WHCU. Why?

I would've posted this in the radio-ad thread, but I had already decided ahead of time to start a new topic about it.

1) Why are the games on WHCU? I live right outside of Corning, NY, which is only about 50 miles SW of Ithaca. I can not listen to the games on the radio here. Tonight, I happened to be in Watkins Glen, which is 25 miles west of Ithaca (as meaured by Yahoo maps). It was very difficult for me to make out any part of the radio broadcast from there during the 3rd period and OT. I had to start driving towards Ithaca before I could understand any of the crackly signal. Frankly, that lack of range is inexcusable. Cornell Hockey can pull a decent amount of interest from the surrounding areas. WETM and WENY TV from Elmira routinely have camera crews at Lynah and cover the games on their 11 pm news, especially when the team is drawing a good amount of national interest, as they did in 2003. Hockey is quite popular in the Elmira area, where the UHL Jackals have enjoyed a very good fan following, and the Elmira College D-III team gets attention. Just up the road, they are aware that there is a successful Division I program. So why on earth would you have the games on a station that only comes in halfway up Rt. 13? Even Rochester would be a market where it wouldn't be unfathomable to pull some moderate interest, and I'm sure there is a decent alumni base within that radius. When I was in grad school in Rochester, I was able to pull in a useable signal from WVBR, as that's where the games were at the time.

Syracuse basketball is carried on I-100, and you can get that EVERYWHERE in Central NY. I can get WVBR, Lite-97, among others down here. WHCU is just dandy for CU football and lacrosse where most, if not all games are aired during daytime hours, when the reach of that station is all over the region. But as soon as the sun goes down, FCC rules force them to power down. I have more of a chance to get WWL from New Orleans at night than I do WHCU. You want to get supporters from all over the area? You want to reach the most alumni for Athletics and Hockey Assc. doners? Get the games off of WHCU and onto a station that has more range than 15 miles at night. Period.

2) Who is Jason Weinstein? Apparently he's the voice of Cornell Hockey now. When Adam Wodon took over for Grady Whittenberg, there was a nice press-release and announcement from CU Athletics. So when Adam moved on to a bigger stage this year with a weekly gig on CSTV, I guess a lot of us faithful eLF posters were a little bewildered that we hadn't heard about this change, or anything about his successor until the season was underway. I guess Jason has appeared on broadcasts in previous years. I've heard a bit of his work, and it seems like he's very capable on the play-by-play. But I don't know anything about him. Is he a Cornell grad? Has he followed CU hockey for very long? What is his past experience? Take this as an invitation to him to introduce himself to those of us here on eLF, I guess (if he even knows we exist.) if you will. I'm just curious, that's all.

Not to mention if they were on VBR we'd get free audio automatically with no effort from Athletics. Oops, I just mentioned it.

IIRC they decided not to put the games on VBR because they prefered to make one deal with the Eagle Broadcasting cartel. Hurray for deregulation.

You'll have to remember that the CU Sports Information office was going through a transition itself during the offseason, which could explain the lack of information.

Jason has done BC Icemen games in the past, and works in TV in Binghamton. I think he's doing a solid job.

p.s. I still miss seeing Cornell hockey live - but that's been the case since 1992, except for two years and the other events here and there. I will never close the door on Cornell hockey...

Who can we petition to get things changed in regards to WCHU? Perhaps they made a deal to make the radio broadcast as poor as possible to get people to pay for the college sports pass. I live near Ithaca and when WCHU's signal goes down at night you can barely tune in, had to listen to the Dartmouth homers broadcast. Plus I'd hope they can figure out how to get things hooked up reliably before the game starts, so we don't miss large chunks of the show. The ads are bad enough, but I'd rather have repetitive ads and a clear broadcast than no broadcast at all.
It is not like radio is a new invention.

>Who can we petition to get things changed in regards to WCHU? Perhaps they made a deal to make the radio broadcast as poor as possible to get people to pay for the college sports pass.<

the college sports pass gets its feed from whcu... thus when whcu goes down and has problems, so does the internet feed. It happend several times last year, most notably during the hahvahd (sucks) - brown weekend at lynah. Extremely annoying. However, after sending off several scathing emails to real audio and cornell athletics, i think I did get a $5.00 credit on that month's bill for "services not render".

IIRC, last year they blamed the problem on old equipment at was being (or soon to be) upgraded. My gripe was that if they are going to charge a fee to listen to the game (as they do with the college sports pass), they better make darn sure that they are able to fully deliver the service. If they cannot deliver the service (internet feed) reliably, then either make it free or refund the money.

Rita

I mentioned on the forum last year that I picked up a passive loop antenna for AM reception. It works better on some nights than others. I am outside Troy NY (near Albany). If I can pick this up on 870 AM I am sure some others on the forum may be interested in this method.

An additional negative is the cost of the antenna. Last year Radio Shack was closing out an antenna that compared favorably to the expensive antennas. Buy something like the following if you are interested:

[www.ccrane.com]

Rich,
As someone who has tried to follow Cornell Hockey, from down here in the southern tier of NY, for almost 40 years, I can tell you that it's a real problem to get any Ithaca AM stations at night. WHCU is the worst because their antenna array throws a null lobe in this direction. That's the concession that WHCU had to make when they went to a 24 hour operation (a LONG time ago). Without that null lobe, they would interfere with WWL in New Orleans. That was not alllowed.
I'm not surprised that Marty can hear WHCU in Troy. I've heard stories of WHCU being heard in Northfield, MA.
Bahnstorm asked who we could petition. The answer is noone!!! I've been there & done that. When they moved the broadcasts from WQNY 103.7?? to WHCU AM, I wrote to Cornell, WHCU, and to every CU Hockey sponsor (to inform them of the profoundly smaller coverage that their advertising dollars were buying).
None of that worked. Broadcasting the hockey games on AM is an economic decision. I won't attempt to explain that here. They'll do as they damn well please. We won't change that!! I do wish good luck to anyone that tries.

19 years later, we still wonder, as the Nazi signal races out into the ether to persuade more advanced life forms to either stay away or fumigate the place.

The Forum remembers all!! I'm reading Trotsky's response to a redice post and thinking I just fell into an alternate timeline or blackhole...then I noticed the original posting date. How the world of radio communication has changed since 2004 thanks to the Internet! Today, listening to the WHCU mens hockey broadcast is quite easy, just point your browser to WHCU Radio and livestream it. No AM radio, specialized loop antenna, bounces off the ionosphere, headset, or cat's whisker tuning required! Enjoy!

I can get WHCU on 81 but cant get it 10 miles north of the city .

I can get WHCU on 91. In and out, but yes.