1580 Columbia

[DaveWilliams]

Anyone hear anything on this one? License on this one blows up in about 6 months.

 

[danwxman]

Maybe another ESPN affiliate? Or how about Fox Sports?

Could just play both of them at the same time!

 

[loeper]

anybody know the last owner of this station? I believe it was about 20 years ago it was owned and operated by a guy named Ted Burn who also did a nationialy syndicated talk show everyday out of Washington DC on what was then called the "american radio network" or something like that. I talked to him quite a few times on the phone back then because I was running a small (and failing) talk station at the same time. nice fellow. I wonder if anyone on this forum ever heard of him.

 

[andthehits]

The 1580 Columbia story has been told several times on this site. WCOY, as many know, was a slightly sucessful smaller market station back in its early days. New management brought a change in format and calls to WHEX in the late 60's I believe. Fast forward to 1984 and the station had been off the air for some 5 or 6 years (possibly a little more), when an administrative law judge awarded the (silent) license to a company under the name of the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This consisted of three investors, none of whom had any broadcast experience, with the exception of the father of one of the three, who was a broadcast lawyer based in the DC area. The group that lost in the ruling had in storage at a York moving company, almost all of the equipment, purchased in the mid 70's from the sheriff's sale of the then bankrupt station. Almost all, except the transmitter was included in this package, which CBC brought, since most of their money was spent on obtaining the license. I was brought in to bring the station back to life, not knowing what I was really getting into. We purchased a used transmitter from someone in Allentown, but when it was delivered, I opened the rear door and found bark (as in bark on a tree) inside. This was not a good sign I said. We ended up purchasing a brand new Harris transmitter and signed on with the Satellite Music Network's adult contemporary format as one of if not the first affiliate in Pennsylvania. The WHEX calls were retained, dispite my opposition. After a year, CBC tired of pumping additional money into the facility and put it up for sale. Ted Byrne, a banker working in New England at the time, always wanted to own a radio station. He was originally from the Phila. area I believe and listened to KYW growing up. Ted purchased WHEX, changed the calls to WNZT, kept me on as manager and we went to a news-talk format, hiring two live hosts, a news director and fulltime traffic manager. I quit after four months. Hadley Media (named after Ted's late dog Hadley whom he dearly loved) never made much money given the constant signal problems with 1580 but did continue to get a lot of free press in the Lancaster Newspapers. The station was finally locked by the IRS for non-payment of taxes and was by now of course off the air. A few years later, an Hispanic minister who was an electrician by trade bought the license from the Susquehanna Association for the Blind and Vision Impaired who owned it at the time and operated 1580 as a reading service.

Whoever owned 1580 always had to contend with renting the land where the transmitter and tower sat in Washington Boro. When the latest owner (the Hispanic minister) apparently failed to make monthly payments, his land lease was revoked and the station had no place to broadcast from. The land was sold, tower taken down and a beautiful home now sits on what was dubbed by Ted Byrne as "broadcast mountain". To my knowledge, as posted previously on this site, the license was sold to a brokerage firm who also purchased WWII in Shiremanstown. I believe the broker kept WWII but was atttempting to find a buyer for 1580. At this point, I don't where the story heads, but you are probably right that in another 6 months the license could go away for inactivity as far as the FCC is concerned.

Bottom line, 1580 had an extremely colorful history. If anyone has an update about the situation, I am sure all would like to hear it.

 

[John-Summers]

Thanks, "hits," for the inside story on your tenure at the ill-fated 1580. You're right about the Lancaster newspapers being fascinated with Ted Byrne. I recall reading a completely bizarre interview with him in the Lancaster Sunday News. Among other insightful topics, he talked about how much he missed his wife, whom I suppose was in Boston (?) or somewhere. "It isn't just the sex," said Ted. Thanks, but that's more than we needed to know. The rest of the interview was along similar lines.

The York Daily Record had a thing about him too. I was doing some correspondent work for them at the time and one day in the course of discussing a story I was working on it was suggested that I talk to Ted Byrne, because he "runs the only talk station in the area." I said it was pointless to talk with someone whose station had zero listeners and take their word as an expert on anything. I tried calling him, though, and the phone had been disconnected.

Speaking of 1580's transmitter site, I've always wondered why it was placed way down river in Washington Boro to begin with. With all due respect to Columbia, it's no garden spot, and has plenty of long-abandoned industrial land on which one tower could be placed. And it would be closer to the city of license. For a 500 watt station at 1580, even a couple of miles would make a difference.

 

[andthehits]

Good point John. I have no idea why exactly the station was up on the mountain. Great view of the river however. I do know the tower was apparently higher at one time...but I guess to save on the electric bill, they chopped part of her down, went to a top loaded system and the rest was history. I found an old strobe light in the weeds near the tower to prove it. The problem was, the birds, especially in the early morning. They would roost on the almost horizonal guy wires (the one's near the very top) and cause so much resistance, you could hear it on the air. They actually appeared to decrease the power. I instructed Dave Brady, then our news director, to open the front door and clap his hands to scare away the birds. It worked. So much for engineering theory.

 

[loeper]

as long as we are doing "1580" storys...i have another connection. back in the WCOY days (summer of 1966) I had just been fired from my first radio job (WCNR Bloomsburg) and was back in York looking for a gig. I walked in cold at there building in Columbia (not on the mountian) and asked for the manager. The guy talked to me for a few minites and said, "why don't you do the 2 o'clock news and show me what you can do?". so it did a few mintes of rip and read from the UPI wire and was asked to do the sign on shift the next morning for another audition. he said , I leave the transmitter on all night and all you have to do is slip this switch up to kick the carrier on and your all set. he even gave me a key to the place . I signed on the next morning (a saturday) did the 6 to 10 am shift and some dude came in and realeaved me. i never heard from them again. I guess he just needed somebody to do the sat morning shift that weekend and got me to do it for free. don't even remember the dudes name. BTW, Ted Byrne was kind of "different" but he did do a pretty nice talk show.

 

[GuyFry]

I remember Len Savage..the fellow who owned and physically built WCOY in 1957 or '58.

While planning the station, he was rebuilding Lebanon's WLBR-TV, Channel 15 on Mt. Gretna. It had been flooded
when the studio roof collapsed during
Hurricane Hazel in October of '54. It
was 3 years before the place was dried out, cleaned up and a dummy load finally tested.

That happened in the middle of the night..before the FCC had authorized a return to the air. But some people out there in Television Land saw that test pattern . Lancaster TV repair shop operator Stanley Hartman told me about it the next day.

With that accomplished, Len Savage turned his full time attentioin to
WCOY 1580.

Within 3 years he died by electrocution.
He had disabled the interlock and worked on the transmitter with the back door open with plates and filaments on. He was found burned to a crisp.

Had that not happened, WCOY's future would have been so much different.

Len Savage deserves remembering and a better than honorable mention.

I had the pleasure of being shown through the station shortly after it took to the air. I think Len had some help from Sam Youse, who had signed WGSA 1350 on the air over in Ephrata about that same time. That station lasted into the '90s.

They served their communities well.

 

[rls2115]

I was told a number of years ago that the tower site was located there for a couple of reasons. If I'm recalling correctly, it had something to do with interference to WPGC in Morningside and trying to take advantage of the location to cover more of York County too.
I was thinking there was something about improved ground due to being close to the river, but as I'm typing that it doesn't seem to make sense since the tower was above the river. It probably still helped them to a degree.
There is a YouTube video that has some photos of the station. If I can located it, I'll post the link.

The location didn't help coverage to Lancaster when they had their studios at Park City. Their PSA was just a couple watts or a fraction thereof. They could barely pick up the signal at the Park City Studio.

 

[BigBob]

Ah yes, 1580 WHEX. It was my first paid job...hired by Boppin Bob Brooks, who spent many successful years in Seattle. He hired me for news in Sept 1975 when I was still in high school. Great station with hot reverb. I went on to do weekends there. John Gary is now an attorney in the radio biz in Washington DC...and I am an Exec with Clear Channel, after spending 17 years at Arbitron heading up their programming services division. A small world. But still have many great memories of 1580 on Poplar Street in Columbia (now someone's home).