First FM stereo stations in Boston

[mgpt6]

This is the 50th anniversay of FM stereo. I didnt have access to FM stereo radio until 1970. Which were the first FM stations in Boston to go stereo after FCC approval in June 1961?

 

[aerie]

I'm not sure which FM station went stereo first, but before that, stations that had both AM and FM outlets would sometimes put one channel on the AM and one on the FM for a special event. I am pretty sure WCRB did that on 1330 and 102.5 for the BSO, and I recall that even WBZ did it (with much hoopla promoting it) on 1030 and 106.7 for some special occasion.

I bought a stereo table radio fairly early, when most stations were still in mono. I remember writing the GM of WRKO at the time (1968) wondering why WRKO-FM was suddenly signing off at midnight, and he wrote me back saying that they were installing new equipment for stereo. A couple of weeks later WROR appeared. A lot of the Top 40 stuff at the time was still being released only in mono. I remember stations did some tinkering with mono records to make them seem to be in stereo (putting the bass in one speaker, the treble in the other) that was pretty awful sounding.

 

[johnster]

I think BCN and GBH did stereo broadcasts together before todays stereo as well.


Here is a pretty old BCN board shot
http://wgbholdtimers.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-radio-days-part-1.html

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I remember Nat as running as tight a board as anyone in pop or rock broadcasting. He held the LP disc steady as he intoned the introduction, letting go of the disc JUST in time for it to achieve 33 1/3 rpm as soon as he uttered the last syllable. Thus you'd hear: "Fritz Reiner conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven's Third Symphony. the "Eroica", in E-flat, opus 55{CHORD! CHORD! DA-da-DA-da-dadada-da-DA C-sharp in the bass clef...what's that doing there?). Most classical recordings are made in concert halls with a reverberation period, so Ned would at least let the music echo just a bit before coming on at the end.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I haven't been by the jug-eared turn on route 1 lately, so I don't know if the WUPI/WUPY-FM 105.3 tower is still there, but my recollection is that the station licensed to Lynn on that frequency beat everyone else in the market to FM-only stereocasting in the area. I think it had a jazz format.

 

[pqgeorge]

I think BCN and GBH did stereo broadcasts together before todays stereo as well.


Here is a pretty old BCN board shot
http://wgbholdtimers.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-radio-days-part-1.html

In fact, WGBH-FM/89.7 and WBUR/90.9 did regular dual-stereo in the early 60's before multiplex stereo was in general use. WGBH and WCRB-FM/102.5 (now WKLB) were early adapters to FM MPX Stereo in 1961. WBCN/104.1 (now WBMX) followed a short time after. WBCN and WCRB specialized in classical or symphonic music. WBUR did not go full MPX Stereo until 1971. WCOP-FM/100.7 (now WZLX), one of the first 24 hour FM stations in Boston, was also an early convert to Stereo in 1962 but opted to revert back to mono for a few years after '63. WKOX-FM/105.7 in Framingham (now WROR) also provided classical music in Stereo as far back as 1963. If my recollections are correct, here's a list of some of the earlier stations in the Boston area who embraced FM Stereo and the date on which Stereo broadcasts began with their call-letters at the time......

88.1 WMBR (1987)
88.9 WERS-FM (1974)
89.7 WGBH-FM (1961)
90.9 WBUR-FM (1971)
92.9 WBOS-FM (1965)
93.7 WCGY (1974)
94.5 WHDH-FM (1965)
95.3 WHRB-FM (1967, on the day the Sox won the pennant)
96.1 WSRS (1963)
96.9 WJIB (1967)
97.7 WBET-FM (1976)
98.5 WRKO-FM (1968)
99.5 WSSH (1970)
100.7 WCOP-FM (1962)
101.7 WLYN-FM (1977)
102.5 WCRB-FM (1961)
103.3 WEEI-FM (1965)
104.1 WBCN (1962)
105.7 WKOX-FM (1963)
106.7 WBZ-FM (1971)
107.3 WAAB-FM (1967)
107.9 WWEL (1972)

Hope my memory serves me well.

Oh, BTW: My introduction to FM Stereo was on January 1, 1968 in my Dad's new Ford Country Squire station wagon. He was listening to WJIB ("Stereo 97"). From then on, we always had FM Stereo in the car. It was great to hear WRKO-FM/98.5 in Stereo in October of '68, just before they switched to "Hit Parade '68" on the new WROR!

 

[4CX1000A]

Isn't it ironic that the very last FM to go stereo in the Boston market should be the one owned by MIT?

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Isn't it ironic that the very last FM to go stereo in the Boston market should be the one owned by MIT?

Would that have been after Ted Turner gave MIT the cash it needed to buy a new transmitter in exchange for the WTBS call letters?

 

[pqgeorge]

Isn't it ironic that the very last FM to go stereo in the Boston market should be the one owned by MIT?

Would that have been after Ted Turner gave MIT the cash it needed to buy a new transmitter in exchange for the WTBS call letters?

In 1979, Ted donated about $250,000 to pay for the cost of WTBS's upgrade to 200 watts (from 10 watts). At the same time, WTBS shed its' old call-letters to WMBR (Walker Memorial Basement Radio). In a "legal instant", the WTBS call-letters were handed to Turner Broadcasting System for use for it's local Atlanta UHF station WTCG (Channel 17). WTCG was already a "SuperStation" on cable systems around the country via satellite. Getting the WTBS call-letters was the crowning achievement for Ted Turner who proudly announced about "SuperStation WTBS"! The rest is history. As for WMBR, they would not go stereo until May, 1987. Why? I guess they used everything they got from Ted to just get the power increase alone. But you'd think that back in 1979, a good Stereo board could have been bought for less than $10,000 dollars. In my own experience, all of the college stations I worked with, back during the upgrades from Class D during the late 70's and early 80's, either had Stereo already or made the switch to Stereo at the same time as the upgrades.

All that aside, back in the early 70's, WTBS (88.1) was really a fun station to listen to! You never knew what was going to happen, especially at night! Those 40 watts (ERP) came in quite well in Randolph (20 miles away). In spite of the limited equipment they had back then, they really made some memorable programming over the years. I still recall the old phone number..... T-N-T-W-T-B-S (868-9827)!

 

[LA_Guy]

I believe one of the first FM stereo stations in the Boston was WUPI 105.3 Lynn, MA. It signed on in the early 1960's in stereo. It was owned by a local announcer, Tracy Cole. It didn't last too long and after it went off, 105.3 was deleted and 105.7 assigned to Framingham for WKOX-FM. It's tower still exists along Route 1, not far from the 93.7 tower (a self supporting tower on the other side of the highway).

 

[Time Traveler]

Not to contradict Peter Q George...but I recall "FM-105" WKOX-FM broadcasting in mono...during their first six months or so...as a Top 40 station in 1969...which kind of puzzled me at the time. I recall that they went stereo during the summer of 1969...However...I never paid attention to them prior to 1969....

 

[chrish]

WUPY tower at the jughandle in Peabody was taken down about two years ago. I seem to recall one of the problems converting WTBS to stereo more
problematic than the board was the STL audio was wired through the MIT tunnels and were not New England Bell phone lines which they did not have the money
to install and to pay monthly charges

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Isn't it ironic that the very last FM to go stereo in the Boston market should be the one owned by MIT?

WMBR is owned, but not maintained, and not originally built, by MIT.

WTBS (now WMBR), put on the air in 1961, was completely built and assembled by MIT students, who simply acquired the building space from MIT for an electronics project.

The station has been completely technically maintained and upgraded ONLY by its in-house student, alumnai, and community volunteers from then on. MIT itself does not provide or perform any technical work or equipment for the station. The understanding is that the station is completely on its own in that regard.

In 1979, Ted (Turner) donated about $250,000 to pay for the cost of WTBS's upgrade to 200 watts (from 10 watts).

Peter, Ted was generous, but not that generous. You have inflated his donation 5x. It was $50k.

I tried to explain the story of why the stereo upgrade didn't happen until 1987, but this site is acting so weird on this computer with the type jumping up and down in the posting box every time I type a character that it became all messed up and I had to delete it. It's too nerve-wracking to try to type with this happening.

 

[pqgeorge]

Isn't it ironic that the very last FM to go stereo in the Boston market should be the one owned by MIT?

WMBR is owned, but not maintained, and not originally built, by MIT.

WTBS (now WMBR), put on the air in 1961, was completely built and assembled by MIT students, who simply acquired the building space from MIT for an electronics project.

The station has been completely technically maintained and upgraded ONLY by its in-house student, alumnai, and community volunteers from then on. MIT itself does not provide or perform any technical work or equipment for the station. The understanding is that the station is completely on its own in that regard.

In 1979, Ted (Turner) donated about $250,000 to pay for the cost of WTBS's upgrade to 200 watts (from 10 watts).

Peter, Ted was generous, but not that generous. You have inflated his donation 5x. It was $50k.

I tried to explain the story of why the stereo upgrade didn't happen until 1987, but this site is acting so weird on this computer with the type jumping up and down in the posting box every time I type a character that it became all messed up and I had to delete it. It's too nerve-wracking to try to type with this happening.

Wow! And all this time, I thought Ted donated a cool quarter million. I guess for $50,000, he sure got his money's worth! (and then some!) As for WKOX-FM pre-1969, you can check the back issues of the Boston Globe from 1963 on and find that WKOX-FM was running symphonic music in Stereo. I'll bet you that WKOX-FM was in the midst of some technical upgrades in 1969 to better suit the Top-40 format and was using some left over equipment to tie them over for full Stereo. The transmitter upgrades to Needham were obviously already in the works for the eventual change for WVBF in 1971. Back then, the FCC required that if an FM station were not programming Stereo audio for more than 5 minutes, then the Stereo generator had to be turned off or the pilot extinguished. WKOX-FM was probably doing just that. I do recall during the "FM 105" days, I always saw the Stereo light in the car radio on at all times in '69 with WKOX-FM. But, it has been over 40 years...so who knows. As a side note: WHDH-FM/94.5 used to turn off the Stereo light during newscasts but once the music returned, the light came back on. When WMTW-FM/94.9 ran Mets Baseball, they turned off the Stereo light during the play-by-play from New York, but returned the Stereo light during commercial breaks. I wonder if the switching was actually done up on Mt. Washington, rather than Poland Spring? Oh, well.

 

[mgpt6]

Other WCRB 102.5 FM did any other FM stereo station have problems with "birdies" caused by interaction with 38Khz stereo subcarrrier and 67KHz SCA subcarrier in the early days. I remember that the WCRB "birdies" was always a hot topic on "Shop Talk" in the 70s on WBUR.

 

[pqgeorge]

Other WCRB 102.5 FM did any other FM stereo station have problems with "birdies" caused by interaction with 38Khz stereo subcarrrier and 67KHz SCA subcarrier in the early days. I remember that the WCRB "birdies" was always a hot topic on "Shop Talk" in the 70s on WBUR.

Since WCRB used very little compression or minimum audio processing in the earlier days of Stereo broadcasting, due to its Classical format with plenty of soft passages in the music, I think that was the main reason the "birdies" were so noticeable compared to the other FM Stereo stations that used SCA as well. They tried to be an audiophile station, almost to a fault. WCRB Sound-Systems (the local Muzak dealer for Boston) had a virtual monopoly of the background music market for the longest time. WPLM-FM/99.1 also did background music on their SCA as well but used a lot of audio processing to enhance their Big Band format. (WPLM is no longer using their SCA for background music). Eventually in the 80's, "foreground" music (soft rock with vocals) came to roost on WCRB's 92 kHz subcarrier making for a very "busy" bandwidth. Don't forget, the birdies were partially at fault due to the analog components of the day. The Stereo decoders of the day were pretty wideband and not controlled by IC chips. They were tuned RF circuits and coils. Today, if WCRB were still on 102.5 with Classical music with 2 SCA subs, you would not notice it at all..... thanks to today's modern IC chip circuits.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

Yikes. You brought up painful memories of trying to listen to WCRB-FM 102.5 when it was a REAL classical music station and was beset by the SCA "birdies". They were very prominent during the silent periods BETWEEN movements of structured pieces like symphonies and concertos. (An example of a non-structured piece would be the composition used in "2001 - A Space Odyssey". That's Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", which did have a brief break at the midpoint for some reason but was otherwise continuous from beginning to end.) Recital pieces, like a solo sonata or chamber music would have enough quiet passages so that you could hear the "birdies" while the music was playing.

 

[aerie]

I remember Richard L Kaye on "WCRB Saturday Night" telling listeners on more than one occasion that the subcarrier services on WCRB did not affect their main program at all. He seemed really angry about it (on an otherwise light-hearted program). I miss that program. It was the perfect kind of show for late Saturday night.

 

[Laurence Glavin]

I remember Richard L Kaye on "WCRB Saturday Night" telling listeners on more than one occasion that the subcarrier services on WCRB did not affect their main program at all. He seemed really angry about it (on an otherwise light-hearted program). I miss that program. It was the perfect kind of show for late Saturday night.

I loved that show too. Richard had one quirk: he gave postal Zip Codes (which were a new development at that time) as real numbers. So if he gave an address in New York somewhere, instead of 10021, he'd say "ten-thousand and twenty-one".

 

[4CX1000A]

WCRB Sound-Systems (the local Muzak dealer for Boston) had a virtual monopoly of the background music market for the longest time.

WCRB Sound Systems, Inc. was not a Muzak dealer; it was a competitor to Muzak.

The two SCA's on WCRB ran until February, 2006, when I shut them down after being notified by DMX Sound & Media, the successor to WCRB Sound Systems, Inc., that they were no longer needed.