Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Radio Stations/Archive 2019

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Nation Radio London

Was wondering if someone from WPRS might take a look at Nation Radio London and assessing it for notability. No sources are cited so it's not clear whether this meets WP:ORG or WP:GNG. If it's not notable enough for a stand-alone article, then may redirecting to Nation Radio Wales would be worth consideration as an alternative to deletion. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:39, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Nation Radio London is the successor to Thames Radio which redirects to 107.8 Radio Jackie. For more current info: Nation Radio to replace Thames Radio. Apparently these entities are part of Nation Broadcasting. I found a fair number of industry sources on the parent and its stations, but not enough on Nation Radio London itself to indicate a stand-alone article is warranted. Also, as best I can tell, some of the subsidiaries simulcast programming from the parent org. Allreet (talk) 18:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
The FM licence for Thames Radio station that later became Radio Jackie is a different station, run by a different company, to the later DAB Thames Radio run by nation broadcasting, which was more recently re-branded Nation Radio London. Many small DAB radio stations do "come and go", however this service under the Thames Radio branding did feature as presenters several well known and notable personalities, including several former Capital Radio "names", so there is potential to expand this article, though equally a redirect to and and section in the Nation Broadcasting page may suffice.Philedmondsuk (talk) 20:41, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

W251BY

Could someone take a look at this article. It's been a redirect for awhile, but recently an editor has been rather insistent on creating its own stub. When looking at the FCC license, it says that it merely relays WPTY. This would appear to not make it qualify as per WP:BCAST. However, according to the websites of the two stations, their formats are completely different: Oldies and Pary, respectively. So I don't see how it could possibly simply retransmit, in which case it would qualify for its own article. But I don't do a lot of work on radio articles, so could use some input. Thanks.Onel5969 TT me 15:05, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

W251BY is a simulcast of WPTY's HD2 signal. Giving the station an FM signal so non-HD radio users can hear the station. This is actually quite common across the US. It is allowed under NMEDIA (aka BCAST), so no worries. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 21:33 on January 10, 2019 (UTC)

Template:FCC history cards

Hey, I was wondering if maybe editors from this project could help me out here. Template:FCC history cards is marked as deprecated with the explanation of: This template is no longer useful. It currently points to an HTML page that contains JavaScript code with a very limited list of facility IDs. All active radio stations already have links to the FCC, and the FCC has (proper and correct) links to a station's history cards. The only time a direct URL is needed for history cards is if it used in a citation (for active or defunct stations) or as an external link (for defunct stations).. It is still used on 410 pages. Does this have any replacement? --Gonnym (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

I answered this question on my talk page, but to clarify here, there is not replacement template. Just do a direct link. --DrChuck68 (talk) 19:49, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

KVCB-LP

Would someone from WP:WPRS mind taking a look at this article and assessing it per WP:NORG? It has been previously deleted twice before per WP:A7 (once in April 2015 and once in October 2018), but has been created once again. If the opinion is that the station's not quite notable enough for a stand-alone article to be written, then maybe further discussion at WP:AFD would be a good idea. Since I'm unable to see the previous deleted versions, I cannot tell whether this latest version is an improvement. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:53, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Other than the need for more information (it is a stub), I don't see anything wrong with the article. It gives the station's basic facts and has citations covering the information provided. I've seen this template attached to at least one other station and don't understand why licensed facilities wouldn't automatically qualify for notability since they're officially sanctioned by the government. The only downside I can see is that LPFMs often fly under the radar of other media so sources are sometimes difficult to find, though this is not the case with KVCB-LP so more information could easily be added. Please understand that I'm relatively new to the project, so I'm interested in learning whatever I can. Thanks. Allreet (talk) 18:03, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
It's not really accurate that radio stations are measured against WP:NORG or WP:CORP — for one thing, a key test under both of those notability criteria is that the coverage nationalizes significantly beyond just the topic's own local media market, a condition which very few radio stations outside of New York, Chicago or Los Angeles could ever actually clear. Rather, radio stations are measured against WP:BCAST, where the test is merely that independent coverage exists to verify that the station meets the notability criteria for radio stations, and the matter of whether it's local or nationalized coverage doesn't matter at all. The companies that own the radio stations have to clear CORP; the individual radio stations themselves don't. The article certainly could still use some improvement if possible, but the Daily Republic sources do cover off what's required. Bearcat (talk) 17:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Template: Other radio stations in Arkansas

This template is being discussed for deletion. The original reasoning was that it only had 3 links/1 station, but it has been improved to 19 stations. It is being Relisted.Stereorock (talk) 01:52, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

WPNC-FM

The self-admitted owner of WPNC-FM has attempted at least twice to delete a notation about his station's license being revoked due to non-payment of a debt to the F.C.C., saying that it is inaccurate. The public letter from the F.C.C. to the owner (Durlyn Broadcasting) states otherwise, and the article does note that Durlyn's authority to broadcast was reinstated a month later. I see nothing wrong that we Wikipedians have done, but a definite violation of WP:COI is evident. I left a note on the talk page of the station owner, and while writing it, a different IP reverted my reverting the article to its prior state. I've reverted the article twice in the past 24 hours, as I see it as vandalism, but am going to walk away to not violate the 3RR. Please review the article to make sure it's up to snuff. Thank you.Stereorock (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Adding to watchlist. I'll take a look at article as soon as I'm free. Levdr1lp / talk 21:20, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for having done so & your subsequent edit. Stereorock (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
@Stereorock: I checked the page over and I see no issues. I do note that the IPv4 edit came from a MediaCom customer in Chester, NY and the IPv6 edits came from a MediaCom customer in Atlanta, GA. That part of North Carolina is served by MediaCom, so it stands to reason that the "owner" was using a home and business account to edit from. Just an assumption.
There was a "need quotation to verify" tag on Reference 6 (the RadioInsight link). I removed it, as you weren't able to see the WPNC-FM part without an account (that's one of the paid services) and replaced it with two FCC refs. I believe this provides the same information found in the sentence, but feel free to change as you see fit.
A final note, Oshwah‎ has semi-protected the page. Unclear if it was off this discussion or another. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 03:44 on April 3, 2019 (UTC)
Neutralhomer - It was protected following a request filed at RFPP, and after I saw back-and-fourth edits between users (one of which claiming to be the owner of the station and an obvious COI). Given what I saw, I felt that applying protection was definitely necessary. If I can answer any more questions, please don't hesitate to let me know and ask. :-) Cheers - ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:56, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
@Oshwah:: I thought it might have been an RFPP discussion, but I didn't want to assume (you know what they say). I agree with the semi-protection for COI. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:17 on April 3, 2019 (UTC)
Neutralhomer - No worries; it's all good ;-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 05:19, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

K300CP

Just need a confirmed second opinion on this; several editors, including the blocked Martini Lewis X, have insisted on maintaining this Denver translator of KBPI as a separate article, even though its five year history is just a number of re-tunes to various Denver market AM/HD2 iHeart stations, and they won't accept a redirect to a paragraph section about the TX history on KBPI, and think that most laymen think K300CP stands alone. I'm also having issues insisting that we don't spotlight HD Radio statuses if there is no HD broadcast (they seem to be a little cross that KBPI or the translator that isn't FCC-allowed to carry HD Radio aren't doing so and want it pointed out), so I need a few more eyes on the situation. Nate • (chatter) 22:33, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

By their very nature, translators are not originators of their own programming, and fail WP:BROADCAST. Absent some exceptional circumstance (which is not the case here) translators should redirect to article for the originating station. A mention in KOA and KDSP's articles that they used to be heard on K300CP should probably be added though. --Tdl1060 (talk) 23:19, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
Since the translator was used on different stations, I could see that being enough for an article with sources, as the translator does have a history across stations. But, if there aren't any sources to back these changes up, then the redirect to KBPI is the right move. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 23:40 on April 16, 2019 (UTC)
I kind of figured, though the article version of K300CP just talks about a couple of switchovers, and there didn't seem to be enough meat to apply as its own article. Moot point though, as the editor jumped socks and was blocked for a week. I'll add the mentions of it to KOA/KDSP for sure. Thank you. Nate • (chatter) 00:23, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
@Mrschimpf: I took a look in the history, which I admit I didn't do before (it was dinner time). With just two sources, that's not enough to do anything. Nah, leave it as a redirect to KBPI's article. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:13 on April 17, 2019 (UTC)

Merge proposals

When I went through the (defunct) articles, I also found some pages that merited merging into another article as they were about specific periods in the history of a given frequency. I would like thoughts on the merge proposals at Talk:KDLD and Talk:KFRC-FM. There are about 30 pages in total, mostly articles of this type that describe one era in a given frequency's history or about stations/brands that have used multiple frequencies like WGMS (defunct), that I had identified in my initial search for (defunct) pages. Raymie (t • c) 00:47, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Raymie- Generally speaking, I support a single article for a single license. However, I suggest you first propose a merger for a specific pair of articles (like KDLD/KFRC-FM), rather than doing all 30 (or so) at once. Establish a precedent, and I'll assist in moving the remaining ~29. Also, thank you for reaching out to this WikiProject. Levdr1lp / talk 04:10, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Partial strike-through of previous comment. My mistake- a merge had already been proposed. Levdr1lp / talk 04:47, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Yup, I did two that were test cases. Some of the others are gonna be messy, indeed. (We also have WHFS (historic), which is not a good sign...) Some of these require some date fixing I think, particularly in the LA market. There's also KCKN (defunct) which is gonna eat the minnow at KDTD, some thorny cases of heritage stations bouncing frequencies, and some pages that actually have to be split. Raymie (t • c) 06:15, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
Update: I've proposed mergers at Talk:KSCA (FM) (KMPC-FM (defunct)) and Talk:KMPC (to incorporate KPOL (AM), KXED (defunct) and KSKQ (defunct)). I also merged KFAT (defunct) into KBAY; there was comparatively little to merge there, and I'm doing KCKN (defunct) into KDTD and requesting a history merge for the large edit history of the former. Raymie (t • c) 05:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Which talk page do I go to oppose moving intellectual property that was on several frequencies into one page? Thanks.Stereorock (talk) 13:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
@Stereorock: You should post in each of the discussion threads. You can see what I had left on my "target list" of (defunct) pages at the defunct station renames list. In one case (KGRB (defunct) to KALI (AM)), we somehow just don't have an article on the current AM facility because it's a simulcast. Raymie (t • c) 23:54, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

A proposed change to how we label defunct stations

There is a discussion about how we have labeled defunct radio stations on the talk page at KCTY (defunct). This would force us to label them differently than we do now.Stereorock (talk) 10:59, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

  • These discussions will be replaced by one that will cover all the articles, due to what I had intended as making the article volume more manageable turning into fragmenting discussions. Raymie (t • c) 03:08, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I have put up an RM for the 8 Canadian stations using (defunct) (and moved a few US articles myself). The Canadian discussion is at Talk:CFIN-FM (defunct). I wanted to ensure maximum publicity to editors who may not have had an interest in the US stations. Raymie (t • c) 04:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Adjacent locals and Outlying area sections on radio templates

On many television templates, there are sections dedicated to “Outlying area stations” (suburban or exurban signals that do not cover the core of a market) and “Adjacent locals” (station’s that have widespread carriage, or in this case, a signal that reaches a sizable portion of a market that it is not home to). Could this concept be used on radio templates as well?

Establishing a section devoted to outlying and out-of-market stations would help distinguish such stations from full-market signals. For instance, the Boston market has plenty of outlying stations — WXRV, WCRB and WEEI-FM from the Merrimack Valley, WBOQ from the North Shore, WPLM-FM/AM and WATD-FM/AM from the South Shore, WSRO, WXLO-FM and WAAF from the MetroWest, and plenty of non-commercial operators as well. This technique is already used on many Canadian templates, but for whatever reason, has not been implemented on USA templates. Would such an idea be feasible on American market templates? TomG2002 (talk) 18:40, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

In Template:Washington Radio, the stations are grouped by region, in Template:Radio in New York City, stations in New Jersey, Westchester, and Long Island are grouped separately from New York City stations, and in Template:LA Radio, Orange County stations are grouped separately. Looking at the Boston navbox, it probably would be useful to group its stations in a similar manner. Specifying the region that the stations are located in, as the aforementioned navboxes do, is more relevant and helpful to readers than simply stating "Outlying area stations" or "Adjacent locals".--Tdl1060 (talk) 21:06, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Can you do a mock-up so we can see what it is you’re describing? I know I am opposed to including whole markets as local if one station from there touches the market boundaries, like saying Hartford or New London are adjacent to Boston.Stereorock (talk) 21:54, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
Look at the revisions that I made under an IP address on March 4, 2019 in the Boston template, the current versions of the Worcester, Lower and Middle Hudson Valley templates, and the revisions I made from last month in all of the Connecticut templates (along with Springfield and Pittsfield, MA, Albany, NY and a handful of New Jersey ones). This should give you a rough idea of my proposal (although many of these revisions did not fully execute my proposal above). And in regards to User:Td11060’s reply above, I was planning on separating it by region for the Outlying stations and by market for the adjacent market stations. TomG2002 (talk) 22:09, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
I've grouped the stations in Template:Boston Radio by region, in a similar manner to Template:Radio in New York City. The grouping is based on where the stations' transmitters are located, not just where they are licensed, so I left stations whose transmitters are in Boston in the main grouping, even if their city of license is in one of the other regions.--Tdl1060 (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose These templates are becoming too crowded! Just because one station from a market reaches into another area, that is no reason to include it as “nearby”! That is flawed methodology as one receiver may not be as sensitive as another in receiving said signal! On TomG2002’s page, he states WCTK can be heard in New London, Ct.. On what receiver? Also, that smacks of WP:OR. If adjacent markets are to be included, they should be just the markets that actually abut a given market, not one with a signal 100 miles away that someone with a super-sensitive receiver can pick up!Stereorock (talk) 05:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose: I agree with StereoRock. With translators and HD rebroadcasters via translators, the templates are getting crowded. I would limit to those in JUST that "market" area so as to limit crowding and confusion. If there is a crowding issue in a template, break the template up. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:23 on June 23, 2019 (UTC)
One of the contributors to the clutter in many of these navboxes is the recent addition of city of license next to the stations' frequencies. Grouping by region helps eliminate the need for this for most stations. As far as links to other markets' navboxes is concerned, in most cases the clutter is still less than it was when an exhaustive list of every market in a state was linked to. Nevertheless, I do agree that the Boston navbox has gotten out of hand.--Tdl1060 (talk) 09:27, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
With Boston and it's MANY college and high school stations, you might want to make another category for just them. Might make it easier. But the COLs beside each frequency, that's just nuts and an eyesore. Why not make translators it's own section for major metropolitan areas? FM, then AM, then translators? For areas that have a few stations, they could remain grouped with the FMs. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:19 on June 23, 2019 (UTC)
I think you have something there. Creating a section for the FM translators would definitely help cut down on the clutter. I'm eyeballing the Long Island template, and putting the translators in their own section would really help. --DrChuck68 (talk) 12:31, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Do you mean put the F.M. translators of A.M. stations after F.M. on F.M. translators? As for the translators themselves, if they stay with the other F.M.s as-is, I think they should be made small, or italicized.Stereorock (talk) 18:58, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
I've created mock-ups of the Long Island and Boston templates. Have a look and see if this is the kind of organization we can apply to the templates. --DrChuck68 (talk) 21:05, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
Looks good. Having the frequency first, and then displaying the city of license in the link is a good solution to the problem of multiple stations on the same frequency within a market.--Tdl1060 (talk) 21:23, 23 June 2019 (UTC)
I like DrChuck68's ideas of having the translators and LPFMs in their own section within the FM section, but I'm not a fan of the COLs in the template. I think it looks too jarring and out of place. That's just me. I'll get over it. :)
I do believe this idea (having the translators/LPFMs in their own section) should only be used for metropolitan templates, not put out wide. A template like, say, Winchester, VA would be too broken up with 8 translators and 1 LPFM. Some might have zero LPFMs and only 1 or 2 translators. So, the implementation should be on a case-by-case basis. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:32 on June 23, 2019 (UTC)
What if, instead of the COLs, we had the callsigns? So, for 91.5 in Boston we'd have: 91.5 (WMFO • WMLN-FM • WUML • WUMZ • WZLY) This way, it's clearly indicated which articles are being linked, and which stations are occupying the same frequency. And, yes, the LPFMs/Translators sections should be done on a case-by-case basis. --DrChuck68 (talk) 01:50, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
That I like alot better. Less cluttered, less jarring to the eye. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:56 on June 24, 2019 (UTC)
I did this on Template:Phoenix Radio years ago (except for the 88.3 timeshare). It works so much better. Templates like Template:Seattle Radio could really benefit from this improvement in legibility because they list all translators. Raymie (t • c) 07:46, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

WBCQ (SW) deletion notification

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WBCQ (SW)

Providing notice here because of the rarity of shortwave stations in the US to begin with, but also the article definitely needs some help as it's been slimmed down by our guidelines to remove ADVERT and RADIOGUIDE content. Nate • (chatter) 09:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Radio market templates

Many years ago, our old practice of creating "State/Province Radio Market" templates, that would be embedded inside individual radio market templates in order to ensure that they were crosslinking each other, was deprecated and replaced with direct crosslinks in each template rather than by calling a second nested template. Most of the old nesting templates were accordingly deleted, although stragglers have occasionally been found which, even though they're no longer used at all, got missed in the deletion process and still have to get taken to TFD.

Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2019_June_10#Template:Vermont_Radio_Markets is such a straggler, and should rightly be deleted since the Vermont templates are already crosslinking each other in the contemporary direct-link format. However, some users are actively trying to expand the scope of that discussion beyond the usefulness of that template itself, and are trying to force a new rule barring any form of radio market templates crosslinking to other radio market templates at all — thus not just deleting that template itself, but also mandating the complete and total removal of any reader-facing cross-template links from radio market templates in any form. But, of course, that defeats a critical purpose of the market templates, because the reason we started crosslinking the templates in the first place was to try to stop people from adding adjacent-market stations to the wrong templates and then adding fifteen market navboxes to each article in defiance of WP:TCREEP.

The discussion, in other words, needs some additional input from other participants in this project. Bearcat (talk) 16:51, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Bearcat: Since the discussion was closed, I'd like to hear some thoughts on Template:Mexico Radio Markets. This template remains in use on the templates—it is not substed and has nearly 1,600 transclusions—and, because its focus is actually national, works like a tracking template for all Mexico radio articles (which I use to identify needed edits). Since I began editing Mexico radio articles in 2015, and have filled almost all gaps in our Mexican radio coverage, the number of crosslinked templates has grown significantly responding to the number of new radio stations on the air and needed submarket templates. In 2015, it crosslinked 39 templates; today it has 64 (there is a navbox for every state and split-outs for large radio markets and regions as needed, and there have been many split-outs). Obviously, it looks like the use of these in template space has been deprecated in most of WPRS, but it wasn't in Mexico. Thoughts on this? I'd like to at least maintain a tracking template of some sort, because the position of this template has made its related changes page vital for tracking edits to Mexican radio station articles. Raymie (t • c) 20:12, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
As long as it's actually in use, there shouldn't be a problem. Bearcat (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2019 (UTC)
@TomG2002: I wanted you to see this because you removed the template from Template:Tijuana Radio. I understand why it might look attractive, but because I use the template as a tracking template to aid in maintenance of Mexico radio articles, I put it back for now, and I wanted to open a discussion. Can I get your thoughts? Raymie (t • c) 01:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
An alternative might be to deprecate the whole thing and replace it with a blank Z-template like {{Z22}}, or turn {{Mexico Radio Markets}} into something similar and replace it in articles with more relevant links (surrounding states and city split-outs within states, primarily). Raymie (t • c) 01:46, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Requested move notice

A requested move of interest to this project is being discussed at Talk:XHHIT-FM#Requested move 16 July 2019. Raymie (t • c) 02:39, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Canada navboxes, FM suffixes

We've been at a bit of an impasse between several editors, particularly DJSharke and Stereorock, over the styling of lists of FM stations in Canadian market navboxes. Stereorock argues that templates should list -FM suffixes for all FM station callsigns and has edited several templates ({{Ottawa Radio}}, {{Cape Breton radio}} and a couple of others) to that effect. DjSharke and Stereorock have reverted several of each other's edits on the Ottawa template, and though I personally lean toward not listing a redundant suffix dozens of times on a list and note that currently most templates do not list the -FM suffix for all FM stations, I think the matter needs to be settled at a wider level to build consensus and not just between editors at loggerheads on a user talk page. Raymie (t • c) 03:53, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Note: previous discussion at User talk:Stereorock#Canada templates, FM suffixes. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
I am used to the U.S. radio templates in which callsigns are listed just as they are licensed: with their suffixes. This should hold true for all radio templates globally that are issued callsigns: that their callsigns are displayed as their regulatory bodies have issued to them on their licenses. I believe all of Nova Scotia is now this way as well as much, if not all of, New Brunswick. To my knowledge, in Canada all F.M. stations, except for low-power VF stations are issued -FM suffixes, including rebroadcasters. Under the current scheme, there is no distinction between an A.M. station (which are not issued an -AM suffix), & an F.M. station (which does have an -FM suffix), like CHUM & CHUM-FM in Toronto, which thankfully is separated into band; so far the only Canadian market which is done so, all others appear to intermix A.M. & F.M.. Further muddying the waters are rebroadcasters, in which the only distinction is where a sequential number is placed in the callsign. Let’s say there is an A.M. station called CGA; CGA has an F.M. sister station called CGA-FM. Under the current system, they would both be displayed in the template as “CGA” with only the frequency being the distinguishing factor. If they both have repeaters on F.M., both would show up as CGA-1, even though the A.M.’s rebroadcaster would in reality be CGA-1-FM & the F.M.’s rebroadcaster would be CGA-FM-1. But even this is not uniform in the templates! While editing {{Sherbrooke Radio}}, I discovered a station listed as “CBF 92.7” in Victoriaville. Clicking on the link brought me to CBF-FM, which is in Montreal but not on 92.7! In Canada, a rebroadcaster can become a full-fledged station, unlike in the U.S. where a translator can’t originate programming except for one very-limited circumstance. The rebroadcaster doesn’t even have to give up its old callsign for a full-power one! The Victoriaville station turned out to be CBF-FM-12, which rebroadcasts former rebroadcaster CBF-FM-10! CBF-FM-10 originates some programming of its own & is a full-fledged F.M. station, yet the Victoriaville station was listed as a different callsign (CBF), & the wikipage went to CBF-FM, not its true parent CBF-FM-10. This is all way too confusing just to save a couple of characters in a template! Let’s do the right thing & list stations by their true callsigns so we don’t get confusing listings & wrong links! The governments have done the hard work for us! Also, maybe we should make the Canadian templates (& other countries as well like Mexico) follow the American markets & list frequencies separately from callsigns.Stereorock (talk) 08:57, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Not the first time I've run across a situation like this, both in radio and (especially) television navigation boxes. The straightforward answer for me is that using the suffix for FM stations in Canada, which is both the name of the article and the legal call sign, is accurate, transparent, and avoids ambiguity where there's also an AM station using the same base. I think we can all agree those are all good things. It also makes it very easy to create a standard for all editors to follow. And we should be thankful it's so straightforward in Canada versus the U.S., where FM and TV stations may or may not have a suffix (and TV stations have seven possible suffixes depending on what type they are), and editors will use a "-AM" suffix even though no stations have one.
It's very similar to the serial comma. There is no situation where using it creates ambiguity, while there are countless situations where not using it does create ambiguity (and can be really expensive), so it's always made more sense to me to always use it. Mlaffs (talk) 12:29, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
I think bearcat should hear this.
The argument mostly is that there is no distinguishing differentiation of the AM and FM stations, per the call-sign. But my argument stands, they are listed in the FM subcategory, the example given about the CBF in that Quebec template wasn't correct, it should read CBF-12, as does the listings in this example template, before it was vandalized by adding constant unneeded suffixes.
I feel the argument is invalid as I guarantee nobody will be in the position to be confused about distinguishing one from another, and if they do...5 more minutes of researching will correct them. My side, is that these templates are way more pleasant cosmetically if you do not add the -FM suffix to every single entry. The categories, like I said, distinguishes it just fine.
The fact in 10 years, there will no longer be differentiation because AM stations won't exist outside of large markets. DJSharke (talk) 02:05, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
The -FM suffixes are necessary as they are part of the station’s callsign! If we are going to drop one part of it, why not another, like the leading C because 99+% of Canadian callsigns have them?! We won’t because the C is part of the callsign.
CBF-12, if it existed, would be the callsign for an A.M. station, not an F.M.! Therefore it should remain CBF-FM-12! The above poster makes no comment about the fact that the wikilink for CBF-FM-12 pointed to the wrong station as a function of removing the suffix & clearly poor research. I am not saying the above poster is the one responsible for the poor research, however.
The above poster states that the F.M. subcategory eliminates the need for the -FM suffix, & yet, in his example market, there isn’t one! A.M. stations are intermixed with F.M.s leading a casual observer to conclude that the full callsign on an F.M. is equal to one listed on A.M. when in fact they aren’t! There is no category to distinguish the 2! This template’s style gets confusing when an A.M. & an F.M. share the same base callsign, like in my CGA example above. Keeping with the above poster’s style choice, please tell me if CGA-1 is rebroadcasting CGA (AM), CGA-FM, or is in fact an A.M. rebroadcaster, which would be using the callsign CGA-1 legally, as that is the correct callsign custom for A.M. rebroadcasters!Stereorock (talk) 08:51, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
@DJSharke: I'd appreciate it if you'd withdraw your characterization of the edits under discussion as "vandalized". It's reasonable to disagree about whether or not the edits are necessary—the whole point of this discussion—but that characterization is unnecessarily inflammatory, inaccurate by community standards, and unlikely to help us get to a consensus. Mlaffs (talk) 12:06, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Just to be clear, there's not really a right or wrong answer here. The thing that does make the Canadian situation slightly different than the US one is that while an American FM radio station may or may not have an -FM suffix in its callsign, depending on whether or not it needs to be disambiguated from AM or TV stations with the same base WXXX letters, a Canadian FM radio station always has the -FM suffix regardless of its ambiguity status. And, to be clear, the question of whether a template is linking to the wrong originating station for a rebroadcaster has literally nothing whatsoever to do with the matter at hand. But while it's true that the templates were mostly done with the suffixes being piped out, there isn't necessarily a pressing reason why they would have to stay that way — as in almost every other field of endeavour, a lot of our practices for writing about radio stations have significantly evolved in the past 15 or so years, so "but it's always been done this way in the past" isn't a reason why it has to be done the same way in the future. Consensus can change. So yes, it's best to discuss this and establish a consensus one way or the other, rather than editwarring — but unfortunately, I don't personally have a strong opinion one way or the other, beyond "pick something and stick with it". Bearcat (talk) 13:44, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
There does need to be some kind of consistency with the Canadian templates. {{Sherbrooke Radio}} and {{Western and Northern Nova Scotia radio}} (seen above) both show grouping by location with AM/FM intermixed, while {{Toronto Radio}} has AM/FM grouping. As far as the -FM suffix is concerned, I think it should be included if it is part of the legally issued callsign. Also, showing -FM in the template makes the article link less ambiguous to the reader. We can't assume the reader knows how to differentiate between AM and FM without the suffix. --DrChuck68 (talk) 14:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Is this something unique to Canadian radio station markets? I looked up an equivalent U.S. template: Alaska Bush radio, which covers a wide swath of land but isn’t set up like the Sherbrooke template, for example. Stereorock (talk) 20:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
It's actually not unique to the Canadian templates. The Northest Washington (state) template is grouped by region, as are some templates in Wyoming and Utah. --DrChuck68 (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks! That’s something new to me! I didn’t know those were set up like that as well. Thanks!Stereorock (talk) 20:51, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
The difference in that case is that the Toronto template is covering a single integrated radio market, while the Sherbrooke and Western/Northern Nova Scotia templates are covering broad regions comprising small towns and cities that might only have one or two radio stations of their own and thus aren't large enough to need their own dedicated city/town-level templates. They have to be organized differently from each other, accordingly, because the organizing principle is different: in a big city with a few dozen radio stations, sorting them by AM/FM is more helpful, whereas a multi-town region needs the stations to be sorted by community of license. Bearcat (talk) 15:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
The link situation is tied in with this because whomever set up “CBF 92.7” to link to CBF-FM instead of CBF-FM-10 didn’t bother to check if the link was correct & assumes that all stations with rebroadcasters’ callsigns are just that, when they aren’t. It could have gotten noticed earlier. That’s what this all boils down to: incorrect information being passed along to an average person. They see “CBF” & will think that is the callsign. They’ll see “CBF-12” & think that too is the callsign. They don’t know the difference or that what they are seeing is wrong. Let’s not forget that what we do is seen by the general public. If something is published incorrectly, it is highly likely to be regurgitated the same way. Someone clicks on “CBF 92.7” & sees no mention of said rebroadcaster on the CBF-FM page, they’re going to wonder what’s up. They’re going to have to search to find the correct station, & this all boils down to what is clearest for the average person. If they start seeing -FM suffixes in every infobox, they’ll learn that that is the correct callsign. If we do it right, we only have to do it once!Stereorock (talk) 20:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Additional: I thought very-low-power stations with the VF prefix, along with the equivalent T.V. stations with the CH prefixes are exempt from their respective suffixes. What is the status of these? Thanks!Stereorock (talk) 20:46, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
The style I chose for the templates I made, Western and Northern Nova Scotia for example, was because like @Bearcat: said, these templates need to be organized accordingly, so instead of crowding the template, I combined AM and FM stations in the same category. Any radio amateur or enthusiast would be able to distinguish call-signs because of the frequency beside it. CBF 530 would be CBF and CBF 91.5 would be CBF-FM, otherwise CBF-10 104.5 would be CBF-FM-10. Numbers in AM stations very rarely exist, if at all (I can't think of an example).
The issue regarding linking pages to the wrong station, I believe is in the hands of the editor. Thousands of editors make mistakes whilst editing an article, it's up to other editors to fix it. Anybody editing a template, after a short period of research would be able to come up with the correct page. I think most would agree that when editing, you've a many tabs open to make sure what you're editing is correct.
I'm not saying my way is correct, I'm only saying I feel cosmetically it is much more pleasing to have simple entries and a simple template, as simple as can be. I'll refrain from editing more, until we have more discussion.
P.S. I do like what @DrChuck68: did with Chicago Radio.
There are more than just ham radio operators & radio geeks (of which I belong to both) reading Wikipedia. They will take what is written at face value. I’ll tell somebody a frequency & they’ll ask if it’s A.M. or F.M., even though it seems pretty straight forward to me (if it ends in a zero, it’s A.M.; if it has a decimal point, it’s F.M.!). As for the aesthetics, each of us has our own likes & dislikes. I dislike not seeing the full callsign, whereas you feel the opposite. I can’t say your aesthetic is wrong for you, which is why I’m staying away from aesthetics: they’re subjective.

Anyway, I am heading on vacation this morning, so I am going to be infrequent until probably Friday. Have a good week, everyone!Stereorock (talk) 04:13, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Regional groupings on US templates

After thinking about it for the last couple days, I’ve come to the conclusion that regional groupings should be used on US templates. There are plenty of benefits to this:

  • Uniformity With Canadian templates
  • Separating full market signals from rimshots/suburban signals: For instance, in my home region of Greater Boston, there are a TON of signals that don’t cover the entire market. It makes very little sense to put WXRV (35 miles north of the city, near the border with NH, with very little signal south of the city) and WPLM-FM (the opposite) in the same section of the Navbox. Same thing goes for stations like WBOQ, WATD-FM and probably 20 other FM signals and 10 AM signals.

I’d think that this method is more useful for readers than the current separation method (LPFM/translators), but I’m looking for a concensus. And yes, I realize I’ve brought this up before, but I’m definitely seeing some flaws to the current method, so I figured it’d be best to bring this up again. TomG2002 (talk) 01:38, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

One problem with grouping by region is the fact that there are numerous instances where a station is licensed to a location in an outer region, though the transmitter is located in the main city and vice versa. When I grouped the Boston navbox by region, I placed the stations in each group based on where their transmitter was located rather than their city of license, but that was one problem I encountered. For instance WROR-FM is licensed to Framingham, Massachusetts but its transmitter is located on the Prudential Tower in Boston. Conversely, WIND (AM)'s transmitter is located in Northwest Indiana, but it is licensed to Chicago and covers the entire market. Similarly, WABC (AM) is licensed to New York City and covers the entire market, but its transmitter is located in New Jersey. I personally haven't seen any flaws to the method of separating LPFM and translators from the main grouping.
That being said, I don't think there is one method that will work effectively across all radio station navboxes. I think each should be looked at individually. Norfolk NE Radio is one navbox where grouping by region does work well. My home region, Chicago, has even more stations that don't cover the entire market, and I experimented (off the site) with grouping the stations by region, but found it to be too much of a mess.--Tdl1060 (talk) 02:26, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
If I've learned one thing recently on Wikipedia (imagine that, Wikipedia, a place for learning!) it's what User:Tdl1060 has said here and User:Bearcat said in another thread: these template groupings need to be looked at individually for each city or region. What works for Boston or New York City might not work as well for Norfolk NE Radio, and vice versa. In some metropolitan areas, the FM dial is densely packed with frequencies, some of which are occupied by multiple stations (see 102.9 FM in Boston, occupied by a whopping five LPFMs). Having a list of frequencies bearing the same numeric values is confusing to readers and editors. Grouping them into LPFMs and translators more clearly indicates what the frequency is (especially with the growing number of translators, resulting from AM revitalization and HD2 relayers). Adding the callsign into the frequency grouping (see 102.9 FM in Boston and the five LPFMs) indicates clearly to readers (and editors) which stations occupy that frequency. Not all U.S. city/state templates have a separate group for LPFMs and translators, as they may not have that many, so they need to be looked at individually. We're not measuring or indicating how much signal a station has in a city or an area, but which stations have their city of license in that city or area. I could be in Brooklyn, New York, and not be able to get WXQR-FM on my clock radio, but my neighbor can get it by hooking up his huge dipole antenna to his stereo. --DrChuck68 (talk) 16:33, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with this — there's no actual requirement that all North American radio templates have to be organized or presented in a strictly uniform way, even if that paves over significant differences. As I noted when I had to revert some of TomG200's non-consensual changes to Canadian radio templates, the American "Nielsen market" model often doesn't work at all in Canada. The CRTC is much more conservative in terms of licensing radio stations, so typically a Canadian town or city (even the largest major markets) will usually not have as many radio stations as an American city of equivalent size — in actual fact, most Canadian "markets", including nearly all cities anywhere below the ranks of the biggest major metros, do not have enough of their own radio stations to justify a dedicated navbox at all, and would thus be un-navboxable and therefore relatively isolated from inbound wikilinks. So we upcycle Canadian radio templates to a broader regional level rather than limiting them to single-market groupings — and at that level, we need to separate the stations by community of license rather than just contextlessly running them all into a single frequency list. Similarly, reorganizing the Ottawa-Gatineau market template in an American style broke the important contextual distinction between Ottawa stations (English) and Gatineau stations (French).
So, indeed, each template needs to be organized in accordance with that radio market's own needs and circumstances, and there is no rule that Canadian and American radio templates all have to conform to the exact same presentation for consistency's sake. The idea that Canadian content on Wikipedia always needs to precisely mirror American content in subject, structure and design is exactly how we get absurd non-starters like the notion that List of majority-minority United States congressional districts automatically had to be matched with an equivalent list of majority-minority ridings in the Canadian House of Commons, even though the USian concept has political and social context for why it matters, while the Canadian one was just pure demographic trivia of no political significance. Canada and the United States are different countries, and are allowed to do things differently from each other. Bearcat (talk) 16:54, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Several markets may be deleted

TomG2002 (talk · contribs) has nominated 5 markets for deletion. You may read the entry here: [[1]]. User:Stereorock 13:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Frequencies in templates

One thing I have noticed over the years is that most, but not all templates have a consistency to them, but which is not set in stone. The features are: Frequencies in order from lowest to highest (meaning A.M. comes before shortwave, which comes before F.M., which comes before weather radio in the U.S. & Canada; L.W.->M.W.->S.W.->F.M.->D.A.B. for Europe, Australia). I would like to solidify this. Also, that shortwave should be listed exclusively in MHz, as what I learned was that once you go into the thousands of a unit, it is customary to change the unit prefix (so 5,000 kHz becomes 5 MHz). A.M./M.W. being exempted because it starts below 1MHz. Thanks! Stereorock (talk) 13:50, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I do want to suggest that FM go first in Mexico (I know you've flipped a couple templates in that set), simply because of things like AM-FM migration that have reduced the count of AM stations significantly. I'm probably going to do that at some point for Template:Nogales Radio because once the simulcast period of Nogales, Sonora's four AM-FM second-wave migrants conclude, there will be just one AM station on both sides of the border. Raymie (t • c) 20:43, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
My fear to that is that others would use that to subvert an A.M. before F.M. ruling as well. You do have a point about the A.M. to F.M. migration in Mexico, & I suspect time will make the subject moot for Mexican templates when A.M. passes into the history books there. Stereorock (talk) 22:41, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Alternatives to using Nielsen as the basis for market templates

Many regional radio templates use Nielsen’s definitions for markets as the basis for determining whether or not a station should be part of a navbox or not, but since WP has been in hot water with Nielsen before for using their copyrighted definitions/terminology, should we really be doing that anymore? How about using the US Census Bureau’s MSA definitions or the FCC’s protected contours for individual stations instead? I would think that both sources are reliable enough to not qualify as WP:NOR, but I am looking for a consensus. TomG2002 (talk) 18:14, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea in a broad sense, but would we use the station’s marketing to determine what they target, or transmitter site, or community of license, or another way? For instance, Middleborough Center, Mass. (in the Boston “market”) has a radio station licensed to it (WVBF) which targets Taunton, Mass. (in the Providence, R.I. market), yet the area seems to be not really belonging to either. It’s in one, targets another, & can’t be heard in either Providence nor Boston proper. I look forward to seeing how we’ll all solve these dilemmas!

It depends on which method we were to use. If we used the US Census one, it would be in the Boston template since Middleborough is part of the Boston NECTA and MSA. If we were to use FCC contours, it’d be in the New Bedford-Fall River Template, since it’s signal is better in New Bedford than in Boston or Providence. On the other hand, stations like WPLM-FM would likely be included in as many as 4 (Boston, Providence, Cape Cod and South Coast) templates under the FCC contour proposal, since it’s protected contour encompasses all 4 areas. TomG2002 (talk) 00:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

One thing I ask is that for out-of-market stations like WPLM-FM that they show up smaller than the in-market stations. Stereorock (talk) 22:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
Smaller? I find the font to be small enough as it is. My eyes have trouble with the smaller font. --DrChuck68 (talk) 00:53, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
By the FCC countour proposal, WXTU would be included in the Philadelphia, Trenton, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware templates. Yet, WXTU's city of license is Philadelphia. Putting it in multiple templates like that will cause confusion and create cumbersome template maintenance. Using the US Census Bureau's MSA definitions may not be much better, as the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA (the Delaware Valley) covers a lot of area, from Trenton to Wilmington and everything in between. That would put a lot of stations on one template, which just might end up getting grouped by region anyway. The New York City metropolitan area is even larger. For Nielsen, it was logical to break down the NYC MSA into embedded markets. If we don't follow the Nielsen definitions, we may end up breaking down the MSAs ourselves. --DrChuck68 (talk) 02:37, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
Maybe for that situation, we might want to revive Template:Philadelphia Radio Markets. The Census method may actually be better than the signal propagation method in this case, since Vineland, NJ has fewer stations than Trenton (which is actually its own metro area). TomG2002 (talk) 14:21, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

List of community radio stations in the United States

A user is deleting -FM suffixes from the above page for stations that do have the suffixes as part of their F.C.C.-issued callsigns. I wanted to alert you all to that. Stereorock (talk) 23:29, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Short descriptions for radio station pages

I've been adding short descriptions to radio station articles throughout this year. For US stations in particular, where a city of license is often a suburb of a larger metropolitan city, I've been double-barreling the description (e.g. "Radio station in Cheraw–Florence, South Carolina". Vchimpanzee suggests that because the station has no physical presence in Cheraw, the short description should just mention the metropolitan area. Any thoughts on what works better for a short description? Raymie (t • c) 20:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

By the way, Cheraw, South Carolina is not in the Florence, South Carolina metropolitan area. I don't know whether that means anything, but the Florence radio stations have cities of license in a very large area, mostly rural.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:38, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
The main use for short descriptions is so that when a reader is looking for an article, they are helped the short description to yell that the article is the one they want. "Radio station in <somewhere>" is only helpful when it distinguishes the station from one with a similar name somewhere else. As long as <somewhere> is sufficient to do that job, it will perform its intended function.
So you need to consider whether a short description of "Radio station in Florence, South Carolina" for WKRP is good enough for a reader to tell that radio station from any other radio station article named WKRP. If it is, then you don't need anything further. Otherwise, add more relevant terms until it does the job. --RexxS (talk) 23:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
The thing is that in broadcasting, particularly for countries like the US and Canada where call letters are the article title, we often deal with call signs that are super similar. For instance, WHKW, WKHW (FM), WHWK, WWHK (AM). So geographic distinction at that level is almost a must for a large portion of the articles covered by this project. Outside of that, where station names are used in articles, distinction for Hallam FM can be as short as "British radio station" as there aren't other ventures named Hallam FM. Raymie (t • c) 00:01, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Of course, the state alone would be sufficient to distinguish between those four examples. Nevertheless, although "Radio station in Pennsylvania" would be sufficient for WKHW (FM), it really isn't worth the argument if somebody decided to use "Radio station in Halifax, Pennsylvania" – wouldn't you agree? --RexxS (talk) 02:09, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

State/format templates

Should radio stations that are licensed to one state but serve another state (or parts of two states) be included on both templates? And should we include the target city of a station on the template in addition to the city of license? The casual reader likely would recognize WSNE-FM as a Providence, Rhode Island station and not a Taunton, Massachusetts one, WHOM as a Portland, Maine station and not a Mount Washington one, WEEI-FM as a Boston station and not a Lawrence, Massachusetts one, etc. The television templates already include stations that are licensed to one city/state but target another city/state, and this strategy could easily be incorporated onto radio templates as I did on some New England area templates over the summer (some templates still use this method). I’m just looking for a consensus. TomG2002 (talk) 13:47, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

List of oldest radio stations

List of oldest radio stations (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This list has multiple issues. I've noted some on the talk page and will try to clean it up during the next few weeks as I have time. Thoughts on inclusion criteria and structure (which section titles should be included) would be most welcome. --mikeu talk 20:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests

Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to WikiProject Radio Stations since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with {{ping|Trialpears}} and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as {{infobox journal}} for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as {{starbox begin}} should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

RfC about TV and radio station style variances

Editors of this WikiProject may be interested in an RfC at Talk:WNGH-TV#RfC about TV and radio station style variances. – Reidgreg (talk) 18:58, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

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