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Augusta Radio - radio station operating from the Bon Air Hotel

R

RadioFan2J3

I have a recollection of seeing a broadcast operation in the Bon Air Hotel, on Walton Way. The time period would have been the very early 1960s or even the late 1950s.

I am a bit hazy on a 50+ year memory, but seems to me the control room was in a room on the downtown Augusta side of the hotel, probably toward the left end of the building. The studio was on about the 2nd floor, and there was a walkway along the exterior of that floor, so you could look into the control and see the announcer.

Does anyone know which station it might have been?
 
....would that have been WBIA 1230 or WRDW 1480?? I believe both had operated in later years at a studio down further on Walton Way....
 
leecasey said:
....would that have been WBIA 1230 or WRDW 1480?? I believe both had operated in later years at a studio down further on Walton Way....
Click to expand...

Lee, IIRC, that would have been WBIA that was along the north side of Walton Way. I just looked along Walton Way on Google Earth and I can't place the building. It was a store front, right on the sidewallk, that is , the WBIA building wasn't set back off the sidewalk, as best as I can remember. I don't remember if it was closer to 15th Street or further up Walton Way, near Richmond Academy. I haven't been on Walton Way more than about twice in the past 30 years, so the memory is fading (rapidly).

WRDW did, at one time, have their studios in one of the office buildings on Broad Street. What was the name of the very tall building along Broad Street? Calhoun Building? WRDW was downtown in its early history, but by the mid-1960s, I think everything was out at the Eisenhower Drive transmitter site. Studios were in the same building as the old WWII vintage RCA transmitter and the newer RCA to its left.

The managment offices were in a newer building away from the tower side of the transmitter building.


In trying to get a timeline on WRDW, I ran across this obit:

http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2006/08/08/obi_91822.shtml



Oh, looks like Google really is our friend. I guess it was WAUG.





BACK IN TIME

JAN. 13, 1952

Today at exactly 11:15 a.m., Augustans who tune their radios to 1050 on their dial will hear the first broadcast of the city's newest radio stations WAUG and WAUG-FM.

The first broadcast will be a remote pickup from the First Baptist Church, Eighth and Greene streets, with services and a sermon by Dr. A. Warren Huyck, the pastor.

The studios of the two stations are located in the Bon Air Hotel.

Garden City Broadcasting Co. is the business name of the operating firm. Owners are George Nicholson, local attorney; Chester H. Jones; and Melvin Purvis, former G-man.


http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/2004/01/13/met_400854.shtml

And one of the priciples in the company was George Nicholson, who later had an ownership relationship with WRDW.
 
I remember WBIA on Walton Way when it was just across from the what was Western Sizzlin. The stationed really sounded good back in those days. I worked with Brian who became the spokesperson for Belk and Chris who went into the TV news arena...back in the late 70's at the then WATU(WAGT) and WJBF.
 
Ed The Byrdman said:
I remember WBIA on Walton Way when it was just across from the what was Western Sizzlin. The stationed really sounded good back in those days. I worked with Brian who became the spokesperson for Belk and Chris who went into the TV news arena...back in the late 70's at the then WATU(WAGT) and WJBF.
Click to expand...


OK, so that suggests WBIA wasn't that far up Walton Way away from 15th Street. I just could not remember how far up Walton Way the WBIA studio building was located.

Thanks for pinpointing that location. Gosh, I hadn't thought about the Western Sizzlin' there in maybe 35 years. Little things in life, right?
 
Wbia radio bill larsen

In 1971 while stationed in the TV Division at Fort Gordon, I did on-air news with a good friend, Harley Carnes, who later became newsguy for
Larry Lujack at WLS. I was asked to take a part-time on air shift at WBIA. I was hired by George Fisher. Later that same year the station was sold to a group from Florida. William (Bill) Tewell was GM. Charlie Andrews was PD, great guy and mentor. The station was on Walton Way,
across from IHOP, Western Sizzler was catty corner from the station. I was there....can't remember when I left, wanna say 2 years, then took a
job at WAUG in a trailer near a swamp, we gave away FM Converters for your AM radios. (WAUG was FM, that was early Triassic days.) While doing part time at WBIA, my first full time gig happened when, while waiting for the Midnite to 6 guy...who never showed, it was Christmas week
and my date was waiting in the lobby. I called Charlie, he drove to Bill Shadburns apt. Bill had passed while getting dressed for work. For over 30 years in broadcasting I've been asked how I got into radio, did someone die? Yeah, someone did, Bill Shadburn was old school radio, 50's style.
Hellovaguy. I retired in 2000. I'm a Vietnam Vet, now livin life in Kingman AZ. Thanks for the ear, and my memories of my first radio gig.
 
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