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790 WQXI Atlanta

A

alok

What year did WQXI start playing Top 40 music ?
Where were their studios during their RnR days ?
Was their transmitter site located all those RnR years in the location it is at today ,just south of I-85 & Hwy 400 interchange ?
When RnR were they just 5,000 day ,now they are 28,000 day. Were they 1,000 night DA during RnR days ,what 4 towers ?
Who else in Atlanta played Top 40 during the WQXI RnR days ?


Al
 
alok said:
What year did WQXI start playing Top 40 music ?
1960.

Where were their studios during their RnR days ?
3165 Mathieson Dr. in Buckhead.

Was their transmitter site located all those RnR years in the location it is at today ,just south of I-85 & Hwy 400 interchange ?
Yes.

When RnR were they just 5,000 day ,now they are 28,000 day. Were they 1,000 night DA during RnR days ,what 4 towers ?
Yes. Same 4 towers (north of RR trax).

Who else in Atlanta played Top 40 during the WQXI RnR days ?
WPLO/590
WIIN/970
WGST/920 (evenings)
WFOM (Marietta)/1230
WAKE/1340
WSMA/WYNX (Smyrna)/1550
(and maybe a couple others that were not part of metro area then).
Al
Click to expand...
..
 
Here's what the Atlanta radio dial looked like in 1966 per the AJC:

WPLO 590 Country (WPLO flipped from RnR to Country--really Town & Country, see below--in the early 60s.)
WSB 750 Popular (NBC) (Popular was the softer side of Top 40, approaching but not necessarily as soft as MOR.)
WQXI 790 Top 40
WERD 860 R&B/Jazz
WGST 920 Popular (ABC) (The AJC still listed the four network affiliates back then.)
WIIN 970 Popular
WGUN 1010 Country (Mutual)
WBIE 1080 Standards (CBS) (Standards was the AJC term for BM/EZ.)
WGKA 1190 Classical (and they stuck with classical on AM until the 90s, bless their hearts!)
WFOM 1230 Top 40
WTJH 1260 Country
WOMN 1310 Popular
WIGO 1340 R&B (WAKE threw in the towel on Top 40 due to their weak Class C signal and the expanding suburbs.)
WAOK 1380 R&B (The AJC would later call the R&B format "soul", then "black", before the term "urban" became commonplace.)
WAVO 1430 Religious (Not sure if the frequency is a typo.)
WYZE 1480 Town & Country (Town & Country was a modern spin on the country format--no corn-pone, easy on bluegrass etc., and more sophisticated imaging. WPLO pioneered it in ATL.)
WYNX 1550 Town & Country
WAIA 1570 Country (became Top 40 WBAD in 1967)

WABE 90.1 Educational
WGKA 92.9 Classical
WKXI 94.1 Finance (I think WKXI was also playing BM/EZ--or standards to use the AJC's term--between stock reports.)
WAVO 94.9 Religious (AJC had 94.9 as WAVO and not WAVQ, but 94.1 was still WKXI.)
WKLS 96.1 Standards (Stereo)
WSB 98.5 Popular (Stereo) (Later flipped to BM/EZ; here's a commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arnCg-F21NA&t=2942s .)
WLTA 99.7 Standards (Stereo)
WBIE 101.5 Standards (Would flip to country in 1968.)
WPLO 103.3 Popular (Would soon become ATL's first AOR station after Plough leased it out to Ga. State for the students to program, in the days before WRAS Album 88.)
 
WOMN (1310) went on in 1963 as a "women's format" station. All women, all the time. Then, as now, it didn't cover the market.
 
I remember picking up WPLO-AM on my first trip to Atlanta over July 4th weekend in 1975. It started coming in not far south of Greenville and had a monster signal (in the daytime). I recall they were Country, but they were carrying the U.S. Open.

When I moved to Atlanta in 1994 and tuned to WPLO, the signal was very weak in town, and I thought they were having technical problems. But the signal stayed that way, and I learned that they had relocated the transmitter from North Druid Hills Road to Powder Springs. The land on North Druid Hills had become too valuable. The move effectively killed what might have been as good a signal during the daytime as WSB. At night, at least around where I live (which isn't far from the North Druid Hills location), I cannot pick up 590 at all. They did increase their daytime power to 12KW a few years ago, and now they have a better daytime signal but not as good as it was.

I suppose the move was a precursor of things to come in AM radio as such moves and even sign-offs have become common.

The other radio thing I remember about that trip was my anticipation about hearing Z93. I read the trades even then and couldn't wait to hear the station. I remember the fast pace with the shotgun signal. At night I heard Dan Mason, who years later rose to President of CBS Radio. I checked out WQXI, but it was hard to turn away from Z93.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I remember picking up WPLO-AM on my first trip to Atlanta over July 4th weekend in 1975. It started coming in not far south of Greenville and had a monster signal (in the daytime). I recall they were Country, but they were carrying the U.S. Open.

When I moved to Atlanta in 1994 and tuned to WPLO, the signal was very weak in town, and I thought they were having technical problems. But the signal stayed that way, and I learned that they had relocated the transmitter from North Druid Hills Road to Powder Springs. The land on North Druid Hills had become too valuable. The move effectively killed what might have been as good a signal during the daytime as WSB. At night, at least around where I live (which isn't far from the North Druid Hills location), I cannot pick up 590 at all. They did increase their daytime power to 12KW a few years ago, and now they have a better daytime signal but not as good as it was.

I suppose the move was a precursor of things to come in AM radio as such moves and even sign-offs have become common.

The other radio thing I remember about that trip was my anticipation about hearing Z93. I read the trades even then and couldn't wait to hear the station. I remember the fast pace with the shotgun signal. At night I heard Dan Mason, who years later rose to President of CBS Radio. I checked out WQXI, but it was hard to turn away from Z93.
Click to expand...

Yep, the gold ole day's are long gone in this wacked out market.
 
What was the station that was located at N. Decatur Rd and Church Street in Decatur? Sort of in a hole. There's a CVS Pharmacy there now.
I think it must have been WAVO or WQAK (formerly WOMN).

Do you remember Machine Gun Gary at Z93? I still hear him doing voice-overs for local TV spots every so often.
 
kf4rca said:
What was the station that was located at N. Decatur Rd and Church Street in Decatur? Sort of in a hole. There's a CVS Pharmacy there now.
I think it must have been WAVO or WQAK (formerly WOMN).

Do you remember Machine Gun Gary at Z93? I still hear him doing voice-overs for local TV spots every so often.
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to your question, but when I came to Atlanta in 1994, 1310 AM was in the building on West Ponce that's now Dancing Goats coffee house. The building looks like it was once a bank, with what looks like a drive-by window on the side.
 
kf4rca said:
What was the station that was located at N. Decatur Rd and Church Street in Decatur? Sort of in a hole. There's a CVS Pharmacy there now.
I think it must have been WAVO or WQAK (formerly WOMN).

Do you remember Machine Gun Gary at Z93? I still hear him doing voice-overs for local TV spots every so often.
Click to expand...

WAVO (now WATB) was here: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.787...=203&h=100&yaw=34.364388&pitch=0&thumbfov=100

They used to have a sign out front that said "WAVO 1420 KC 94.9 MC" and the "94.9 MC" was painted over. Not sure where the 94.9 transmitter was.

WMLB 1690 used to be piggybacked on one of the three towers.
 
RoddyFreeman said:
I don't know the answer to your question, but when I came to Atlanta in 1994, 1310 AM was in the building on West Ponce that's now Dancing Goats coffee house. The building looks like it was once a bank, with what looks like a drive-by window on the side.
Click to expand...

I was living up the street as a youngster on Nelson Ferry Rd....we would ride our banks to the radio station and watch the "DJ" from the street. The studio was facing W Ponce...rumor had it, but have no idea if true, Wolfman Jack worked there for awhile.
 
Also visited …

WOMN when it had gone automated with "beautiful music" on huge 18-24 inch reels of tape playing at 15/16. Lousy quality. Studios were a walk-up in a building near the Decatur Square.
 
IGM automation system. Know it well. The reels were actually 14 inch and the decks were Scully 280's. Ours ran at 3&3/4 speed. You had to change tapes every 2 hours. Most likely it had Sono-Mag carousels to play the Fidelipak cartridges.
I worked at a station that had those and one failed to read the cue tone on a cart and it played a Palmetto Ford spot 142 times before it was caught!
It was a real embarrassment for our upscale beautiful music station. It must have been shortly after that stations started hiring operators to babysit the automation system.
So much for early automation systems.
 
I must have worked for a high dollar outfit. Our tapes ran 7.5 IPS! They were all tails out. Harris System 90, three IGM Go Carts (48 Tray) 8 ITC 750/770 Open reel machines and a bunch of single play cart decks.
 
HGR1290 said:
I must have worked for a high dollar outfit. Our tapes ran 7.5 IPS! They were all tails out. Harris System 90, three IGM Go Carts (48 Tray) 8 ITC 750/770 Open reel machines and a bunch of single play cart decks.
Click to expand...


You did work with a good automated system. I work at a couple stations that used carousels. We used 35 and 65 second rewound carts in case the traffic department would try to use that carousel trice in a stop set with only a 30 second commercial between. The Harris 90 was a decent system back in the day.
 
jabba17 said:
WAVO (now WATB) was here: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.787...=203&h=100&yaw=34.364388&pitch=0&thumbfov=100

They used to have a sign out front that said "WAVO 1420 KC 94.9 MC" and the "94.9 MC" was painted over. Not sure where the 94.9 transmitter was.

WMLB 1690 used to be piggybacked on one of the three towers.
Click to expand...

The FCC history cards on 94.9 are interesting (at least to a radio geek like me). Click on the links and maps tab and there is a set history cards:

https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/...&EW=W&size=9&NextTab=Results+to+Next+Page/Tab

I never knew Bob Jones University owned WPCH (formally WAVO now WBUL). There also was an amazing number of CP's for antennas in the history cards.
 
Ours used a pin-pad to program it. The carousels were fun to watch when they were working right.
We were tails out too. That's only so you won't load a broken tape. You knew what you had when you loaded it.
The station across town had a Shafer system.
 
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