Pre 1980 AMs that deserved better signals.

[secondchoice]

This is a thread hopefully is about the old FCC class 3's 5kw max.(Sometimes call regional channels) and the old class 4's 1kw day and 250 watts night max (sometimes called local channels) that had they a better signal would have been legionary like WLS, KOMA, WABC etc. I picked 1980 as a cut off date because the RF noise was still OK and the Commission hadn't gone crazy with "new" stations. I am starting a "daytimer" thread too.

In the South my picks are 790 WQXI Atlanta, 1300 WMAK Nashville and 1340 WKGN Knoxville TN.

 

[blindowl]

WKNR 1310 Dearborn (Detroit)
WEAM 1390 Arlington (Washington)
KNUZ 1230 Houston
KBLA 1500 Burbank (Los Angeles) not a regional or local.
WUBE 1230 Cincinnati
WAKE 1340 Atlanta
WWDJ 970 Hackensack (New York)

 

[gr8oldies]

These stations applied for what was available at the time.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

This is a thread hopefully is about the old FCC class 3's 5kw max.(Sometimes call regional channels) and the old class 4's 1kw day and 250 watts night max (sometimes called local channels) that had they a better signal would have been legionary like WLS, KOMA, WABC etc. I picked 1980 as a cut off date because the RF noise was still OK and the Commission hadn't gone crazy with "new" stations. I am starting a "daytimer" thread too.

In the South my picks are 790 WQXI Atlanta, 1300 WMAK Nashville and 1340 WKGN Knoxville TN.

1340 isnt a regional, its a localgraveyard channel, limited to 1kw

 

[Mark Roberts]

This is a thread hopefully is about the old FCC class 3's 5kw max.(Sometimes call regional channels) and the old class 4's 1kw day and 250 watts night max (sometimes called local channels) that had they a better signal would have been legionary like WLS, KOMA, WABC etc. I picked 1980 as a cut off date because the RF noise was still OK and the Commission hadn't gone crazy with "new" stations. I am starting a "daytimer" thread too.

In the South my picks are 790 WQXI Atlanta, 1300 WMAK Nashville and 1340 WKGN Knoxville TN.

I'd say 610 WDAF Kansas City. As it was, its 5 kw nondirectional signal was such that it was known informally as "The Flatlands Godzilla".

Supposedly the combination of that signal and newspaper ownership (until the late 1950s) kept Kansas City from being assigned a class I signal, considering that Omaha, Des Moines, St. Louis, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City all had one, and the Kansas City metro was as much of a regional center as the others and more populous than any of those except the St. Louis metro.

 

[secondchoice]

1340 isnt a regional, its a localgraveyard channel, limited to 1kw

If you would read my whole thread you would have seen class 4 right after the regional class.

BTW before 1980 some of the old class 4s had a really high rate of return on initial investment. Like anything in radio the market had a really large impact on profit. They served small towns and often were the only non print media that the local businesses could afford.
Low power bill, low upkeep, small land expense, no need for a First Class guy at night.

 

[Bongwater]

Some stations also deliberately hemmed themselves in on non-upgradable frequencies and/or tower sites from the beginning, just to merely get on the air as expeditiously as possible.

 

[briancraig]

WMAK under Scott Shannon was highly regarded in the early 1970s as a station that broke many hit records. Nashville top 40 was always a matter of a bigger signal station coming along and beating the lesser signal. WKDA with very low power was #1 in the 1950s and early 1960s, until WMAK came and had shares in the 20s in the late 60s and early 70s. Then 50KW WLAC dominated the late 70s, until FM top 40 WWKX came along in the fall of 1978.

WHBQ in Memphis would get my vote. 560 with a great daytime signal but only 1K watts at night. Played the first Elvis record and pioneered playing R&B, country and rockabilly records for a general audience in the 1950s. Gave us Wink Martindale, legendary wrestling announcer Lance Russell and Elvis best friend George Klein. Was the first RKO top 40 station, years before KHJ, KFRC or WRKO. Battled better signal Plough's WMPS for over 20 years, where LA, SF and Boston competition was very weak. When Rick Dees was there and under PD John Long in the late 1970s, WHBQ was so dominant they even became a R&R P1 reporter in a market the size of Memphis. WHBQ always had an incredible music mix. John Long was heavy on funk and soul records but could mix in country and hard rock along with the regular pop hits that made sister station KHJ sound very lame and boring.

 

[davideduardo]

WMAK under Scott Shannon was highly regarded in the early 1970s as a station that broke many hit records.

WMAK achieved that standing under Joe Sullivan, who left Mooney to go into the music side of the business. WMAK was already solidly #1 under Joe, and Scott skillfully maintained that dominance. To Scott's credit, he did not immediately want to put his stamp on the statioin and left what was working alone and gradually refreshed and updated.

Nashville top 40 was always a matter of a bigger signal station coming along and beating the lesser signal. WKDA with very low power was #1 in the 1950s and early 1960s, until WMAK came and had shares in the 20s in the late 60s and early 70s. Then 50KW WLAC dominated the late 70s, until FM top 40 WWKX came along in the fall of 1978.

Up until around '72 or '73, Arbitron was not established as the key measurement of radio. Both Pulse and Hooper just measured Metro Nashville and even Class IV WKDA was competitive then. But Arbitron became a synchronized national service with uniform survey and release dates and larger survey areas permitted by the mail-out and mail-back diary and expanded most markets beyond the signals of many limited stations; this was as much the reason why FM surged in that '72-'73 period with pop formats.

WHBQ in Memphis would get my vote. 560 with a great daytime signal but only 1K watts at night.

But 1 kw on 560 is about as good as 50 kw on 1500. So it was still a decent signal for what was the metro back then.

 

[Kent]

Supposedly the combination of that signal and newspaper ownership (until the late 1950s) kept Kansas City from being assigned a class I signal, considering that Omaha, Des Moines, St. Louis, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City all had one, and the Kansas City metro was as much of a regional center as the others and more populous than any of those except the St. Louis metro.

Kansas does not have a single 50,000 watt AM licensed anywhere in the state, even in the daytime. Prior to WREN's move from Topeka, I believe 1070 in Wichita and 860 in Pittsburg were the strongest licensed AM's in the state with 10,000 watts in the daytime. Not sure why Kansas has no such station when Nebraska and Oklahoma have two, and Arkansas and New Mexico have a couple (though I seem to remember 1020 in Roswell was a bit late).

 

[ILOVERADIO]

WAIT, Chicago 5,000 watt daytimer at 820. 'World's Most Beautiful Music" with great announcers like Dick Buckley,
John Doremus, Ken A. Alexander. Very popular for a daytimer.

 

[ILOVERADIO]

WAIT, Chicago 5,000 watt daytimer at 820. 'World's Most Beautiful Music" with great announcers like Dick Buckley,
John Doremus, Ken A. Alexander. Very popular for a daytimer.

 

[Steel Nerves]

KXOK 630 in St. Louis, one of Todd Storz's stations was a Class 3. In the early and mid-1960s, KXOK had all the Baby Boomers, KMOX had their parents, and everyone else was fighting for scraps. Johnny Rabbitt (Don Pietromonaco) had an evening show that attracted a huge audience, despite the station's nighttime signal cutting off a sizable portion of the western metropolitan area.

 

[radiofan2023]

Kansas does not have a single 50,000 watt AM licensed anywhere in the state, even in the daytime. Prior to WREN's move from Topeka, I believe 1070 in Wichita and 860 in Pittsburg were the strongest licensed AM's in the state with 10,000 watts in the daytime. Not sure why Kansas has no such station when Nebraska and Oklahoma have two, and Arkansas and New Mexico have a couple (though I seem to remember 1020 in Roswell was a bit late).

Maybe because WHB’s 50,000 watts covered/covers a lot of Kansas. Also KGGF in Coffeyville is 10,000 watts in the daytime, but not sure when they signed on.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Maybe because WHB’s 50,000 watts covered/covers a lot of Kansas.

But that would have been only in 1947 and thereafter. Before that, KCMO (as it then was) was at 1480, 1450 pre-NARBA.

 

[Mark Roberts]

KXOK 630 in St. Louis, one of Todd Storz's stations was a Class 3. In the early and mid-1960s, KXOK had all the Baby Boomers, KMOX had their parents, and everyone else was fighting for scraps.

There was a discussion a few weeks ago in another of the forums here about the fairly solid showing KSD made up to the mid-1970s. KXOK was actually somewhat vulnerable, which was discovered when KSLQ(FM) came on the air in 1972 with its "Super Q" format and cleaned KXOK's clock. One contributor was the coverage problem that you mentioned; a KXOK null happened to be right where the metropolitan area was growing fastest. You could hear KXOK at night, but it was noisy.

KXOK (now KYFI) was not the original occupant of 630 in Missouri. KFRU in Columbia was. The St. Louis Star-Times bought KFRU in 1936. At the same time, it was building KXOK in St. Louis at 1250, which would have been 1280 after the 1941 frequency shifts. WIL and KSD opposed the construction of KXOK. Due to the need to resolve those regulatory maneuvers, KXOK didn't get on the air until September 1938.

KFRU had to share time with WGBF in Evansville, Indiana and until 1936, with a radio station operated by the state of Missouri in Jefferson City.

In 1939, KXOK applied for KFRU's frequency and proposed moving KFRU to a class IV channel, making what had been a regional station a strictly local station for Columbia. At the same time, KHOW in Denver applied to move from 920, which it had been sharing with KFEL, to 630. I've been told that the KXOK move made the KHOW move possible. The 1250 frequency went to WGBF, thereby giving it full-time operation. KFRU moved to 1370, now 1400. No doubt the FCC viewed these moves favorably, since they resolved two time-sharing situations, but Columbia got screwed in the process. I've never seen a report of the justification the Star-Times offered for these moves. Maybe I'll find one someday. It did seem as though the proposed move received little notice in Columbia.

After KXOK made its application, KSD, owned by a Star-Times competitor, the Post-Dispatch, entered its own application for 630 and proposed moving KXOK to 550. KSD was seeking to get out of its time-sharing arrangement with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's KFUO. KFRU would still have been stuck with 1370 under this proposal. Finally, in 1940, the moves of KXOK, KFRU, and WGBF were approved, KFUO was moved to limited-time operation on 830 (now 850) and KSD was granted full-time status.

KXOK outlasted the Star-Times; KFRU was sold to a Columbia newspaper publisher and the Star-Times' station manager in 1948. I was KFRU's news director for four years in the 1980s; learning of KFRU's history, and the fact that it had much wider coverage before 1940, got me interested in the history of radio stations generally.

 

[charlestondxman]

Charleston had a couple of these in the 1960s and 1970s. WCSC 1390 was always the overshadowed station here behind WTMA 1250. It had the heritage, oldest station in South Carolina (1930), owned by the Rivers family who owned sister CBS Channel 5, and usually was an adult contemporary or top 40 that had more adult listeners than 1250.

1250 though was always strong #1 compared to WCSC being #2 in what was a small market at the time, under 10 stations. Then in the mid 70s (1975-76) FM came into being very quickly, with WPXI, WTMA’s sister FM taking over with a urban format and later disco before it went to 95SX top 40 in 1981-1982.

730 WPAL was pretty dominant as the only urban station in town for a long time but didn’t have a night allocation for decades, which sent those listeners to FM.

Savannah had 1290 (WTOC/WWSA), 900 (WEAS) and 630 (WKBX/WBMQ) which were all 5KW powers that got outrated in the market by WHGM 1400, a GY top 40 and black WSOK on 1230.

900 and 630 are both completely gone now, deleted licenses while 1290 still is rolling as WTKS. I think 1400 is gone now as well.

 

[brettbutlerisok]

I think this would apply to KLAC 570, KUZZ 550, and the old KSFO 560 in California. KMJ 580 was also a part of that 5kw regional class but was able to upgrade to 50kw directional in the mid 90s. Given the great ground conductivity in the San Joaquin Valley I wonder how big of a difference that actually made.

 

[Oldbones]

Not mentioned here yet is WMEX in Boston. Transmitter in Quincy with a directional pattern to the northeast, and sandwiched between WTOP and WKBW. Take a look at a map and see where most of that signal went. Came in better in Nova Scotia than it did in many western suburbs of its home market.
Despite their signal they were definitely a player in the market, holding their own against WBZ's vastly superior signal. Interestingly, when WRKO debuted with a Drake format in 1967, it was 'BZ that took the hit, to a great degree due to the fact that WBZ was a full service MOR station that just happened to play top 40 music. WMEX was much hipper.

 

[boiseengineer]

T

I think this would apply to KLAC 570, KUZZ 550, and the old KSFO 560 in California. KMJ 580 was also a part of that 5kw regional class but was able to upgrade to 50kw directional in the mid 90s. Given the great ground conductivity in the San Joaquin Valley I wonder how big of a difference that actually made.

Well, KMJ 580 can be heard daytime nearly to Hawaii on a ship. 😁
No noise on them in Fresno with all that RF pointed at it.