User:DrChuck68/Radio station list

There are several reasons for creating a radio station list in an article. It's fairly common to see a list of translators, and possibly some boosters, that allow a station to cover a wider area. Sometimes it's a list of radio network affiliates, which can be as long as 50 or more radio stations. When creating a list, you have two choices: the RadioTranslators template or build a Wikitable. The template makes sense for a small list of translators, but it has limitations and long lists are cumbersome to maintain. A Wikitable is more customizable, works much better for long lists, and can make future maintenance much easier.

Wikitable
If you are new to editing Wikitables, you may want to familiarize yourself with the Wikitable documentation first. It shows how to create headers, rows, sortable tables, and much more. If you have experience with HTML tables, it will make a lot of sense to you. If not, don't worry, I have some examples below.

Sample headers
For a list of full-powered radio stations, certain pieces of data need to be shown. These are the bare essentials:

Using the FID template in the Facility ID column will link each of the Facility IDs to the FCC Licensing and Management System.

Let's take a look at a more elaborate example. These are the headers of the station list in the WAMC article:

Most of the stations in this list do not have their own Wikipedia article, so it makes sense to show all this information. There's one station that's not in the state of New York, so the State column is included. One station is on the AM band, so both Power and ERP are included. Power refers to nominal power (AM band), and ERP refers to effective radiated power (FM band). It's a rather important difference, so it's imperative that this distinction be made. Height is FM only, as well. Some stations have meaningful call signs, so Call sign meaning is included (this column might no be necessary in all lists). With a little thought, any necessary information can be elegantly shown in a Wikitable.

For low powered translators, the header layout is similar, but with a slight difference:

Note that MHz is specified in the Frequency column, as translators are always on FM. Translators, being less notable than full-powered stations, don't really need to show as much information as their full-powered counterparts. Other columns can be optionally added (State, ERP, HAAT). The Rebroadcasts column indicates the originating station for the translator. If the translators all rebroadcast the same station, the column is not needed.

Sample rows
These rows are from the list of WAMC full-powered stations:

WAMC (AM) has its own article, so it's Wikilinked. Columns that do not apply for a station are filled in with sdash (leaving them empty will also work, but the dash fills the empty space better, especially when it comes to future maintenance). If any rows need to be added, removed, or changed, it can be easily done. Notice that the stations are manually sorted by state, then city (then call sign, but it's not that obvious in this example). Sortable columns are available for desktop readers, but not so for those on mobile. The state/city manual sorting scheme feels like a logical sorting scheme when no other is available.

Now some rows from the list of translators:

By using the Wikitable for this list of translators, there are more column and sorting options (such as the sortable State and Rebroadcasts columns). Also, there is no 30 station limit, which is useful for articles about nationwide networks. Notice the same state/city sorting scheme is used here, similar to the full-powered stations. While translators could be included with the list of full-powers, I recommend separating them out into their own list.

Articles with list examples
There are many other articles that have station lists. Here are some of them.


 * Calvary Radio Network
 * Mars Hill Network
 * &mdash; link to radio information, as this article also covers their TV network
 * Sound of Life Radio
 * Strong Tower Radio
 * The Life FM
 * WAMC &mdash; previously mentioned above
 * WBYO
 * &mdash; link to radio information, as this article also covers their TV network
 * WKQS-FM
 * WMNR
 * WRTI
 * WVTF
 * Wyoming Public Radio

What about RadioTranslators?
RadioTranslators is designed to create a list of FM radio translators. However, it has its limitations. It can support up to 30 stations, but once the list is built, it's cumbersome to manage. Adding, editing, sorting, and deleting stations can be a chore, particularly for long lists. Also, this template is only meant to support FM radio stations, specifically translators and boosters. Links automatically generated to the FCC site may not work properly for AM stations. For these reasons, this template should only be used in the following instances:


 * A list of FM translators and/or boosters only
 * A small number of stations (my recommendation is five to ten)
 * A list where the fixed number of column headers are good enough for the purpose of the list

A list where all stations have their city of license in different states would be a better candidate for a Wikitable, so the State column can be sorted.