Wikipedia:Peer review/WINC (AM)/archive1

WINC (AM)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article was promoted to Good Article Status on April 10 and I am looking for a review of the article whole prior to taking the article to FAC. Advice is also welcome. Thanks...Neutralhomer • Talk • 12:28, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Finetooth comments

General thoughts

This looks to be in good shape, and I found very few minor things to fix. I was unable to find an example of an FA article about a radio station, so I'm thinking that this one could be the model if eventually promoted. Making it comprehensive (no easy task) will be important.

Non-U.S. readers might be puzzled by things that are common knowledge to U.S. residents. Readers in India may not recognize the name Patsy Cline, and lots of readers will know nothing about CONELRAD or the FCC. You have already provided links, but I'm thinking that brief in-text explanations might be useful too, though it will mean finding tidy RS summaries that can be cited.

It would be interesting to know more about the size and nature of the original listening audience and also how those changed with time. These are probably related to other variables such as the number of competing stations in the region, the changing population size and demographics, the changes in ownership and affiliations, and the changes in programming. I imagine, for example, that listeners had opinions about the change from a music station to a talk station and that WINC reached a larger and possibly different audience by increasing its transmitter power and by adding a sister FM station. In addition, competitors using radio, TV, or Internet transmission may have siphoned off some of WINC's original audience.

I wonder if and how the politics of the station changed with time. The current station features a lot of what some observers might describe as right-wing propaganda ("The Right Side of the Radio Dial"). If so, was that always the case? It appears not, from what's already in the article, but it's not clear when or why the change came about. Maybe with the switch to talk radio? Maybe with one of the changes in ownership? Maybe with changes in the audience?

Is anything else known about the economics of the station? Has it always been profitable? How many people work at the station?

There's mention of advertising minutes in the article. Is there any way to say who the main advertisers were or how the kinds of ads might have changed over time?

Lead

• I would add to the lead that this station is in the United States.
  •  Done - NH

• I'd include brief mention of the "Programming" section, and I'd include mention of the switch from music to all-talk.
  •  Done: I included a sentence about the switch to talk and the station's format. - NH

• I'm not sure how a contest could short out telephone circuits. Maybe "The resulting thousands of simultaneous phone calls to the station shut down the local telephone system." Or something like that.
  •  Note:: I think it was because it was a 1947 phone system, making it easier to short out. That is how it was discribed by the owner, Richard F. Lewis, Jr., in the article at the time. The mention of the system shorting out was just used in a DYK. - NH

• Spell out and link Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on first use.
  •  Done - NH

Pre-broadcast

• Say where WFVA was based, as you do with the other radio stations.
  •  Done - NH

• "on the week of November 10, 1940" – "During" rather than "on".
  •  Done - NH

• "At launch, the station broadcast at 250 watts day and night." – Would it be good someplace here to explain whether 250 watts is a little, average, or a lot? What was the range of the station?
  •  Note:: 250 watts is considered fairly low for an AM station. Unfortunately, I don't have any sources to back that statement up. The range was, probably, within the Winchester city limits. That is a guess, to be honest, as I don't have anything to back that up either. - NH

• "The station was assigned the WINC call sign in early March 1941." – Might be good to say who assigns the call signs. I assume it's the FCC, but I don't know.
  •  Done: You are correct, it is the FCC which assigns call signs. I put "by the FCC" at the end of the sentence. - NH

• "The station's first transmitter was a Western Electric type 310B." – This will mean nothing to most readers. I would link transmitter and also say something more about the Western Electric type 310B, if any RS can be found to explain it. Was it special in some way, better than other options?
  •  Done: I ditched this sentence. I included it as a neat piece of trivia, but you are right, it won't mean anything to most readers. - NH

• "Lewis filed the initial application for a new station in Winchester, Virginia, with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the week of November 10, 1940." – What was the population of Winchester at that time?
  •  Done: Population added, sourced via the University of Virginia. - NH

Post World-War II

• The request for more power (500 and 1,000 watts) seems related to range, audience size, and marketing, but the reason for the requested shift to 950 AM is completely unclear to me. What would be better about 950 AM?
  •  Note:: That's a very good question. Fact is, I don't know. I'm not sure if they were trying to go for a lower frequency which allows for greater coverage or if they wanted to later expand to higher wattage, maybe even try for clear channel status. I'm just not sure. The information I have doesn't give a reason, unfortunately. - NH

• Did Virginia Hensley sing more than once on WINC? If so, did she become Patsy Cline while still singing on WINC? Did she get paid by The Melody Playboys despite her offer to work for free? What did she sing on that first occasion?
  •  Done: Unsure if she ever got paid, nothing I can find states one way or another, but she did continue to perform on WINC. Not sure what she sang either. - NH

• "In 1959, WINC engineer Philip Whitney designed a CONELRAD alarm device for FM stations." – I think this is the first mention in the article of an FM station. Did WINC have an FM sister station in 1959? If so, when was it added?
  •  Done: Added a quick blurb about it, with source. - NH

• " early nationwide warnings in the event of possible enemy attack during the Cold War" – Link Cold War.
  •  Done - NH

• "Whitney is also credited with creating many of the remote control systems used by radio stations, including the microwave remote control system." – How do radio stations use remote control systems? What for? Are microwave transmissions from tower to tower the main or only use? I'd add a link to microwave transmission to help readers with at least part of this. Are the transmissions incoming only, or do they go both ways, to and from WINC?
  •  Note:: As I understand it, stations use remote control systems to control a transmitter that is miles away. Essentially so they won't have to have a big tower in their back yard. Today, this is done via Studio/transmitter link and Transmitter/studio link. I'm not sure if Whitney created these systems or not. I can't find anything online stating one way or another. - NH

The 1960s through the 1980s

• I'd recommend shortening the section head to "1960s through 1980s".
  •  Done - NH
• In the 1965 logo in this section, the FM station is listed as WRFL. In the "The 1990s to present" section, the sister FM station is named WINC-FM. Some possibility for confusion exists here; maybe the call sign was changed at some point? If so, when and why? WRFL is now based in Lexington, Kentucky. Did the station move, or is there some other explanation?
  •  Note:: WINC-FM switched it's call sign to WRFL in 1949. In June of 1979, that station became WQUS, before switching back to the WINC-FM call sign on January 1, 1981. - NH
• "The station was the first in Winchester to announce the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968." – I think this is the first mention in the article of other stations in Winchester. What are the other stations? What kinds of programming do they offer that differ from WINC? Maybe the answers to this belong mostly in the final section of the article. It would be interesting to know if Winchester has an NPR station, a classical music station, a country-and-western station, a jazz station, and so on.
  •  Note:: In 1963, Winchester had three stations. WHPL 610 (now WXVA), WINC and WINC-FM. A fourth, WHPL-FM 102.5 (now WUSQ-FM) hadn't launched yet. No formats were available in the sources I have. By 1968, WHPL-FM was on the air, bringing the number of stations in Winchester to four. No formats were listed then either. Today, we have a selection of stations from country, to CHR, to rock, to AC, to religious. WMRA, the NPR station in Harrisonburg, Virginia (about 90 miles to our south) has a translator in Winchester, but no real programming comes from Winchester. I do list all the area stations in the market template in the "External Links" section. - NH

Oh, I just missed that. I didn't look at any of the collapsed lists at the bottom for info, but there it is. I leave it to you to decide whether to add any of this to the main text or not. – FT

I fear that would start bringing the scope of the article away from WINC (AM) if I were to add any about other stations. With WINC-FM, since it is the sister station, a quick mention I believe is OK. But others, like stations owned by other companies, would get beyond the scope of the article.

There is a "Sister Station" section in the infobox and the market template, which allows the reader to flip to other articles. I believe this would be enough of a mention for connected (ie: sister stations) and unconnected stations to WINC. That's just my opinion, though. :) - NH

1988 "Lottery" lawsuit

• "Thomson analogized it to a contestant on Let's Make a Deal." – "It" is ambiguous in this sentence. Maybe: "Thomson compared the contest to Let's Make a Deal, a television game show in which winning contestants could choose to keep a prize or trade it for a chance at a bigger prize." If you use my suggestion, you'll need to add an RS for the last part of the sentence.
  •  Done: I changed it up to read: "Thomson compared the contest to the game show Let's Make a Deal". - NH

The 1990s to present

• This section head might be better as "1990s and after".
  •  Done - NH

Programming

• Link IMG?
  •  Done: I used IMG College instead. IMG the company is the umbrella name for everything they do from Art and Commerce, to Consulting, to Events, to Fashion. IMG College is the broadcasting arm of the company. - NH

• Spell out National Football League (NFL) on first use?
  •  Done - NH

• Does WINC cover any local sports such as high school football?
  •  Note:: Not anymore. They did several years back, but to what extent, I'm not sure. - NH

References

• The formatting looks good to me except for a few newspaper article titles that should be converted to title case. An example is citation 66: "Judge says WINC Radio Contest is Legal" in which "Says" and "Is" would be correct (initial cap letters on major words). In this same way, citation 52 is correct, but citation 76 is not.
  •  Done: I did my best with these. The one that confused me, ref #48, gave me some issues. I corrected it as "Voice of Prophecy" to Go on NBC on June 3, but I'm not sure if that is right. The word "Go" has me confused. - NH

Images

• I don't think you'll have trouble convincing everyone that one non-free image (the first logo) meets the WP:NFCC criteria, but it will be hard to convince everyone that you need four non-free images of logos. The last three seem mainly decorative to me, and I would try to replace them somehow. You could simply delete the 1941 logo since it creates a text sandwich with the infobox. You might consider using File:Patsy Cline II.jpg, File:HarveyPaul.jpg, or anything that seems to fit thematically.
  •  Done and  Note:: I removed the last two logos and kept the station's first, moving it down to the "World War II" section. Since it is the station's first logo, I'm hoping the historic value will be enough to keep it, but will cut it if necessary. I moved the picture of the station's studios down slightly. There is an old black and white photo of Patsy Cline in front of an old WINC microphone. The website is a fan page with alot of stories, old pictures and what not, says the information is copyright "EllisNassour", but I'm wondering if this person really owns the copyright to that photo. - NH

Yeah. People sometimes claim copyright even when they shouldn't. I've run into that with fan sites that sell old postcard images from before 1923. The Patsy Cline image is post-1923, so at this point there's not enough evidence to say one way or the other whether it's under copyright. Wikipedia can't use it without proof that it's in the public domain or otherwise licensed for copying, altering, and redistribution, essentially. Maybe WINC owns the original and could advise about its copyright status and/or license the image for use by Wikipedia. The official process is a bit tedious, so before pursuing this, you'll have to decide if the image is worth the trouble it might take to obtain it. – FT

I have a message into WP:IMAGEHELP to see if the above linked image might be allowed here on Wikipedia. I will let you know the outcome of that either here or on your talk. - NH

The image (both the one full image and the cropped one) come from an image that is copyright to "Frank Driggs Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images". So, we can't use it. :( - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:57, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I hope this helps and that you'll be able to improve this one to FA. Holler if anything here is unclear. Finetooth (talk) 22:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I have done my best with all of the suggestions. Some that I either haven't done, due to lack of information or whatever, I have marked with a  Note: mark. Others that I have finished, I have marked with a  Done mark, though some of those might have notes.

Please let me know if anything else needs cleaned up and I will work on those as quickly as I can. Thanks again for your help. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 10:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

That was fast. I don't have any other ideas at the moment, but if something occurs to me, I will post another note here. Finetooth (talk) 16:31, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

When I'm excited about a project, I get to work. This one has me excited because it is just one of 2 GA radio stations in Virginia and will be the only FA station ever if promoted. Plus, it's the history of Virginia that gets me going too. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:14, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Hamiltonstone comments

I generally don't review these sorts of articles, so please disregard anything that seems inconsistent with, eg, wikiproject guidelines.

• Linking "broadcasting" in the lead seems unnecessary
  •  Done - NH

• The expression "news/talk/sports formatted" seems clunky and certainly not a prose style I'd expect at FA level. Also, each of those terms is linked, and I note the link for "news" is to "news only radio", yet this obviously isn't news only, because it is also doing talk and sports.
  •  Note:: This is the format given by Arbitron and the station. Some talk stations are just "Talk", some are "Talk/Sports" when they carry sports coverage, but ones that have their own news coverage, are "News/Talk/Sports". News radio, redirects to All-news radio, and doesn't always mean the station is all news, but that is carries news programming. - NH

• While the lead refers to the current format of the station in this way, the body text actually does not define the station's format until the 1980s section. Why is that?
  •  Note:: The sources that I have available don't give a station's format (AM or FM) until the early 80s. From what I have heard, the station carried a Full Service/Variety format, but I don't have anything to back that up. - NH

• The lead is too fragmentary / choppy to reach FA. Consecutive sentences are about unrelated content. While Patsy Cline is obviously a significant figure, in the lead it comes across as a piece of trivia / factoid that doesn't lead anywhere. Ditto the factoid about shorting out the phone system.
  •  Done: I expanded both the Patsy Cline and phone shorting blurbs. I have also expanded the CONELRAD blurb as well. - NH

• The lead doesn't tell us whether it was or remained an AM band station.
  •  Done: I added "1400 AM" right after the initial call sign in the very first paragraph. - NH

• "He did not foresee any changes to the stations" - repetition of word "station" in successive sentences sounds clunky.
  •  Done: I changed the first to sister stations (as it mentions WINC's sister stations), the second I switched to "company", and the third I left as is. - NH

• "The sale closed in August 2007". What does this mean? Is this a technical term relating to how radio freuqencies are transacted? It was on offer but the sale closed without a buyer, or does the article mean the sale was successfully made for that sum?
  •  Done and  Note:: "Closed" is a real estate term, means the same thing here. The sale closed (money exchanged, signatures signed, etc.) in August of 2007. To make the term less confusing, I have linked the word "Closed" with Closing (real estate). - NH

• The article begins by referring to Richard Field Lewis, Jr., and later has "Richard F. Lewis, Jr." at one point - it seems odd to have this relatively full version of his name in subsequent use. Why not just Lewis, or Richard Lewis? The article doesn't mention Lewis Senior at all.
  •  Note:: The first use of Lewis's name was the full "Richard Field Lewis, Jr.". To change things up, I used "Richard F. Lewis, Jr." and I used "Lewis" a couple times as well. I was trying to not use the same thing over. From everything I have found, Lewis, Sr. was never apart of the company. - NH

• "the first to get through was from the telephone company informed Sheeler that his contest was jamming local phone lines" - missing word / syntax problem there somewhere.
  •  Done: I fixed that by switching it to "the first call" and breaking it into two sentences, it seemed to be a bit of a run-on. - NH

• How could the phone company have been the first to get through? It seems impossible. After all, they would have had to react to the sudden influx of calls. Surely the first to get through would have been a random one of those first callers?
  •  Note:: The information I have is that the telephone company got through first. You may be right that a random person got through first, but the source I have says the opposite. :S - NH
    • Fair enough. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• Do we have an explanation available of the dismissal of the 1947 application for change in frequency and power?
  •  Note:: That one I actually dug for, because I was curious myself, but I couldn't find any reason. - NH
    • Fair enough. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• "WINC joined the NBC Radio Network on November 1, 1951, after more than 10 years as an ABC affiliate.[23] WINC rejoined ABC Radio, carrying both networks' programming, on January 18, 1952,[45] but dropped NBC programming in 1953". This passage raises more questions than it answers. How can one be a member of two networks simultaneously? Why did it drop the NBC programming after such a short period? I realise the sources may not be clear, but it seems like a major event that demands some sort of explanation.
  •  Done and  Note:: NBC Red became NBC, NBC Blue became ABC. Confusing, I know. So I added some "previously called NBC (color)" in parentheses to clear things up. I also have the name switch of NBC Blue to ABC listed and sourced several paragraphs above. - NH
    • Not sure that this has helped - it doesn't seem to address the issues I raised.hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
      • Missed that part at the bottom. I honestly don't know why they switched from ABC to NBC and then back again. The information I have just mentions the switch. I do know the NBC Network went to WINC-FM. - NH

• is it "a" CONELRAD device or "the" CONELRAD device - the lead implies that Whitney designed the concept and system, and there was only one such thing; the body text is more ambiguous, implying he may have designed one such alarm device, and there are others. Which is correct, and then copyedit the text to make it consistent and clear.
  •  Done: I fixed this when I fixed the CONELRAD reference in the lede. - NH

• I thought Shenandoah was a place. How come there's a Shenandoah Apply Blossom Festival in this other town? And what on earth is a Queen of an Apple Blossom Festival?? And a Minister of the Crown has a particular meaning in Westminster system countries such as Australia and the UK. It obviously has some other meaning here, which is completely opaque to me.
  •  Note:: Shenandoah is town in Virginia, but it is named after the Shenandoah Valley. Since Winchester is named for Winchester, England, we take some of the terms from them. Each festival has a Queen, we do too. The Minister of the Crown is typically the father of the Queen. - NH
    • Thanks for the note, but it still needs fixing in the article. I'm sure a Virginian will understand this, but that leaves the rest of the English speaking world. And even the explanation you make here doesn't completely make sense to me. You say some of the terms from England, but I've never come across a festival queen, just a queen of the country :-) And no modern Minister of the Crown would be the queen's father. All in all, it remains bizarre. In any case, do you think it might be reaching a level of unencyclopedic detail for a radio station entry? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
      • You do have a point about how the mentions could be unencyclopedic. The reason I put them in the article was to explain why President Johnson was in town. I could change it to say "President Lyndon B. Johnson, visiting for the Apple Blossom Festival in 1964, was interviewed live on the station." Completely removing any mention of Queen, Minister of the Crown, or anything confusing. - NH

• More generally, the whole first para of the 1960s to 80s section is a bit wierd. It is an assemblage of celebrity spots on the station. This section needs to be introduced with a more substantive para about the history of the station, rather than who happened to have sat in front of one of its mikes. It also refers to "The station was the first in Winchester to announce the assassinations..." My reaction to this was 'are you kidding? it's a town of 12 000 people. How could there possibly be any other stations?' The article has not mentioned any rivals, only that WINC was the town's first station.
  •  Note:: As I mentioned in the other PR above, in 1963, Winchester had three stations. WHPL 610 (now WXVA), WINC and WINC-FM. A fourth, WHPL-FM 102.5 (now WUSQ-FM) hadn't launched yet. By 1968, WHPL-FM was on the air, bringing the number of stations in Winchester to four. We are kinda of a centrally located town, so we got radio stations quicker than the towns around us (except for DC and Baltimore, of course). I didn't mention any rivals as I didn't want to move away from the scope of the article. There is a template box at the bottom with all the radio stations in the market. - NH
    • OK, well i still think there are things needing fixing here; the point about the rivals wasn't really my main issue. Actually, you've just identified a big gap in the article: no data about market share. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
      • I could move all celeb references to a sentence or paragraph of their own. I think it is worth mentioning that big name celebs and a sitting President were on the station's air. As for market share, are you meaning ratings? Because those will be tough to find. Arbitron, now owned by Nielsen, doesn't have back copies of seasonal ratings books. - NH
        • Well, if the para structure stays as-is, then give that first paragraph an introductory sentence. Like "In the 1960s, the station hosted interviews with several prominent figures". That said, I would also query the notability of a politician (other than the President) giving an interview at a radio station (what else are radio stations - at least news ones - there for?) I guess I may not be understanding the political culture. If a radio station only managed to interview one of its state's Senators / Congressmen in four years (as this implies), that suggests to me poor performance rather than the notability of the one interview it finally secured (and in several cases only because the person was around for some other unrelated reason). What am i missing here? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
          • It is very possible there were other politicians interviewed on WINC, I just have those. I cropped the mentions of Luci Baines Johnson, Harry F. Byrd, and Robert Byrd. I left Paul Harvey and President Johnson. Harvey being notable as he broadcast his "News and Comment" show to the entire nation from WINC. - NH
            • OK, seems fine. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:26, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
• The article refers to "American Contemporary Network" (in quote marks). What is this, why is it in quote marks, and how can it be a "network" when that word is elsewhere used to refer to a group of related radio stations?
  •  Note:: The "American Contemporary Network" was one of four networks from ABC Radio back in the 80s. There isn't a page for it here on Wikipedia, so I used quotes. Mid-Atlantic Network, Inc. was WINC's previous owner, they were a radio network in the typical sense, just the name of the company. - NH
    • I think it is better without the quote marks. I'm afraid I don't follow what you're saying about the use of "Network" - you refer to "one of four networks from ABC Radio" but then later contrast this with a different use of the term: "Mid-Atlantic Network, Inc. ... were a radio network in the typical sense, just the name of the company". For me this highlights the confusion a reader of the article will have. It somehow needs to be clearer that the ACN is not actually a network but a... I don't know, a syndicated schedule of programming, or whatever? hamiltonstone (talk) 12:39, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
      •  Done and  Note:: Sorry, that should have read "they weren't a radio network in the typical sense". That's what I get for typing too fast. I removed the quotes from "American Contemporary Network". - NH

• "dropping the AP" why "the"?
  •  Note:: "The AP" comes from "The Associated Press", AP being the nickname. "The AP" is what they call themselves. - NH
    • If they call themselves "The AP", why is the phrase earlier in the paragraph "became an affiliate of AP Radio"?
      •  Done and  Note:: This is where they get confusing. They call themselves "The AP", but don't call their radio division "The AP Radio". You'd think they would choose one or another. I changed "The AP" to read "the Associated Press". - NH

• "On May 17, 2007, Mid-Atlantic Network, Inc., announced it was selling WINC,..." whoa, what's with all the commas? Surely "On May 17, 2007, Mid-Atlantic Network Inc. announced it was selling WINC," is enough?!
  •  Done: Fixed. I suck at commas. :) I always overuse them, so forgive me on that one. :) - NH

Hope these comments help.hamiltonstone (talk) 01:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Hamiltonstone:: I have done my best with all of the suggestions. Some that I either haven't done, due to lack of information or to answer any questions you had, I have marked with a  Note: mark. Others that I have finished, I have marked with a  Done mark, though some of those might have notes.

Please let me know if anything else needs cleaned up and I will work on those as quickly as I can. Thanks again for your help. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:15, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

• I still don't like the choppyness of the lead. I've made a bold attempt to improve it, and you can see what you think.
• Like an earlier PR contributor, i think audience / market share information is important and probably needs to be hunted down for an article that is going to be comprehensive enough for FA. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Lead looks good to me. On the audience/market share, are you meaning ratings? - NH
    • Yes, although anything else on the listening audience for that matter would help. But I just can't imagine an article about a broadcaster making FA without the reader having any information about who actually listened / watched or how popular the station was / is. hamiltonstone (talk) 13:26, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
      • OK, going back to the 40s, I don't think I will be able to find any ratings, cause I don't think the existed...yet. But I can give you how many "radio units" were available for a certain town or county. As you can see on this link, there was 2,968 radio units (or houses with radios) in 1942. Is this something you are looking for? Just to note, these were put out yearly. - NH
        • I can also give seasonal ratings from 1981 to about 2001. Beyond that, I can't do much as the information isn't available. How often should I put ratings information in or the "radio units" information? - NH
          • OK, I'd do a couple of things. In the 'pre-broadcast' section, I would work in a context sentence along the lines of 'In 1940, Winchester had a population of around X, and just under 3,000 radios were owned by households in the county [cite that 1940 magazine article]". Then, once you reach the period for which ratings first become available, I would add a sentence along the lines "In 1981, the first year for which ratings information is available, WINC had X percent of audience share in Winchester [or however it is expressed in the source]" then I would chose a couple of other points in time to quote audience share. These should be somehow linked to events in the station's history, or any notable shifts in the ratings. For example, You might note what its audience share was at the time it won that award for news spots (1988), when it underwent a significant format change (1992), and when all music was dropped and it became an AP affiliate (1996). I take it there are no ratings data for 2007 when the sale occurs? Why is that? Have agencies stopped gathering ratings data since 2001? hamiltonstone (talk) 23:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
            • Sure, that I can do, no problem. I won't be able to give the 1940 or 1941 "radio units" information, as the first year they came out was 1942, about 6 months after WINC went on the air. So not a big jump in time. The reason ratings aren't online or in book form after 2001 is a good question. R&R (magazine) previously had historic ratings on their website, but their owner, AC Nielsen, shut the site and magazine down in 2009. Unfortunately, you can't use the Internet Archive for that site. The other sites that are available for ratings don't store back editions of ratings books per Arbitron's rule that they don't. Typically, for historic ratings, you have to get them from the source (ie: Arbitron, now owned by AC Nielsen) and that costs a crapload of money. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 08:17, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I was able to find the 2007 ratings from a different source. I found the '42 "radio units" information, no problem. The '81 and '96 are also on there. The one I had a problem finding was the 1992 ratings. The site I use didn't have that ratings book. I checked the '91 and '93 books and Winchester wasn't listed, so that wouldn't have helped anyway. - NH

• Hi Neutral, that looks pretty good, but the first time you use them, you need to give the reader some sense of what those rating numbers mean. Are they percentages of radio listeners? Or something else?hamiltonstone (talk) 03:53, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • @Hamiltonstone::I looked for percentages, which would be ALOT easier to explain, but unfortunately I couldn't find them. I did, however, find a story about Nielsen buying Arbitron which explains TV and radio ratings. I linked the story as a reference with a quote (the explanation of ratings) beside each time I bring up the ratings in the article. This way, the reader is given an explanation as to what ratings are and the article doesn't veer off-topic. - NH

Mojo Hand comments

• For the lead, is "news/talk/sports" a defined radio format? If not, I think using slashes is too informal in the lead; perhaps you can use commas or explain the combination format.
  •  Done: I switched it from "news/talk/sports" to "news, talk, and sports". - NH

• I think the first paragraph of the lead section should touch on the stations format(s) before the change in 1996 (though I wouldn't detail every change - just briefly mention the prior formatting).
  •  Done - Neutralhomer • Talk • 11:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

• The second paragraph of the lead feels a little scattered. It looks like the paragraph is a listing of milestones for the station, but there is nothing to tie them together. Perhaps we could start the paragraph with something like, "Several milestones have occurred during the station's more than seventy years of history."
  •  Done: Took the sentence you suggested and ran with it. - NH

• The third paragraph of the section "Pre-broadcast and launch" seems disjointed - two sentences about the address and two sentences about population. I don't think it works as a cohesive paragraph.
  •  Done: I refined the population/radio stats part and moved it up slightly, merging the two sentences together. - NH

• "Post World War II" section, last paragraph - I don't understand why the CONELRAD design is notable. Was it new or unique in some way? Whitney won an engineering award, so I assume it's notable, but I think we need to explain why.
  •  Note:: CONELRAD, which stood for Control of Electromagnetic Radiation, was the predecessor of today's Emergency Alert System and yesteryear's Emergency Broadcast System. "This is only a test....beeeep!" It was also the first of it's kind. There wasn't a system like it prior to 1951. The system, though, was only for warning of enemy attack during the Cold War. It became a dual-use system giving timely weather warnings (just like today) as well as the ever-ready warning to duck and cover. There was, prior to Whitney's invention, no way to relay those messages to radio stations. His alarm system made that possible. I worry, though, about going too in-depth about CONELRAD because it leaves the scope of the article. - NH
    • Agreed that you don't want to go into too much detail. Could you accurately say, "In 1959, WINC engineer Philip Whitney designed the first of it's kind CONELRAD alarm device..."? -MH
      • I can't because I don't know if there were alarm systems before and the source just says that he designed the alarm device. It doesn't say whether it was a first of it's kind. The part that mentions Whitney reads "The Conelrad alarm device for fm receivers was designed by Philip Whitney, WINC and WRFL (FM) Winchester, Va." Please note that WRFL is the previous callsign for sister station WINC-FM. - NH

• The "Sale" section paragraph needs better flow - perhaps restructure into two paragraphs?
  •  Done: I broke the paragraph apart into two, smaller paragraphs. I also tweaked some of the sentences and moved a couple around. - NH
    • It's better, though I think you need one more sentence to end the section. Perhaps you can comment that programming has stayed the same (I think it has?) or that ratings have gone up (or down) since the sale. It just feels like it needs a clincher. - MH
      •  Done: I added a ratings and format "clincher", as you put it, at the end of the sale section. I sourced it with current ratings and the Arbitron format link. - NH

I also made a couple of small edits myself. Overall, it's a well researched and comprehensive article, with very strong referencing. It's an excellent addition to the encyclopedia, and I hope my comments are helpful. Cheers.--Mojo Hand (talk) 03:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Mojo Hand:: I have done my best with all of the suggestions. I made a note on one, the CONELRAD one, which I marked with a  Note: mark. The rest I have finished and marked with a  Done mark, though some of those might have notes.

Please let me know if anything else needs cleaned up and I will work on those as quickly as I can. Thanks again for your help. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 11:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Two comments above, but I really like the changes you made.--Mojo Hand (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Mojo Hand:: The CONELRAD one I have a problem with, sourcing mostly. The other I fixed with no problems. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 09:20, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Works for me. Good job!--Mojo Hand (talk) 16:24, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks and thank you! I greatly appreciate your suggestions and help on this article and with this PR. Again, thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 18:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Further Finetooth comments

The article has improved since my last look. I have just a few more quibbles:

• Too many adjectives modifying "station" in the first sentence. Dropping "formatted" would help, and I don't think you need it.
  •  Done: I split this into two sentences, moving the format bit down into the second sentence. - NH

• Further down in the lead, how about deleting "news/talk/sports" and just saying, "The station's format..."? You've already given us the format details in the first sentence.
  •  Done: I put "The station's current format..." so the reader knows which one I am talking about. - NH

• The name "Mid-Atlantic Network, Inc." appears several times in the article. You could safely drop the "Inc." on all but the first use.
  •  Done - NH

• Maybe I missed the explanation, but does a rating of 16.3 mean that 16.3 percent of the possible Winchester audience was listening to WINC-AM. If not, what does the rating number mean? Finetooth (talk) 04:23, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  •  Note:: In the reference beside each mention of ratings, is news story which includes a quote (within the reference): "Ratings - Nielsen's in TV and Arbitron's in radio - help determine how much advertisers are charged to run commercials during TV programs and radio listening hours. The higher the rating, the more people there are watching and listening. That translates into a higher price for a commercial spot." I wasn't sure how to include that without veering off-topic. - NH

• @Finetooth: While not one of the "quibbles" above, I did split the first sentence in the "Pre-broadcast and launch" section. Lemme know what you think. Fixed all the others except for the last one. Neutralhomer • Talk • 04:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

For important things that won't fit neatly into the main text, a "Notes" section can be useful. See Nimrod Expedition, for example. If you like the Notes system there, you can imitate it by looking at how the templates work and doing likewise via cut-and-paste and a bit of fooling around. I think that system would work well in this article; it would give you a good place to put the ratings explanation and maybe some other stuff you feel is interesting, possibly useful, but off-topic. Finetooth (talk) 05:10, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S.: There are "Notes" systems other than this one; you might find one you like better. Finetooth (talk) 05:13, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

@Finetooth: I made the EFN one work and added it to the first mention of ratings. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:39, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Excellent. Finetooth (talk) 15:45, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

P.S.: I see this morning, when I am not so exhausted from the day's travail, that you went through this explanation once before with Hamiltonstone. I missed seeing that last night, hence the redundant question. To answer an earlier question you put to me, I think the article might now be ready for a run at FA. Don't know how the other reviewers might feel. Finetooth (talk) 15:57, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Awesome, all I need is Hamiltonstone's sign off and we are good to go. I greatly appreciate your suggestions and help on this article and with this PR. Thanks! :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 18:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)