1600 WULM Staff walked out today!

[DJJack1]

Music is unimportant. No one listens to AM for music. Put a solid base of community information on, do the Ag markets, the school lunch menus, high school football and basketball, and play some recognizable adult oriented tunes to fill the gaps between the information...and you might turn a profit with it.

Sounds like what they do <or at least used to do, back when I worked there> at WMOA in Marietta. I didn't work there long, but it was fun.

 

[alans613]

When did John Hall pass away? He was truly a legend in Springfield radio, working at 1340 WIZE in its Top 40 days and later for 102.9 WAZU(WAAAAY back when it was 103 WAZU in the 80s). I remember meeting him at the Marketplace in Springfield when he ran The Record Hive used record store. Very nice gentleman...He even encouraged me to go to college to get into radio, advice I wish i'd taken. Anyhow, Mr. Hall also if i'm not mistaken worked part time at 700 WLW in the early 90s I believe. I miss those old days of Springfield radio of the 80s. WIZE is a shell of its former self, Radio One is trying to reclassify 102.9 as an Urbana signal, and 1600 WULM is basically out of business. How sad Springfield radio is anymore. :'(

 

[kirkiefan]

When did John Hall pass away? He was truly a legend in Springfield radio, working at 1340 WIZE in its Top 40 days and later for 102.9 WAZU(WAAAAY back when it was 103 WAZU in the 80s). I remember meeting him at the Marketplace in Springfield when he ran The Record Hive used record store. Very nice gentleman...He even encouraged me to go to college to get into radio, advice I wish i'd taken. Anyhow, Mr. Hall also if i'm not mistaken worked part time at 700 WLW in the early 90s I believe. I miss those old days of Springfield radio of the 80s. WIZE is a shell of its former self, Radio One is trying to reclassify 102.9 as an Urbana signal, and 1600 WULM is basically out of business. How sad Springfield radio is anymore. :'(

John Hall (real name: John Stalder) passed away in the summer 2004. He worked at WULM as its first station manager and program director from 2002 to 2003. Health problems forced him to step down from that position. His close freind Bob Pitsch(whom he met when both worked at a Cincinnati station)took over as station manager in 2003 and started up the "Rock n' Soul Classics" oldies format which ran from that point up until the spring of 2006.

http://obit.littletonandrue.com/obit_list.cgi

(type in "Stalder" in Search Memorials box)

John left WIZE in the mid 1980s for the former WCOM in Urbana right when the calls and format were being changed to WKSW "light rock and less talk..Kiss FM" before it went country a few yeasr later. He was also at WCLR,Piqua "Oldies 95" as its morning man before moving back to Springfield. He also worked at WBNS-AM in Columbus and finally the former WBLY when Urban Light was getting ready to purchase the station from RAY(Ronald A. Yountz..Smilin' Bob's son)Broadcasting.

Bob (while still working out of the neighboring former WBLY studio)renovated the WIZE control room in early 2006. He also had a plaque made with John's portrait on it which hangs on the door of the WIZE control room as "John Hall Memorial Studio" and completely cleaned up,automated and upgraded the control room with a wall seperating the studio from the WIZE transmiter. A great job done.

I can only hope someone local buys the station and invest into some promotion and a crew since WULM was sadly understaffed. The audiostream also needs cleaned up.

 

[SFIND]

It's too bad what has happened to this station. I loved it back when it was WBLY and WULM before music. I would listen to Sports Scene every saturday morning. And I have always listened to there high school sports coverage but I am saddened that it has dwindeled this past year.

Who I really liked on WULM was there sports guys Dave Williams and Jim Scoby. I had been going to there BUckeye Backers show thgis past fall and really enjoyed it and am glad that they restarted the saturday sports show. But I think everybody knew somthing was up with the station, me and my buddies made fun of the fact that there was duct tape on the on-site equipment. I did like it when they went to 'rock n soul classics" but when they went to this 70's and 80's crap(I like the 70's and 80's, but they play THE WORST SONGS from that era) I lost interest in day-to-day listening. When they first went to ULM they had a great website and the one they have know is crap, too. I emailed them last summer and asked when they were going to put there hs football schedule on there and they said it would be on there soon. They never put it up. I thought they were doing better, though, because this is the first time I had ever heard network commercials(Nationwide, Gieco, Advance Auto Parts ect.) on there station. I guess little do I know. I am actually planning to go into radio in college and I was planing on volunteering there since you have to do community service to get a deploma, but I guess there's nothing to voulnteer for.

As far as coverage area, I thought it was great in the daytime( I've piced it up as far north as Marysville) and they should go to 1,000 watts night. The only station with a close enough frecuntcy is 1570 WPTW (i believe it's 250 watts) in Piqua, "the voice of the Miami county", but yet you can't even pick it up in Troy. I hope whoever buy's it goes back to talk(hopefully conservitave), and has better high school sports coverage(like maybe not reading everything from the News-Sun sports section). I have always loved WBLY/WULM and hope to still be able to listen to it. But if they do go to talk, I hope the new owners don't let Larry Spicer stick around, he's a know-it-all and I hate him and his show.

GO SOUTH!!!!!

P.S.- I did her somthing last saturday on the Springfield Sports Show when Dave said "there maybe more talk on here. I didn't give it a thought, but I guess they were in the loop.

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

WULM is licensed for 34 or someodd watts at night off one tower.

I HIGHLY doubt they could go to 1KW without adding to add so man ytowers it'd be cost prohibitive.

Night time coverage is real complicated, delaing with skywave and incoming signals. Just 'cuse you may think it's clear, the FCC may not think so..

 

[alans613]

When did John Hall pass away? He was truly a legend in Springfield radio, working at 1340 WIZE in its Top 40 days and later for 102.9 WAZU(WAAAAY back when it was 103 WAZU in the 80s). I remember meeting him at the Marketplace in Springfield when he ran The Record Hive used record store. Very nice gentleman...He even encouraged me to go to college to get into radio, advice I wish i'd taken. Anyhow, Mr. Hall also if i'm not mistaken worked part time at 700 WLW in the early 90s I believe. I miss those old days of Springfield radio of the 80s. WIZE is a shell of its former self, Radio One is trying to reclassify 102.9 as an Urbana signal, and 1600 WULM is basically out of business. How sad Springfield radio is anymore. :'(

John Hall (real name: John Stalder) passed away in the summer 2004. He worked at WULM as its first station manager and program director from 2002 to 2003. Health problems forced him to step down from that position. His close freind Bob Pitsch(whom he met when both worked at a Cincinnati station)took over as station manager in 2003 and started up the "Rock n' Soul Classics" oldies format which ran from that point up until the spring of 2006.

http://obit.littletonandrue.com/obit_list.cgi

(type in "Stalder" in Search Memorials box)

John left WIZE in the mid 1980s for the former WCOM in Urbana right when the calls and format were being changed to WKSW "light rock and less talk..Kiss FM" before it went country a few yeasr later. He was also at WCLR,Piqua "Oldies 95" as its morning man before moving back to Springfield. He also worked at WBNS-AM in Columbus and finally the former WBLY when Urban Light was getting ready to purchase the station from RAY(Ronald A. Yountz..Smilin' Bob's son)Broadcasting.

Bob (while still working out of the neighboring former WBLY studio)renovated the WIZE control room in early 2006. He also had a plaque made with John's portrait on it which hangs on the door of the WIZE control room as "John Hall Memorial Studio" and completely cleaned up,automated and upgraded the control room with a wall seperating the studio from the WIZE transmiter. A great job done.

I can only hope someone local buys the station and invest into some promotion and a crew since WULM was sadly understaffed. The audiostream also needs cleaned up.

Thanks for the info Kirkiefan! John was a true legend and a very nice man. Too bad WIZE is a shell of its former self, which leads me to...
On the WULM situation...I don't listen to AM at all anymore. If I bought the station, I would either take it in a talk direction or play Oldies or Adult Standards. WONE/WIZE was doing a 3 share or so with standards, even beating Z-93 in the ratings book after book back earlier this decade. It's just sad to hear about how much Urban Light let this station go. I hope all the former staff lands on its feet. Good luck to you all!

 

[majicjim]

WULM is 1,000 watts daytime(34 watts nighttime) as was its predicessor WBLY....but the daytime signal is good in Piqua,Troy and St. Paris if you're listening in your car. I remember reading a previous post from a listener that it can also be picked up in Richmond,IN..surely it can be picked up while driving towards Columbus. It fades out near Cincinnati to the south and to the north in Beaverdam(north of Lima)where WTTF,Tiffin starts to fade in with its N to NE direction pattern which covers Sandusky and Fremont. WAAM in Ann Arbor,MI also operates on 1600 as does WBTO in Linton,IN. In Dayton,the disadvantage is a National Weather Service low power transmision on 1610 in West Carrolton and a portion of west Troy along I-75.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WULM&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

WWRL,a talk station in New York City occasionasionally comes in this area in the evening and a spanish language station on breif occasions before local sunset...possibly WAOS in Austell,GA near Atlanta.

I have to admire this station for what it tried to do..to reach out to pre-Christian believers with a secular pop oldies format mixed in with an occasional scriptural passage vignette and Eli's talk program "Crossing Over." Granted many of his guests were people living on the wrong side of the tracks,but these were also people using their newly-aquired faith to change their ways..you have to give the station(and Eli) some credit there. I also am a fan of contemporary soul gospel music and artists such as Mary Mary and Kirk Franklin which Eli featured on his Sunday morning program.

I hate to see this station go..really I do. It was the last oldies station in the Miami Valley.
WING is ESPN, WCOL is now conservative talk WYTS and WSAI is yet another talk station. We have too many talk stations. WULM was an oasis and I will miss it dearly. I was prayin' and rootin' for Bob and his crew. Bob kept the machine olied and maintained with what little support it got from ownership.

AM 1600 needs to stay in Springfield...Hands off CC and R1!

 

[kirkiefan]

Thanks for the info Kirkiefan! John was a true legend and a very nice man. Too bad WIZE is a shell of its former self, which leads me to...
On the WULM situation...I don't listen to AM at all anymore. If I bought the station, I would either take it in a talk direction or play Oldies or Adult Standards. WONE/WIZE was doing a 3 share or so with standards, even beating Z-93 in the ratings book after book back earlier this decade. It's just sad to hear about how much Urban Light let this station go. I hope all the former staff lands on its feet. Good luck to you all!
[/quote]

Here's a link to an article written by John Hall: "A Day In The Hall of Life."

http://www.1600wulm.net/aday.html

 

[kirkiefan]

Thanks for the info Kirkiefan! John was a true legend and a very nice man. Too bad WIZE is a shell of its former self, which leads me to...
On the WULM situation...I don't listen to AM at all anymore. If I bought the station, I would either take it in a talk direction or play Oldies or Adult Standards. WONE/WIZE was doing a 3 share or so with standards, even beating Z-93 in the ratings book after book back earlier this decade. It's just sad to hear about how much Urban Light let this station go. I hope all the former staff lands on its feet. Good luck to you all!

Here's a link to an article written by John Hall: "A Day In The Hall of Life."

http://www.1600wulm.net/aday.html

 

[Flying-Dutchman]

John Hall, a great guy! I spent career day with him as a student at Springfield North High
School. He did a show on WIZE then went to production. He could produce excellent spots
in a jiffy.
That was 35 years ago.

 

[WCWalker]

Perhaps Springfield is ripe for a Part 15 AM radio station or if, we can somehow get licensed commercial LPAM passed at the FCC, a station of that nature would be viable. Sad to see another live and local station bit the dust in a small city that sorely needs a local station.

 

[PaulBWalkerJr]

It looks as if they red-esigned WULM's page..

http://www.1600wulm.net/

Not much content is there.. rather, it's missing....

 

[northernlightsmedia]

The site is more compltete now, it looks better than it has

 

[LocalGuy]

The site is more compltete now, it looks better than it has

Shouldn't you admit you're giving yourself a compliment?

:

Just sad.........................................

 

[northernlightsmedia]

Wasn't suppose to be , just letting some know.

 

[PeterG]

Anybody interested in getting together and buying WULM ??

On my side of things I can put in $50 k.,

Be great to rescue the station and turn it around.

 

[KevinFodor]

Your 50K is not quite what the station is worth...(but you're getting close!)

But, I too, would like to see the station get an owner that would take good care of the property.

 

[gr8oldies]

Add another $300,000 and you're close to what Security national is looking for.

 

[kirkiefan]

Something has to change for the better there.. WULM still sounds lifeless and generic since the staff walked out....the website has been re-tooled which seems that they want to weather out the storm there...but VERY few comemrcials...can't see how they are going to survive much longer. Only other voice I hear is Tony Pullins doing weather and Bob(out of the goodness of his heart I am sure) doing a few commercials and a re-done top of hour I.D. Without a bonafide crew,they will go down hard unless divine intervention comes through.

 

[majicjim]

..but hey,the audiostream is back on and sounds a little better (and a lot less distorted.)