WBOE history

[johnbasalla]

I read a detailed article about the history of WBOE, the Cleveland Public School's radio station on Wikipedia. I thank those involved as one of my items I want to do is to preserve the history of WBOE. There are a few items that could use updating. At the top it reads:
"WBOE" redirects here. For the Ravena, New York, radio station which held the WBOE call sign from 2006 to 2007.
It should re-direct from Cleveland's WBOE, which was on the air from 1938-1978, and carried the Cleveland Radio Reading Service on its 67 khz subchannel until May, 1982.

Then:
WCLV (90.3 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio,...

...This station traditionally has dated its start to September 8, 1984.
The 1984 date is for the start of WCPN, whose calls have since moved to 104.9 FM. It does get complicated, I know.

Then:
John Basalla ... began working at WBOE as a part-timer in 1976 and also began archiving recordings and transcriptions used by the station throughout its history, many of which came from twelve-inch discs, which he has continued to the present day. The discs are actually 16" Electrical Transcription (E.T.) discs. They spin at 33 and 1/3 r.p.m., with each side lasting up to about 15 minutes.

I began work on saving WBOE broadcast history, including disc and tape recordings, for historical purposes in 1979.

Thank you for reading. There are some omissions that I would like to bring up at a later date.
Respectfully submitted.

 

[Rusty Muck]

I read a detailed article about the history of WBOE, the Cleveland Public School's radio station on Wikipedia. I thank those involved as one of my items I want to do is to preserve the history of WBOE. There are a few items that could use updating. At the top it reads:
"WBOE" redirects here. For the Ravena, New York, radio station which held the WBOE call sign from 2006 to 2007.
It should re-direct from Cleveland's WBOE, which was on the air from 1938-1978, and carried the Cleveland Radio Reading Service on its 67 khz subchannel until May, 1982.

That is already said as such in the lead of the article (which is why “WBOE” is bolded in the second paragraph). The hat note for the New York station is usually done in the instance of other stations that used the callsign. See the article for KWKW.

Then:
WCLV (90.3 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio,...

...This station traditionally has dated its start to September 8, 1984.
The 1984 date is for the start of WCPN, whose calls have since moved to 104.9 FM. It does get complicated, I know.

In normal circumstances the history of WBOE would be its own article. In fact, the agreement between Cleveland Public Library and Cleveland Public Radio ending the protracted license dispute for 90.3 included the WBOE license being deleted, with CPR receiving a construction permit for WCPN.

However, the years in between WBOE signing off and WCPN signing on (not counting the CRRS) are so complex that it merited combining the history. Plus Case Western Reserve University’s Encyclopedia of Cleveland History and other contemporary accounts combined the histories anyway. (Nevermind that WCLV recognizes it’s history as that of its intellectual property at 95.5, 104.9 and 90.3, muddying things further.)

A good essay worth reading on this matter is “One or Two” by @Sammi Brie (side note, Sammi assisted me for part of this and I’ve collaborated with her on quite a few articles).

Then:
John Basalla ... began working at WBOE as a part-timer in 1976 and also began archiving recordings and transcriptions used by the station throughout its history, many of which came from twelve-inch discs, which he has continued to the present day. The discs are actually 16" Electrical Transcription (E.T.) discs. They spin at 33 and 1/3 r.p.m., with each side lasting up to about 15 minutes.

I began work on saving WBOE broadcast history, including disc and tape recordings, for historical purposes in 1979.

Looking at your Marketplace op-ed (which is a reliable source already listed) that’s exactly what you said. I can correct this.

Thank you for reading. There are some omissions that I would like to bring up at a later date.
Respectfully submitted.

There’s a treasure trove of academic research and papers on the station. It was the oldest FM in Ohio and the first station to be explicitly licensed as an educational station. Variety in 1944 even saw it as a precursor to educational television.

 

[johnbasalla]

Thanks for your timely update. I accessed the Marketplace op-ed and, on the version I saw, they listed the recorded items of the 1940s as on 16" discs. Pasted here, directly from the article at: https://www.marketplace.org/2014/06/02/personal-look-back-wboe/amp/ is what I saw. (Might there be another article, or version of the article?)

Much of WBOE’s rich history has been preserved, including many 16-inch electrical transcription (E.T.) discs, which were used to record programs before reel-to-reel tape. These large discs help 15 minutes of audio on each side, and would spin at 33&1/3 rpm. The programs recorded in the WBOE studios were known as “soft recordings” because they needed to be played back with a tone arm that was significantly lighter than the one used on regular 78 rpm record players of the time...
(Note: The word "help" in the second sentence should be "held")

I’ve worked to preserve WBOE’s history for decades, by keeping representative samples of programming and by transferring the 16-inch discs and reel-to-reel tapes to CDs.

Respectfully submitted.

 

[radiofollower]

WBOE was an historic station. Glad that you are preserving the legacy.

 

[johnbasalla]

WBOE was an historic station. Glad that you are preserving the legacy.

There will be more items coming for people to see and hear that should be re-established as worthy parts of the stations history.