Are there any FM's for sale?

[Prais]

I believe Dr. Carl McIntyre lost his New Jersey radio station, and then went to sea, butI'm not sure of the details.

After a supporter purchased for McIntire a World War II vintage wooden-hulled Navy minesweeper named Oceanic (which McIntire renamed Columbus), he tried to broadcast outside the three-mile limit near Cape May, calling the floating station "Radio Free America."[39] The station began broadcasting on September 19, 1973,[40] but was only on the air for ten hours—the ship began to smoke from the heat of the antenna feeder line, and the signal interfered with that of radio station WHLW in Lakewood, New Jersey which broadcast on a neighboring frequency of 1170 kHz.

Nevertheless, the notion of a Christian pirate radio station off the United States caught the attention of the media. "I became a very famous man out of that," McIntire later recalled, "People stood along the coast to see me.

 

[weav]

Back to the subject: I bet if somebody offered ol' Ed $12MM in cash for 92.7, some kind of transaction could be done. Maybe just 10. This is a guess.

 

[DanStrassberg]

I believe Dr. Carl McIntyre lost his New Jersey radio station, and then went to sea, but I'm not sure of the details.

Wasn't McIntyre's station whose license the FCC revoked (for editorializing, IIRC--this was before the FCC allowed, and even encouraged editorializing) WXUR, a 500W or 1 kW directional daytimer on 690 licensed to the Philadelphia suburb of Media PA?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Dan... my memory of that era is slightly different than what you described.. but I don't fully trust my memory. I did a bit of quick poking around the web to do some refreshing.

Editorials were permitted, and to some extent encouraged. However, the Fairness Doctrine called for broadcasters (at that time) to proved opportunity in some way for opposing viewpoints to be heard. If you couldn't sell them time to present the other view from what had already been expressed on the station (either from the mouth of the licensee, or the mouth of a paying customer) then you had an obligation to round up someone to present opposing views, even if you had to give the time to them.

To understand WXUR, The "Red Lion Case" and Carl McIntyre, you almost need to take a course in Christian Theology, and the heated battles of the early 1900's between Mainline Protestant Churches and "The Fundamentalists".

Carl McIntyre was a "separtist"... and he was not going to share the stage with other people, religious or political, with people that have a different view than he had. He started his own denomination of churches rather than be in the same organization with people he regarded as theological liberals. He had no place in his life for politicians who were willing to negotiate with communists.

The whole WXUR fiasco may tell us more about McIntryre's rigidity than it does about the FCC and what they were doing and what they were attempting to do through regulation. I am not fond Of McIntyre and his spiritual offspring, but with kindness I point out that he was going to BURY his station before he allowed any voice on HIS radio station that did not fully agree with his views. In fact, when it was shut down at FCC insistence, he actually held a funeral service for the radio station.

Whatever happened in that struggle probably is not good case-law for trying to figure out the intent of the FCC. It is good material if you want to understand the mind of the most conservative of groups in Christian thinking.

 

[Prais]

Mr. GRC,
You have quite eloquently summarized what I know about this and more. He was a very stubbon guy and the fcc took him to task.

I remember that there was alot of legal stuff about the radio station in international waters, too.

He also had quite a large and prosperous ministry on many religious radio stations at the time.

 

[davideduardo]

Wasn't McIntyre's station whose license the FCC revoked (for editorializing, IIRC--this was before the FCC allowed, and even encouraged editorializing) WXUR, a 500W or 1 kW directional daytimer on 690 licensed to the Philadelphia suburb of Media PA?

This case, and that of Rev. Norris in Red Lion, PA, are two examples of what GRC mentions as "must reads" that reflect much more than just the FCC's actions of the time.

Or, as some said at the time, the Fairness Doctrine was inherently unfair.

 

[davideduardo]

Nevertheless, the notion of a Christian pirate radio station off the United States caught the attention of the media. "I became a very famous man out of that," McIntire later recalled, "People stood along the coast to see me.

The US almost got a pseudo pirate in the same era... a group of sothron folks with the unfortunate situation of having money bought TIRICA in San José, Costa Rica (625 kcs. AM) and built a 1,000,000 watt transmitter site with the intention of running some kind of "radio free dixie" operation (lack of capitalization and sarcasm intentional) aimed at the gulf states.

Very fortunately, the local power grid could not sustain the operation, and the interference with the phone system made them cap that well before it started pumping out the krap it intended to broadcast.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Wasn't McIntyre's station whose license the FCC revoked (for editorializing, IIRC--this was before the FCC allowed, and even encouraged editorializing) WXUR, a 500W or 1 kW directional daytimer on 690 licensed to the Philadelphia suburb of Media PA?

This case, and that of Rev. Norris in Red Lion, PA, are two examples of what GRC mentions as "must reads" that reflect much more than just the FCC's actions of the time.

Or, as some said at the time, the Fairness Doctrine was inherently unfair.

That's why I put my disclaimer in my post: "if my memory serves me correctly....."

I forgot about Rev. Norris. I was trying to connect McIntyre with Red Lion.

We went through an interesting pinnacle of controversy, rigid political thinking, rigid religious thinking and overblown egos in that era.

We will always have some of those ingredients even in the less combative times, but leaders and thinkers in all political and religious camps ought to go back and review that era and see if they can avoid some of the failures and heartaches that boiled over in that era.

When everybody in the nation is sure he/she is right, and sure the other person is wrong, then whose job is it to fix the problem?

If I owned stations that had ALL THEIR EGGS in the current Talk Radio trend, I might lay awake nights worrying what happens to my broadcast empire the day the congressional leadership finally comes to their senses, shake hands, and start fixing problems. If that scenario could happen, one of the things they would quickly agree is that Talk Radio needs to "shut the hell up" while we work this out.

However. I'm not holding my breath on that scenario.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Dan... my memory of that era is slightly different than what you described.. but I don't fully trust my memory. I did a bit of quick poking around the web to do some refreshing. To understand WXUR, The "Red Lion Case" and Carl McIntyre, you almost need to take a course in Christian Theology, and the heated battles of the early 1900's between Mainline Protestant Churches and "The Fundamentalists".

IIRC, the station involved in the Red Lion case was not WXUR; it was another suburban-Philadelphia station, probably a daytimer and, IIRC, it wasn't owned by McIntyre. This one was WGCB (1440, IIRC) and it was licensed to Red Lion PA, hence the Red Lion case. Were the Red Lion case and WXUR somehow related? I would not be at all surprised if they were, but, AFAIK, there were two separate cases at roughly the same time, both, IIRC, involving daytimers in the Philadelphia suburbs and at least one involving McIntyre.

 

[fybush]

Red Lion is not a "Philadelphia suburb" - it's in the York market, a couple of hours west of Philadelphia. There's another 1440 signal, WNPV Lansdale, that's much closer to Philadelphia, preventing WGCB from being heard in Philly at all.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

IIRC, the station involved in the Red Lion case was not WXUR; it was another suburban-Philadelphia station, probably a daytimer and, IIRC, it wasn't owned by McIntyre.

You are right. In 40 years or so, my brain has been rewired a couple of times. Red Lion involved a Rev. Norris, not Rev. McIntyre. When I get a few spare moments I plan to search around and refresh my memory on Red Lion.