Asheville Visit

[allnews]

Ok guys, I'm in another market, but the thread was so entertaining, I had to add my two cents worth.

I was working at a 1k daytime country station, after graduating from a high dollar private college and working NPR.

We had to burn the paper from the teletype (before computers) that ran all day long (we cut if off at night to save paper). I was out by the tower burning the paper, enjoying the outdoors and went back inside. The Revox tape deck (that had the pinch wheel propped up with a Bic pen cap) that had the racing show (Ned Jarret) had taken off, running at a million miles an hour, sounding like chipmonks, and spilling tape on the floor. Ran a whole week's worth of shows in a few minutes.

Then there was the day I was driving to work (I worked middays) and I heard a record (45) run out, and do the "shush, click, shush, click" for about the 10 remaining minutes it took me to get to work. doing 70 mph to get there and see what was up. The morning man/pd and the sales/newsman had both dozed off, and kept sleeping...

Then there was the missing night of the moonshine and waking up beside the Coke machine...

Corporate radio sucks.

I went to Montreat Anderson a FEW years ago and lived in Hendersonville for a summer, and with listened to WROQ in Charlotte, a rockin' station.

You guys know about the old WMIT that was around Mount Mitchel in the 40s & 50s? Got the signal off an fm/microwave (?) hop from Winston-Salem.

 

[Matt]

Recollections of WMIT

That station has, perhaps, the most interesting history that has never been told in its entirety. There are pieces of it out there, most notably at these sites...
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ggninfo/52.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ggninfo/15.htm
http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/fm-max.html (you have to scroll down the page to find the WMIT article)

As far as I can tell, WMIT was the only FM station licened in NC that actually broadcast on the old FM band...at 44.1 MHz.

I have some confusion on the station's use of 97.3 MHz. There is a station not too far from the mountain, WKBC-FM in North Wilkesboro, which uses that frequency today. Also, 97.3 was the frequency of the original WFMY in Greensboro. I've always been curious as to whether these stations usage of that frequency had some relationship to WMIT's change to 106.9.

There is also a story I once heard, that in the late 1950's WBT in Charlotte had made an offer to purchase WMIT. Reportedly they were going to largely simulcast WBT on it and use it to fill in the areas west of the station where their directional antenna severely restricted WBT's nighttime coverage. Unfortunately, the FCC was wary of two super-power stations covering the same geography. Since WBT could not do that deal, Jefferson Standard Broadcasting president Charles Crutchfield was reportedly the key motivation behind donation of the station to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Jefferson Standard then turned their sights on re-establishing FM service, which began in 1961 as WBT-FM on 107.9

The first time I actually heard WMIT was in the mid-60's. The things I remember about it...it was extremely hard to get on my aunt's portable FM radio...I think it played beautiful music...and it carried news from the Mutual Broadcasting System on the hour.

In the 1980's, I remember they carried ABC-Information news and sports, including its commercial content. That was the only thing commercial on the station. The remainder of each hour was commercial-free, with only an occasional mention that an hour's programming was paid for by some listener or group of listeners. By the 1990's, they were carrying AP Radio news and were totally commercial-free.

Also in the early 1990's, they retired the 325 kw for a more modest 36 kw, with the argument that it would be heard just as far and cost much less to operate. One annoying thing the power reduction allowed was for more stations to move to the 106.9 frequency. One of them, WIOZ in Southern Pines, now makes reception of WMIT difficult in the Triad.

In recent years, WMIT has switched from traditional Christian music to a more contemporary sound and cut back somewhat on program preaching. It's a very pleasant station to listen to...when I'm someplace I can hear it.

Well, that's my recollections on WMIT. Anyone that can shed some light on the things I'm fuzzy on?

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV

 

[jtudor]

WMIT

This is a very interesting station for sure, with a history that deserves to be documented.

I worked at WMIT for a week in 1972, the reason for such a short tenure is a story of lack of communication in the communication business.

I was hired to replace the lone employee who worked at the mountaintop transmitter site, who was scheduled to be leaving the station in a couple of weeks. There were living quarters on the mountain for that employee, which were supposed to be mine at the time of his departure. I was privileged to stay in the much nicer apartment on the lower floor of the building, which had been converted into a retreat for Billy Graham and his associates to use.

After a week on the mountain in which I learned how to plow the snow off the road, and a number of other winter tricks that were necessary to keep the station operating, I was called by my supervisor, the stations CE and asked to meet him at the studios on Monday. He said that I should being my clothes and other belongings with me. At the meeting he told me that he had jumped the gun in hiring me, because during the past week, the stations board of directors had met and decided to run the transmitter by remote control at all times. That left me without a job... oh well.

On to some details about the operation as it was then. The station was on the air from 6 am until midnight. Programming originated from the Black Mountain studios from 6 am until 8 pm. At 8, we would originate programming from the studio on Mount Mitchell until midnight when we signed off.

The programming at this point in 1972 was that most hours were blocked off in 15 minute segments, 15 minutes of spoken word (preaching, teaching etc.), 15 minutes of religious music, 15 minutes of spoken word, and 15 minutes of secular music. The secular music was always Muzak type of music, not often up tempo, mostly very easy listening orchestra etc.

News was from the American Information Network of ABC, and Most commercials were carried. The BGEA had managed to get an agreement with ABC that they would cut out any Beer or other Alcoholic beverage commercials. That was a very important part of the board operators job, to monitor the commercial log and substitute a psa or something else if a beer commercial was scheduled. Sometimes ABC would vary from the schedule, and we had to act quickly.

Otherwise the plant was very impressive technically. There were dual transmitters, for the horizontal and vertical antennas, they did not use circular polarized antennas then. There were 5 Caterpillar generators in the shop area, one monster that monitored the incoming 3 phase power, and would automatically jump on-line in less than a tenth of a second if the voltage on any of the three legs dropped by more than 10%. The other 4 generators were manual, and each one was smaller than the one above it. Still having 5 generators in house was such a luxury.

Program wise, back in those days, it seemed like there were changes almost every 6 months or so, at the whim of the board of directors. The most obvious change was the addition and deletion of secular music from the schedule.

That was an interesting experience for me. I just wish I could have stayed on board longer.

Johnt