Talk:WKPX

message: Before I went in and fixed it, the wording for this article was a verbatim transcription of the website for this station, which is not an official Broward County Schools site (it's probably a student's pet project). I went through and Wikified this page, which included extensively rewriting the prose to improve it, but the copyright issues might still be a problem. There is also the issue of totally non-referenced work (a website hosted on freewebpages.com cannot be considered a reliable source). The school's website does reference the station in a cursory fashion, and the FCC link I provided confirms the existence of the station, but there is no info out there. I haven't tagged it yet, but both the copyright vio and unsourced tags could be applied to this page. Horologium talk - contrib 06:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyright Issues

message: The second paragraph of this article states that WKPX has 20,000 listeners in south Florida.  There is no factual basis for that assertion because the station's licensee, the School Board of Broward County, Florida, does not currently subscribe to Arbitron (Nielsen) for ratings, and the station has no PPM encoder to even permit a count of listeners.  That 20,000 listener count may have been posted many years ago when radio listening audiences in the Miami Metro Market were tabulated by diaries, but that figure would now be outdated.  It would be difficult to even give it as an historical audience measurement unless the writer of this article could furnish its month and year, and provide a source.  (Ratings for non-commercial stations were often tabulated from Arbitron raw data by independent companies.)  My statement that WKPX is a non-subscriber to Arbitron and presently has no PPM encoder can be verified with Arbitron (Nielsen).  More easily, you can go to the website www.radio-online.com and see that WKPX is not listed in the Miami Metro results, meaning that they are a non-subscriber.  May I request that this edit be done for me?  Thank you. 96.227.98.165 (talk) 05:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Since it was an unsourced statement, I deleted the listener statistic. Altamel (talk) 21:48, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request of June 18 

message: The section entitled "History: 1983 to 1987" is incomplete and most of it is not factual.  This article was most likely written by someone who was not on scene and had no first-hand knowledge of the station in its early years.  
I am Sheldon Shores, referred to in the article as the "first program director and broadcast instructor."  I will try to present an objective and accurate historical summary of the creation of this station.  
In 1977, a Piper English teacher (Dava Aiken) and I asked the Sunrise City Council for $10,000 in matching funds to build an FM radio station at Piper High School, where I was employed as a math teacher.  I had worked in radio for many years as an announcer and broadcast engineer in two small markets near Philadelphia, Wilmington (WAMS, summer, 1970), Hartford (WPOP, 1970-1972), Richmond (WLEE, 1972-1974), then went into teaching, but still did radio part-time in Miami (WINZ, 1974-1975) and Fort Lauderdale (1975-1981).  The Sunrise city council, under the prodding of Mayor John Lomelo, passed the funds, but the Broward School Board would not match them.  So the principal of Piper High School, Robert C. Beale, more than matched the $10,000, and we began studio construction.  
The two south Florida stations I had worked for, WINZ and WFTL, donated a lot of studio equipment as they modernized their facilities, and Mr. Beale continued to fund construction from the school's budget.  I do not recall a "proposed $120,000 budget."  It fluctuated greatly year-to-year, depending on the progression of construction.  The studios were built by Paul Gebert, a science teacher, and me, with help from Bill and Mario on the school's janitorial staff.  As the studio construction began, Dava Aiken and I created the curriculum for, and taught, the radio classes.  
I also wrote the application for the station's license and tendered that application to the Federal Communications Commission. I did not involve any attorney or consulting engineer so as to lessen the chances of a competing application or an objection from Channel 6. WCIX-TV.   This can be verified by examining that application in the FCC's archives in Washington, DC, and you will find my signatures throughout the document.  
Unfortunately, shortly after filing, there was a competing application for the same frequency filed by a school called "Bibletown" in Boca Raton.  This tied up the application process until 1982 when the school district settled with Bibletown so that each applicant would have a station with more limited range on a separate frequency.   It is public record that Vince Pepper and Peter Gutmann, two Washington broadcast attorneys, represented the Broward School District throughout those settlement proceedings, and I was the contact person for the Broward Schools.  The FCC then issued a construction permit, and we began a year-long process of building the transmitting facility.  
It was then that Warren Exmore came on board at Mr. Beale's suggestion.  He was never a "computer and electronics instructor at Piper High School" as stated in the Wikipedia article, nor did he "conceive" the creation of WKPX.  (He had no connection with the station during the application, licensing, or construction phases.)  He was a contractor employed by the Broward School District to maintain the district's computers.  He was, however, a highly qualified engineer, and he was a valuable addition to the radio station on a volunteer basis.  He passed away many years ago.
In 1982, WCIX-TV discovered that the Broward Schools had been issued the construction permit for WKPX, and they launched an aggressive attack through their attorney to block the construction.  (WCIX later became an NBC station, NOT CBS as stated later in the article, another error that should be corrected.)  At that time, analog channel 6's throughout the country operated on a frequency close to the bottom end of the FM radio band, and non-commercial FM's would generate massive interference to channel 6 signals.  The FCC had already imposed a freeze on licensing new non-commercial FM's, but had failed to catch that slip-up in granting the WKPX construction permit.  Because we had already begun construction, the FCC preferred to not get involved and suggested the Broward Schools and WCIX negotiate a compromise.  That never happened.  Because of channel 6, WKPX operated on program test authority for many years before the FCC issued a license.
Most of this historical background I am giving is archived in feature stories appearing in the two south Florida newspapers.   Here are references to some of the articles:  The Miami Herald, circa 1982 (date is obliterated) by staff writer Bill Ashton, Fort Lauderdale News / Sun Sentinel, early 1983 (date is obliterated) by staff writer Ruby Litinsky Madden, the Miami Herald, Thurs., Feb. 17, 1983, by staff writer Bill Ashton, and a big four page spread in the "Neighbors" section of the Miami Herald, Thurs., Feb. 21, 1985, by staff writer Lucy Keyser.  If needed, I should be able to send scans of these or other articles for documentation.    
The Wikipedia article is correct:  WKPX went on the air on February 14, 1983.  It broadcast as a "top 40" station from Feb., 1983, through June, 1985.  There was never "classic rock" as stated in the article.  The article is also in error stating that high school students operated it 24 hours a day.  From 10 pm on weekdays (11 pm on weekends) until 6 am, adults from a local broadcast school donated their time to run the station in exchange for class credit.  
In January, 1985, the area superintendent in the Broward School District, in a political move targeting the principal, Mr. Beale, cut the station to a 12-hour day, claiming adults supervising the students must be certified teachers.    Story was published in the Fort Lauderdale News / Sun Sentinel, Jan. 12, 1985, by staff writer Jim Erickson.  This wasn't true, of course, because most of the district's athletic teams were supervised by uncertified employees.  All of those people, including the WKPX supervisors, had background checks to comply with district policy.  The article is wrong in claiming that "WKPX had petitioned the FCC to operate on a sunrise/sunset schedule like AM stations."  Firstly, some AM stations may operate sunrise to sunset (not 7 am to 7 pm) to protect other stations, but that is not related to the WKPX situation.  Furthermore, WKPX NEVER filed any such petition, simply because FCC approval was not required to reduce the station's operating hours.  (That can be verified by contacting the FCC's Media Bureau in Washington.  In June of 1985, when the station's future and potential revenue had been left in question by the cutback in hours, and there seemed no hope of reviving its operation, I left to take a full-time math teaching position in San Jose, California.  
I certify that the information I have provided is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge, and I have provided it to fill in the missing historical background for this radio ststion and to correct numerous errors in the article.  I am asking that the editing be done for me. 96.227.98.165 (talk) 05:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I can appreciate the work that you've put into recounting this history, but your personal testimony isn't a suitable reference for Wikipedia, per WP:SOURCE, nor is your request specific enough. If you could find online links to the newspaper articles you mentioned, you could begin a draft that also complies with WP:NPOV and submit a new request.--FacultiesIntact (talk) 00:51, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request of June 24