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Anyone here that worked at WWUN in the 65-75 era?

never worked there but I sure listened to it a lot, but that was after they dropped the W-1 call letters. Loved the short lived Y-16 (WYIG) and the later WCCL when it was playing a mixture of oldies classic rock and other stuff mixed in. The brief album rock format as WZRX was cool too, not so much with the Z-Rock head banging format. My mom listened to it when it was Music of Your life. They sure had lots of formats over the years. It's a shame I-heart refused to sell it and decided to destroy it instead.
 
Thanks, Pat. I guess the limited coverage due to directional antenna at night, and high frequency contributed to it's demise...PLUS, the strong showing of FM
starting in the 70's. Lots of talented people when thru it's doors over the years.
 
Thanks, Oldies: I remember him...this was in the very early days when McCollough was the PD...a bit frantic but station was no.1 within 12 months of coming on. The original transmitter was an old Gates, inherited from WOKJ...the previous owner. As the CE from day one, the owners promised a new transmitter when station got to no.1...they delivered! A beautiful new Collins AM transmitter was purchased, and it sounded even better...plus I got a few nites sleep!
 
Thanks, Watt...long time no see..all here is fine. I am busy building translators for AM stations. Using used equipment, mounted in roll around racks,
complete with processing and other necessities to meet FCC specs. Hope you are well. Please stop in next time you are near..look forward to seeing you. JBI
 
Thanks oldies..went by old site last year, nothing but trash and a few tower foundations. Sad site to behold..I could almost hear "wonderful W-1" in the wind....
 
jboyd said:
Thanks oldies..went by old site last year, nothing but trash and a few tower foundations. Sad site to behold..I could almost hear "wonderful W-1" in the wind....
Click to expand...

So I guess the old Jim Walter style house is gone also. I went in there several years ago when Z-106 was there. Seems like the floor was a little unlevel but otherwise it wasn't that bad.
 
Thanks Pat3: The trash was just about all left...looks as if it vandalism was the culprit. It has been over a year and I'll bet there is nothing left! Sad...
 
jboyd said:
Thanks Pat3: The trash was just about all left...looks as if it vandalism was the culprit. It has been over a year and I'll bet there is nothing left! Sad...
Click to expand...

I was there when the towers were dismantled. Most of the Collins 5kw, Gates BC-1 and phasor cabinet were still there, but not much else.

JBI - I did manage to salvage some paperwork you might be interested in. I'll try to make a trip up to Batesville in the next few months and we'll catch up. Haven't seen you since we installed the original WVIV-FM antenna on one of the WRKN-AM towers in Brandon, Ms. I'm still amazed that the directional array tuned back up as easily as it did that day. The original WRKN site is gone now - nothing left but the tower bases and another vandalized building.
 
Well, how are you? It has been a long time, RFB. Love to see you and rag chew over old times...hope you can do it. As to the DA at WRKN and the WVIV FM construction...the WVIV people wanted me to try one of those "shotgun" matching deals on the AM tower. Told them if they wanted to try that, I would not be a party to it, nor would I recommend it to WRKN. They agreed to the purchase of the isocoupler (big dollars), and I think that was one of the reasons the tune up of the DA system was easy. By the way, it has been years since I heard from June..is she still here? Again...thanks for the holler...all the best...J Boyd.
 
jboyd said:
Well, how are you? It has been a long time, RFB. Love to see you and rag chew over old times...hope you can do it. As to the DA at WRKN and the WVIV FM construction...the WVIV people wanted me to try one of those "shotgun" matching deals on the AM tower. Told them if they wanted to try that, I would not be a party to it, nor would I recommend it to WRKN. They agreed to the purchase of the isocoupler (big dollars), and I think that was one of the reasons the tune up of the DA system was easy. By the way, it has been years since I heard from June..is she still here? Again...thanks for the holler...all the best...J Boyd.
Click to expand...

Last I heard, June is 88 and still with us. Haven't seen her or any of the kids in years though. I still have that isocoupler in storage - it was removed when Bobbye and Cliff sold the station - new owners upgraded and built a new site. We moved the Harris 2.5K, SWR antenna and line to the new tower as an auxiliary where it stayed until recently.

I'll see about a trip up North soon so we can catch up. Take care!
 
I wish someone would fix the old 970 in Brandon. It's been either off the air, broadcasting dead air or very low power for the last couple of years. Right now it's on the air but the audio is so low you have to turn the volume up all the way to hear it. Not sure if it technical reasons or if they are doing it on purpose. It's a shame that they let it get this way.
 
Right, Pat3...This is not uncommon on the band...think about this...40 years ago this was a prosperous operation and, now look!...time marches on, tastes and technology change and those who cannot adapt
must go the way of the dinosaur!
 
Pat3 said:
I wish someone would fix the old 970 in Brandon. It's been either off the air, broadcasting dead air or very low power for the last couple of years. Right now it's on the air but the audio is so low you have to turn the volume up all the way to hear it. Not sure if it technical reasons or if they are doing it on purpose. It's a shame that they let it get this way.
Click to expand...

Part technical issues, part "lack of caring". As long as the AM is on in some form, they can legally keep the FM translator operating. The FM translator is all they really care about.

Heard the same thing while driving through Bay Springs, Ms yesterday. WIZK-AM is on the air and actually sounds OK, but you can tell it is not operating at full power. Listening to the imaging, you hear NO mention of the AM, except for "WIZK Bay Springs" at the top of the hour. Everything else promotes the FM translator - "K101 Country".
 
Personally, I think that broadcasters letting their AM facilities fall into decline are making a mistake in the long run. They may save some money now, but I think those listeners won't come back to AM. Broadcasters will wind up competing for FM spectrum with each other. The more marginal players will get pushed out of the business.

Digital AM is more future proof and finally becoming a reality. New radios more commonly have AM HD now. My pitch is that AM license holders should take advantage of translators as a bridge to pilot digital AM. Just skip the hybrid digital, and go digital-only like WWFD-AM did. It will save the AM spectrum allocations from getting shaken up too much.
 
I'll add a little bit to this. If AM station owners want to stick to analog, I don't have any issue with that. Fact is they should be "loud and proud" about it, running full power within their license limits and having solid radio engineering behind their signal and programming.
 
rbc said:
I'll add a little bit to this. If AM station owners want to stick to analog, I don't have any issue with that. Fact is they should be "loud and proud" about it, running full power within their license limits and having solid radio engineering behind their signal and programming.
Click to expand...


I passed through Bay Springs a while back also and noticed that WIZK barely made it a few miles outside the city limits. Years ago you could sometimes pick it up in Brandon. I thought it was off the air and was surprised that it was still around, sorta. The thing that really drives me crazy about this is some of the stations used to have pretty good 5, 10 and even 50,000 watts and then they lower power or stop caring and rely on a puny little 99 watt translator, and don't even mention the AM station on the air. Some of those translators work OK on a car radio, but you can't pick them up on a cheap radio in the house. And most of the house radio's theses days are crap. Even on my car radio when I tune to an FM translator it works ok within range of the station, but if it's jammed next to a blowtorch it gets covered with splatter. I can't get 96.9 because of 96.3 splatter the same way with 107.1 which gets wiped out by Z-106 and KXI when in the house. The problem with AM radio these days is the power line static is so bad you have to have 50,000 watts anymore to be able to make it across town without being drowned out by noise. It doesn't help when you run low power, now nobody can hear it . The FM doesn't help either when It only goes a few miles out. i really believe that if something doesn't change the AM band will be gone in a few years. In parts of the state the AM band has already become almost extinct.
 
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