WJR, Detroit used to sign off and on for maintenance purposes for a few hours in the 1960s after Sunday midnight, every month or so. The tx site engineer sometimes would broadcast recordings of pipe organs playing semi-classical music for the last ~hour of that period. WJR got floods of mail from all over the U.S. and Canada wanting to know the name of something a listener heard during those "tests."
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WHAS to go off shortly
- Thread starter CADXER
- Start date
I had a chance to tune in when WHAS was off. I don't have the best setup in the world, but it amazed me how silent the frequency was... there was absolutely nothing there.
K
kenglish
Guest
I talked to their engineer earlier in the week. He's been chasing a problem with the RF contactors (as I suspected), that switch between the two towers and two transmitters. He said he may have it fixed this week.
How long were WHAS off?
K
kenglish
Guest
Posts on "Post your latest DX" look like about an hour and 40 minutes.
I wonder if these guys who were playing one record over and over when doing maintenance had just grabbed one record (or cart) and had too much other stuff to do than change it. My memory of WLS and WCFL being off on Monday mornings was going to either WOKY, which was on all night (while pest CKCY was off) or going to KOMA which stayed on until 2am. KOMA benefited from WLAC and WCKY being off.One Monday morning during WLS' signoff, the engineer played "Portrait of My Love" by Steve Lawrence all night/morning long. This was at least 2 years after the song was popular. He must've liked it alot
I've been told that there were/are certain records that are good for setting processing.
I couldn't hear WOKY in the near north suburbs, but KOMA was an alternative. I can't remember if KAAY was off, but I remember on Sunday nights KAAY continued to play music while most of the other pop music stations had public affairs or religious shows.
840 may be the clearest of the clear channels. I could only catch (via SDRs) the 2 10,000 watt Cubans on the frequency.
When I used to do the regular maintenance on my own stations, I had one record per format that I liked, knew and had on a cart that had no stop tone on it. I'd let the jock know it was maintenance time (usually at about 1 AM on Sunday morning) and tell him to start it playing in half an hour or so to give me time to get to the transmitter site. Then it would play until I told them to stop... that way I had music even if the transmitter was off without having to remind the jock to keep playing "for nobody".
The key was not having a stop tone on the cart.
With 6 stations in the same market, I'd rotate one a week except for the two that shared a transmitter site and were duplexed. In that case, I'd do both in one session.
So, yes, we'd have a song we knew was predictable and which allowed us to do any adjustment that was needed with a known piece of typical audio.
K
kenglish
Guest
I worked for a recording studio engineer, who also had a sound company. He made his own mix of James Brown's "I Got Ants In My Pants (and I Need To Dance)", which we always used to test with.
I also used a commercial mix of it on my own system, including my local church (Easter and Christmas Cantatas).
I always wondered how God felt about that. Maybe he liked the music?
I also used a commercial mix of it on my own system, including my local church (Easter and Christmas Cantatas).
I always wondered how God felt about that. Maybe he liked the music?
WTRX 1330 used "Love You Inside Out" by The Bee Gees as I recall.
Yes the two Thursdays that they were off the only two stations received at my location were the two Cubans. I was kind of hoping Haiti would make an appearance, but no luck.
Interesting because, until about 1966 or 2-3 years before Clyde Clifford came on the scene with Beeker Street, KAAY used to drop in an hour or two of paid religion in late evenings. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think it started around 9 or 10pm. I found it very bad timing, and downright annoying. Did I say my memory is "a little fuzzy"? Yeah....I don't remember if KAAY was off on Monday mornings or not. But I'd think it would be highly likely that they were.
Garner Ted Armstrong was known to buy secular stations, and I'm thinking he was on around 6:30pm? My ability to listen to KAAY was limited to about an hour before Little Rock sunset due to their directional pattern.
Actually, I think it was Garner Ted that interrupted the rock and roll. BRILLIANT programming move!
At 9 or 10PM it's very possible. I remember earlier in the evening in 1967 tuning to KAAY around 7 or 8PM for the only music I could find. Later on Sunday nights WLS aired Art Roberts pre-recorded oldies show, so by that time I wasn't listening to KAAY on Sunday nights. As far as their "KAAY" signing off, I don't remember that either. It's been alot of years
In the mid to late 1960s, KAAY had religious programming on from 6:00-8:00pm. Then, the Top 40 returned. I remember this well as KAAY had a monster signal in my hometown of Peoria, IL at night. Since WLS became a cancellation zone mess at night, after dinner I had to either listen to local WIRL, WKYC in Cleveland [Big Jack] or KAAY after 8:00pm.
Bob
Bob
Well my memory is somewhat fuzzy on this after 50+ years, but I do remember KAAY playing music sometime on Sunday evenings when the other stations weren't. Maybe it was after 8pm while the others that I could receive were still airing religious programs.
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