• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Rochester WHAM back to full power

S

spt87

Not sure if anyone noted this here already but I see WHAM returned to full 50kw operation on October 8th, 24.

I drove through Rochester a couple weeks ago and the signal seemed good but just checked the FCC DB out of curiosity and found the filing.
 
What happened to reduce it to lower power?

WHAM is one of only 37 original Class I-A stations in North America, along with WABC, KFI, CBL, XEW. I'm not sure how Rochester got the highest level AM station in the early days of radio. But it did.
 
Rochester can thank George Eastman for its beginnings, and a sale to Stromberg-Carlson for its growth into a 50 KW in 1930s. They were a major manufacturer of consumer electronics including home telephones, radio receivers, and, after World War II, television sets. They were hugely influential in telephone systems in particular and had a LOT of contacts in the federal government.
 
SirRoxalot said:
Rochester can thank George Eastman for its beginnings, and a sale to Stromberg-Carlson for its growth into a 50 KW in 1930s. They were a major manufacturer of consumer electronics including home telephones, radio receivers, and, after World War II, television sets. They were hugely influential in telephone systems in particular and had a LOT of contacts in the federal government.
Click to expand...
George Eastman of Polaroid fame? I guess he was involved in more technology than just cameras.

So WHAM Rochester was a Class I-A for similar reasons to WGY Schenectady also scoring a Class I-A designation at first. With Rochester the home of Eastman's labs and factories, WHAM got the highest status for a radio station. Otherwise, Rochester wasn't that big a city, just as Schenectady wasn't that big a city either. Most of the I-As were in Chicago (4), New York (3), Mexico City (3) and Toronto (2). All the other big cities of the day only got one I-A and maybe a I-B or two.
 
Theater of My Mind said:
I'm only going by memory so I could be wrong, but I think those licenses went to whomever applied for them first back in the early days of radio. Someone will surely be along to confirm or correct me on that.
Click to expand...
Everyone who applied early (1922 or before) started on equal footing - 100 watts or less on one or two shared frequencies.

By the time higher power operation started to become a thing in late 1923-1924, there still weren't the class designations. It was sort of first come first served for stations that wanted to go to 5000 watts or more.

To some extent, the owners that were most engaged in developing the engineering for high power were able to get priority for those licenses, which certainly explains WGY, WLW, RCA's WEAF and WJZ.

It wasn't until General Order 40 in 1928 that the current allocation scheme really took form. Even then, 5000 watts was "high power" for stations like WHAM. There was lots of shuffling of allocations as stations were pushed into share-time and synchronous situations (WBBM/KFAB on 770, WJZ/WBAL/WTIC on 760) and as politicians bickered over the distribution of high power allocations among the various radio districts. That's why Chicago lost a high power allocation as KYW moved to Philadelphia in 1934.

Anyway, it wasn't just Eastman (who founded Kodak, not Polaroid!!!) and his pull that got WHAM to 50,000 watts, and in any event he had sold the station in 1927 and died in 1931.

Some of it was that Rochester was in fact a pretty large city in the 1930s, some of it was Stromberg Carlson's engineering and political pull, and some of it was that Rochester was in a different radio region from downstate NY and so WHAM had less competition for an available class I allocation. Buffalo, which was and is a bigger city, had low-dial 5 kW allocations for WGR and WBEN that Rochester lacked, and had some political issues with the market domination of one company that would have been exacerbated by a I-A grant.

It's unlikely Rochester would have merited a I-A allocation if they'd been handing them out in the 1950s or later, but from the vantage point of the 1928-1934 era when those allocations were being made, it made a lot of sense - especially when you consider the additional population WHAM served across central and western NY in places like Elmira and Ithaca that didn't yet have their own stations.
 
Gregg. said:
What happened to reduce it to lower power?

WHAM is one of only 37 original Class I-A stations in North America, along with WABC, KFI, CBL, XEW. I'm not sure how Rochester got the highest level AM station in the early days of radio. But it did.
Click to expand...
The filed in January 2024 to run at 10kw due to a transmitter failure.

In July they filed for an extension to operate at 10kw into January 2025 citing a transmitter part on backorder.

Then they resumed 50kw on 10/6 and filed that they had on 10/8 (I had the date they resumed as 10/8 in my initial message).
 
Thanks for posting this. I was curious and signed up recently with the intent to ask about this. Earlier this year WHAM's signal had static on it even as close as Penfield, when indoors.

So now that they are back to 50kw, can anyone explain the constant "popping" noises that occurs every few seconds, along with the changes in tone?
 
It got worse yesterday. More frequent popping and the audio cutting out for a split second. Happens like 3 times a minute. Tried different radios and family members have mentioned it as well.
 
WWKB still has a much better signal than WHAM in North Carolina but no real reason to listen as their 0.1 rating shows!
 
Mike Sheridan said:
WWKB still has a much better signal than WHAM in North Carolina but no real reason to listen as their 0.1 rating shows!
Click to expand...
No wonder that Brother Stair and David J. Smith used to buy half hour blocks of time in the evenings on 1520, to spread their versions of salvation. That signal at night reached a large east coast audience.

We attended a family wedding in Virginia Beach back in 2001, and relatives in from central Florida were amused as I listened to a Buffalo Bisons home game on KB.
 
Easily Amused said:
No wonder that Brother Stair and David J. Smith used to buy half hour blocks of time in the evenings on 1520, to spread their versions of salvation. That signal at night reached a large east coast audience.

We attended a family wedding in Virginia Beach back in 2001, and relatives in from central Florida were amused as I listened to a Buffalo Bisons home game on KB.
Click to expand...
I used to listen to those games in central Connecticut, too. Minor league sports on AM powerhouses weren't common. Hockey's Fort Wayne Komets were on WOWO back in its 50kw days, and baseball's Trenton Thunder were an easy catch on WTTM 1680. Can't think of any others.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom