stations. But a turbo-charged WKNC would blow WSOE practically off the air.

The FCC, which is rewriting its rules for deciding these kinds of disputes, has asked the stations to find a compromise.

"The problem is, there isn't a good solution," said Chris Phillips, WKNC's chief engineer and a recent NCSU graduate. "It's like saying, 'You cut off either an arm or a leg, and I'll cut off either my head or my torso.' There's not much of a win-win situation to look at."

The competition, which has remained civil despite the stakes, results from a complicated power play involving a half-dozen stations, each looking to change position on the dial, boost output, or both.

The almost Machiavellian set of maneuvers - orchestrated by classical music station WCPE - practically requires a flow chart to figure out.

The saga began four years ago, when WCPE asked the FCC for permission to widen the signal pattern transmitted from its tower near Wake Forest. The goal: to blanket Chapel Hill, where the station's broadcasts of Bach and Beethoven now turn to static.

Not so fast, said the FCC. The new WCPE signal, sent over the station's frequency of 89.7 FM, would interfere with a radio dial neighbor - WXYC 89.3, the student-run station at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The FCC spurned the classical station last month, despite its "handshake deal" with the UNC station in which both agreed not to worry about the small area near Apex where their signals would have overlapped.

"It's about 11 farmers who live there," said Bill Burton, chairman of the nonprofit group in Chapel Hill that owns WXYC's broadcasting license. "It's not exactly a booming population we're talking about."

The stations have until Thursday to appeal, and they hope to convince the agency that its rules governing overlapping signals are unfair because they are stricter for nonprofit radio stations than for commercial operations.

WCPE has run into another problem. Its plans clash with a start-up station in Asheboro that has dial space reserved at 89.5 FM - again, too close for FCC comfort.

Meanwhile, WXYC has a conflict of its own making.

To help more Raleigh listeners tune in the eclectic UNC station, WXYC's management wants to jump from 400 to 5,000 watts, while moving its antenna from a water tower on campus to Terrell's Mountain in Chatham County. However, a better WXYC signal would interfere with a new station based in Spring Lake, near Fayetteville, that also plans to sign on at 89.3.

Now the tale comes full circle: A new and improved WXYC also would infringe on the airwave turf of Elon College's WSOE because they both operate on the same frequency. So when WXYC asked WSOE to move down the dial, the station agreed to ask the FCC for permission.

Unfortunately, unaware of N.C. State's plans, WSOE officials chose 88.1 - the same number as WKNC.

With so little free space left on the FM band, no one knows exactly how the conundrum will be solved. Most of the stations are leaving strategy up to Deborah Proctor, general manager of WCPE, the classical station that got all this started.

Proctor is trying to work out a complicated solution among all the stations, one she can present to the FCC as a package deal that will be painless to approve.

"It may be a dream," she said, "but I'm going to try it."

In the end, said Mike Foster, staff adviser to Elon's WSOE, the dispute comes down to a crazy numbers game.

"It's a mess," he said. "The radio dial has just gotten that crowded. Everyone wants to get involved, but it's all crammed in so tight."

Foster said he's eager to work out a compromise with N.C. State's station - even if that means the only new place for WSOE to unleash its alternative rock 'n' roll is north of Elon.

"That's cow country, and they don't want to hear anything we play," he said. "They'd give sour milk.

Caption: Chris Phillips, a recent N.C. State University graduate, is chief engineer for WKNC, which wants to boost its signal to 25,000 watts on 88.1 FM. The problem? Elon College's WSOE 89.3 had agreed to go to 88.1 to allow expansion of WXYC at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Copyright 1997 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

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