J
jhguthlac
Guest
For some time, I have wanted to put together a history of Delaware radio. WDEL was fairly good about preserving a record of their past. I have some records of WNRK. WJBR was good about their history, including info on their web site.
Recently, I did some web searchs for one of my all time favs, WTUX. Unfortunately, now that Dick Holmes has passed, much of that history has passed with him. His web site also is no longer available. But I have had some success.
A collection of Billboard mags is on-line, and includes one of the more famous moments of 1290's history. Their license was revoked October 14, 1950! I have heard the story of course, but never read about it. Seems they were broadcasting horse race results and doing it in a way to allow bettors to place their money on the winning horse before the results were offical!
WTUX had been one of the first Wilmington stations to play jazz by local artists. And they hired Blacks to play it on the air. They also made time available on weekends for ethnic communities such as the Poles, Greeks, Black Gospel dj's, etc. Those groups united and fought the FCC. In the end, Gordon MacIntosh and his partner kept WTUX-AM, but lost their 107.3 FM allocation.
Even in the 70's, MacIntosh kept his loyalty to those communities. Of course, he was making money off of them! But in the 70's, I was still board-oping Polish music shows, Greek shows (the guy owned a candy store and he brought me great pastries at Easter - thinking of that this weekend as this is the Orthodox Easter weekend),and a half hour Hebrew show at 4pm Sundays.
Recently, I did some web searchs for one of my all time favs, WTUX. Unfortunately, now that Dick Holmes has passed, much of that history has passed with him. His web site also is no longer available. But I have had some success.
A collection of Billboard mags is on-line, and includes one of the more famous moments of 1290's history. Their license was revoked October 14, 1950! I have heard the story of course, but never read about it. Seems they were broadcasting horse race results and doing it in a way to allow bettors to place their money on the winning horse before the results were offical!
WTUX had been one of the first Wilmington stations to play jazz by local artists. And they hired Blacks to play it on the air. They also made time available on weekends for ethnic communities such as the Poles, Greeks, Black Gospel dj's, etc. Those groups united and fought the FCC. In the end, Gordon MacIntosh and his partner kept WTUX-AM, but lost their 107.3 FM allocation.
Even in the 70's, MacIntosh kept his loyalty to those communities. Of course, he was making money off of them! But in the 70's, I was still board-oping Polish music shows, Greek shows (the guy owned a candy store and he brought me great pastries at Easter - thinking of that this weekend as this is the Orthodox Easter weekend),and a half hour Hebrew show at 4pm Sundays.