FM Radios, Stations, And Formats In The 1960s

[Schroedingers Cat]

We got our first FM radio in November, 1962. It was a Magnavox Stereo Theater, which included VHF-TV, AM-FM Radio, and Stereo Phonograph. It was not my first exposure to FM. In Genesee County, Michigan, we had one FM station operated by the Flint Board Of Education, WFBE 95.1, with Educational Classroom Programs, which was the first FM station I ever heard, beginning in 1958. WGMZ 107.9 came on in 1961. In the meantime, I heard WXYZ-FM 101.1 on a Drug Store PA system before getting the FM. In 1964, we got an FM Turnstile antenna on the TV antenna tower. That made stations from three other neighboring markets, and around 25 FM stations you could usually hear reasonably well.

FM radios were fairly sensitive in the 1960s, but not very selective, and had ineffective Automatic Gain Control. You had to turn the volume on weaker stations all the way up to hear them. The local stations captured and blotted out stations for about one MHz on each side, but there were only three for many years. The AM stations from adjacent markets had weak signals, and except for WJR 760 and well protected old Class III-A on 950, directional to the North at Night, WWJ, with a 5000 watt transmitter at the far corner of the next County, were not clear and reliable at Night. Even CKLW 800 faded a lot, and had quite a bit of interference, off the major lobe of the Day Pattern, and off the major lobe in the Night Pattern, though slightly stronger in field strength at Night.

CKLW-FM 93.9 simulcast CKLW 800, except from 6 PM until Midnight, and was an option by turning up the volume after Midnight. Also, until the AM FM format separation bill, WXYZ-FM 101.1 and WKNR-FM 100.3 were good options Day and Night. The Free Form, Underground, Progressive, Album Rock, etc. stations were kind of hit and miss in the late 1960s. WSAM-FM 98.1 was just 1.7 kW 30 odd miles away, and was only rarely listenable. WLS 890 was usually only available after WFDF 910 signed off at 12:30 AM. So WCFL 1000 was another option at Night, and blasted in from it's 3 tower in line beamed right at me, with a signal peaking at 10 mV/m and available on Rocket Crystal Radios with a long wire antenna at times. We had some excellent AMs too, but this thread is mainly about FM.

 

[DavidEduardo]

We got our first FM radio in November, 1962. It was a Magnavox Stereo Theater, which included VHF-TV, AM-FM Radio, and Stereo Phonograph. It was not my first exposure to FM. In Genesee County, Michigan, we had one FM station operated by the Flint Board Of Education, WFBE 95.1, with Educational Classroom Programs, which was the first FM I ever heard, beginning in 1958. WGMZ 107.9 came on in 1961. In the meantime, I heard WXYZ-FM 101.1 on a Drug Store PA system before getting the FM. In 1964, we got an FM Turnstile antenna on the TV antenna tower. That made stations from three other neighboring markets, and around 25 FM stations you could hear reasonably well.

In Cleveland, OH, we had a number of independent FMs in the late 50's and early 60's. The first was the Board of Education station, WBOE. Near where I lived, the R&B station, WJMO (AM) had an FM that operated from 5 PM to 11 PM, Monday to Saturday. I hung out and became the go-fer and by late 1959 was doing board shifts and utility work at WCUY, the FM. When the FCC required a more full schedule 7 days a week, I got to do 7 AM to 11 PM on Sundays.

In the same era, WCLV went on as an all classical station and ultra-suburban WDBN brought "good music", the earlier name for "Beautiful Music".

 

[tvnut]

In Chicago, the pioneer FMs arrived in the 1940s, and on the 40s on the dial. They moved up to 88-108 with the switch, and include still-going WBEZ 91.5, the PBS outlet originally run by the Chicago Board of Education for school programs and WBBM-FM 96.3. There were seven in the 40s in all, from WJJD's 44.7 W47C to W83C on 48.3, which can be traced to today's WCKL 97.9.

That was before my time. I remember far enough back to having our Allied mono hi-fi set in the living room with one booming speaker, and how aircraft flying into Midway Airport would interfere with some stations. In the 1960s, there were four classical-music stations in town: Zenith's pioneer WEFM (started 1940 as W9XEN, then W51C at 45.1, and, eventually to 99.5, among the first stereo stations in 1961, as Zenith led in creating FM stereo), plus WFMT, WNIB and WKFM. WFMT, the best classical station in the country, has the best signal in town, grandfathered in at higher power. Before 98.7s came on in Lafayette, Ind., and Springfield, Ill., it could be heard in those markets with an outdoor antenna. For a time, it broadcast in quad, including live Lyric Opera broadcasts in four-channel.

Many others were beautiful-music stations, including WFMF 100.1, started by the Marshall Field department store chain for background music in the stores. By the 1960s, it was WLOO, and my mom's go-to choice for dinner music. Two of the three network-owned stations (WBBM-FM, WMAQ-FM) simulcast their AM most of the time, though WMAQ-FM eventually split off to beautiful music, calling itself Soundstage 101 and running NBC's Monitor on weekends. NBC didn't bother to try to sell local ads until it became WJOI with a soft rock format in the early 1970s, after WBBM-FM went to rock music with local DJs.

WLS-FM was more daring, losing money on a music-and-sports format for a couple of years in the 1960s. Broadcasting tennis in stereo didn't take off.

One thing Chicago had was a surplus of calls with FM in them: WFMT, WEFM, WFMF, WKFM and WXFM. Only WFMT remains as such.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Here's a list of FM stations heard somewhat regularly at my location in the late 1960s. Magnavox Stereo Theater (FM Receiver was Monaural, Turntable was Stereo). Antenna was a Turnstile (2 Folded Dipoles) at about 30 feet AGL.

FM STATIONS HEARD SOMEWHAT REGULARLY IN MID TO LATE 1960’S Genesee County, MICHIGAN

88.7 CKWW-FM
90.5 WKAR-FM
91.7 WUOM-FM
93.1 WJBK-FM
93.9 CKLW-FM
94.7 WHFI (WITH WFBE OFF)
95.1 WFBE (OFF NIGHTS, WEEKENDS, AND SUMMERS)
95.5 WLDM (WITH WFBE OFF)
96.1 WBCM-FM
96.3 WJR-FM
97.1 WWJ-FM
97.5 WJIM-FM
98.1 WSAM-FM (TROPO)
98.7 WBFG
99.1 WSWM
99.7 WQDC (TROPO)
100.3 WKNR-FM
100.7 WITL-FM
101.1 WXYZ-FM
101.9 WDET
102.5 WNEM-FM
103.1 WTHM-FM
103.5 WMUZ
103.9 WOAP-FM
104.3 WOMC
105.5 WMRP-FM
106.3 WSBM (1969)
106.7 WDTM/WWWW
107.1 WWWS (1969 TEST)
107.9 WGMZ

Better radios and better directional FM antennas resulted in dramatic increases in numbers of regularly received signals. But this is a LOT of available signals for that time, due to receiving signals from several markets within 60 miles or so of the transmitters. Large markets with early receivers would not receive many more than this due to less selectivity common at that time. Looking at Allied Catalogs, much better receivers and tuners and antennas were becoming more available during that period.

 

[gr8oldies]

I've mentioned some of this before, but I had no exposure to FM before about 1967. Mercer County, Ohio got its first radio station when WMER-94.3 signed on in 1960. We were very. early in the FM game. WCSM signed on at AM 1350, with the FM on 96.7 coming on a couple of years later. My junior high principal was on WMER, which ran a mixed bag of "good music" album sides, and top 40 a couple of hours a day with the "instant request line". I'd hear my principal and half thought he'd be saying "Those were the Beatles, and the following students will report to detention hall Monday morning". WMER was signed on by the owner of the Celina Music Store, which is still in business at the same location, with the same family still owning it. The station was above the Music Store, and several ownerships later, the present-day WKKI still is. In 1968, it was time for the Music Store to get out of the radio business, and new owners installed Drake-Chenault's "Hit Parade '68". I've mentioned I saw my first automation system before I saw my first live studio, and that was because for a time, the automation was in back of the music store. WMER did peak my interest in the radio business, I saw my first live studio there after they had ditched Drake, took automation programming in-house with top 40,(recording music at logger tape speed (!), and added live shifts a couple of times a day. I sat in with the late, great Big Ralph Guaneri one day. WMER also took the whole station to the Mercer County Fair for a week. It was fun to see that, and I won a Dairy Queen Brazier burger. I never worked at WMER or its successor (it went bankrupt and flipped to Big Band, then country, then an AC Days, AOR night format.

I would eventually work at WCSM AM/FM in Celina, starting in 1975. In the late 60s and early 70s it was a little bit of Country, a little bit of MOR, with their version of Swap Shop, "Service and Music", ladies home-maker shows, Ed Johnson's Agri Broadcasting Network, and Paul Harvey. WCSM morphed into a countrified A/C, and after an ownership change, the music got closer to top 40, making us a mini-WOWO in approach.

The next closest stations we could get were the powerhouse WHIO-FM (99.1, the present-day WHKO), with a Beautiful Music format, with even more BM from WKJG (WMEF in 1971)-97.3 and WPTH-95.1, and WPTW-FM, Piqua, OH. I got my introduction to DXing and AOR with WRIF, Detroit. WPTH picked up TM Stereo Rock in 1974.

The Dayton market got on the FM bandwagon early, with WDAO as one of the first FM soul stations in the midwest if not the Country. WONE-FM (not the one in Akron, but same ownership) went automated top 40, adding Dave Michaels at night, and then going full top 40 as WTUE. In 1975, WTUE would become an AOR station, with the success of the University of Dayton's commercial station, WVUD. The surrounding FMs had a variety of formats, some religious, and a jazz station in Xenia.

The one good thing about small town life was local and nearby stations signing off between 10pm and 12midnight (an occasional straggler to 1am). This allowed me to hear Detroit...mid and later 70s brought WMJC, WNIC, WJZZ, WRIF, WMUZ, WUOM from Ann Arbor, and even Grand Rapids and Lansing. Then, Cincinnati, Columbus, Lexington and Indianapolis.

This website, maintained by Bob Hawkins, has DX recordings from the 60s, 70s and 80s, from when the band was much less crowded. FM Radio History

 

[gar hi]

My first experience with FM was in the late 60's when I was little.

I was already a fan of WABC AM because we could hear it day and night from 80 miles away on an average sized portable radio.

So on one of our regular trips up the turnpike to visit the relatives in north Jersey, my older brother had his portable AM/FM radio in the car and tuned in WABC FM once we were getting close enough to New York to receive the station.

I remember it being similar to WABC AM but not exactly the same.

 

[Battenkill50]

from 1966 in Melbourne FL (first access to FM radio)

WRKT-FM - 104.3 - Cocoa Beach - NBC (later 104.1)
WDBO-FM - Stereo 92 - Orlando - 92.3
WNDB-FM - Daytona Beach - 94.5
WHOO-FM - Orlando - 96.5
all with "Beautiful music" type formats

kw-melbourne FL

 

[Gregg.]

My family didn't get an FM radio until the late 1960s, so in the New York area, the dial was already populated by FM stations. A big combo FM/AM/phonograph in a wooden cabinet was bought for the living room. So I only used it sometimes. I was amazed at the stereo separation of sound along with the orange light that glowed when an FM station was broadcasting in stereo. Not all of them did in those days! The NY FM dial in the late 1960s was still primitive. The FCC rule was just going into effect that FM stations had to have separate programming 75% of the time in large markets.

I remember WNEW-FM's experiment to play the AM station's MOR music and still keep within the guidelines. It was my parents' favorite station so I listened too. For a while, the station had its AM DJs host on both AM and FM. The morning show was simulcast. But the rest of the day, DJs like William B. Williams would talk on the AM as they normally did, while a board op on the FM side would play different songs than the AM. Williams would go to the FM studio two or three times an hour to tell us what we heard, give a weather forecast, make some chatter, then go back to his regular show on the AM side. That didn't last long. An "All Girls" staff debuted. All female DJs, again playing pretty much of the same MOR songs you'd hear on the AM. But in an era where few female voices were heard on the radio, this was quite a change! This also only lasted a year before WNEW-FM switched to progressive rock.

As others have said, the FM dial was awash with Beautiful Music and Classical stations. There was easy listening music playing on: 105.1 WRFM (Mormon-owned), 93.1/930 WPAT-AM-FM, 103.5 WTFM and 100.3/620 WVNJ-AM-FM. At various times, 92.3 WHOM, 101.9 WPIX (The Daily News) and 97.1 WNBC-FM were also Beautiful Music. As mentioned above, NBC's FM stations didn't seek advertising. The only spots you'd hear were during network news or on weekends when WNBC-FM carried "Monitor." The Classical stations were 96.3/1560 WQXR (owned by The NY Times), 104.3 WNCN and non-commercial, city-owned 93.9 WNYC-FM. There were also times when 95.5 WABC-FM would play classical music, although that station also eventually went to a progressive rock format.

Also on the FM dial: Ethnic 97.9 WEVD-FM and 105.9 WHBI along with Jazz 106.7 WRVR (Riverside Church - to this day WLTW airs their services from the previous weekend at 5 a.m. Sundays). WCBS-FM had an automated easy vocal format. There was one R&B station, WBLS 107.5 and no stations broadcasting in Spanish, although 92.3 WHOM would play some Spanish vocals in its easy listening mix. It was the sister station to Spanish Tropical 1280 WADO, both owned by the San Juan Racing Corporation.

Even though we only lived a few miles from Manhattan, for some reason at 87.7 we were able to get the ABC television station in Philadelphia, Channel 6. I noticed I heard the dialog from Peyton Place while scanning the dial. It was fairly reliable every evening. I'm still not sure how that TV audio signal traveled so far!

 

[gr8oldies]

My first experience with FM was in the late 60's when I was little.

I was already a fan of WABC AM because we could hear it day and night from 80 miles away on an average sized portable radio.

So on one of our regular trips up the turnpike to visit the relatives in north Jersey, my older brother had his portable AM/FM radio in the car and tuned in WABC FM once we were getting close enough to New York to receive the station.

I remember it being similar to WABC AM but not exactly the same.

Some hours were simulcast (without the echo) but Chuck Leonard had a show that was separate from his nighttime 2 hours on AM, there was the "other" Dan Ingram show where Dan played jazz for an hour on Saturday nights. Others probably know more about WABC-FM than I do. Later as WPLJ, ABC sometimes fed it down the network line between newscasts.

 

[KenoGuy]

My first exposure to FM was in grade school hearing WHAD Delafield, a WI state educational station, over the intercom.

My second exposure to FM was at my dentist's waiting room; he always had WFNY Racine on (92.1 BM). Very early 60s

I saved my lawn mowing money, and in summer '66 bought a Masterwork AM/FM portable. Kenosha was a great place for FM in the mid-late 60s, with Chicago and Milwaukee stations (mostly) available. My first "must listens" were WRIT-FM 102.9 which simulcast Top 40 WRIT 1340 from 6 PM to Midnight, and WNWC 92.7 Arlington Heights, which was also a Top 40 (and really a tough one to pull in.)

Locals were WLIP-FM 95.1 which had an album rock show (called "The Sermon") from 8-10 PM signoff, and WAXO 96.9, which was a stand-alone FM that did a little of everything programming-wise. Racine had the aforementioned WFNY, and WRJN-FM 100.7, which was off the air seemingly more than it was on. 100.7 was eventually sold to the WRAC 1460 folks and in the early 70s morphed into Top 40 WRKR.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

How was the performance of the Masterwork on AM and FM?

I'm not surprised that WNWC 92.7 did not come in that well, as it was and still is the equivalent of a 3000 watt Class A. I'm really impressed with it's reputation for breaking records before WLS and WCFL in the late 1960s. WNWC currently has 29 Surveys from 1966-1967 on ARSA. If you have any more, you might want to email Gary Pfeifer and send images for him to post. Or sign up and figure out how to enter it.

ARSA | Survey Search : WNWC

An historical archive of Radio Surveys & Nostalgia.

www.las-solanas.com

 

[ftballfan]

This is way before my time, but the strongest FM in Manistee, MI at the time was likely WBAY-FM from Green Bay (WTCM and WIAA were on short towers close to Traverse City and didn't move into Wexford County until roughly the 1980s)

 

[KenoGuy]

How was the performance of the Masterwork on AM and FM?

The Masterwork radio was pretty good, considering the quality of tuners at the time. You learned how to deal with touchy tuning and drifting. It was an inexpensive radio (didn't seem like it for a 12 year old at the time) but it showed me that AM wasn't the only band you could DX on. I think one of my first catches was WJFM. I also remember hearing WIAA, and WAUS would often override WHAD in the summer.

AM was pretty sensitive, helped by the fact that it had a fairly long ferrite bar- maybe 5 or 6 inches.

 

[MarioMania]

I was born in 1974, So like Radio in the 80's

But I want to know what was FM Radio in the Bay Area in the 60's

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The Masterwork radio was pretty good, considering the quality of tuners at the time. You learned how to deal with touchy tuning and drifting. It was an inexpensive radio (didn't seem like it for a 12 year old at the time) but it showed me that AM wasn't the only band you could DX on. I think one of my first catches was WJFM. I also remember hearing WIAA, and WAUS would often override WHAD in the summer.

AM was pretty sensitive, helped by the fact that it had a fairly long ferrite bar- maybe 5 or 6 inches.

From across the Lake, you could probably also hear WOOD-FM 105.7, WVGR 104.1, and WWTV-FM/WKJF-FM 92.9, and later WCXT 105.3 on a fairly regular basis, all 100 kW ERP or more. Some of the Panasonic Portables in the late 1970s had very good adjacent channel selectivity, and stations could be heard next to strong local adjacent channel stations before IBOC sidebands blotted them out. WJML 98.9 is another. On the Eastern shore, and far inland, WIXX 101.1, WRVM 102.7, and WMBI-FM 90.1 were often heard.

 

[Ai4i]

My parents went on a vacation and drove up and down I-95 and my first experience with FM top 40 radio was from WBBQ Augusta, which simulcasted their graveyard channel AM with 100Kw from more than 500 feet up, which was high for that era. I sure was glad that they bought a car with a rare FM radio.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

David, did you do any FM DXing in the Leelanau Peninsula in the early to mid 1960s? If so, what kind of receiver and antenna did you use, and what are some of the stations you heard? In 1963, there were only three stations above the 44th Parallel in Michigan, WIAA 88.3, WWTV-FM 92.9, and WJGS 98.5. WCCW-FM 92.1, WLDR 101.9, and WTCM-FM 103.5 came on in the the mid to late 1960s. Also, WJML-FM 98.9, WHSB 107.7, and WCBY-FM 105.1 came on in that era with fairly high to high ERP. I imagine that with favorable tropospheric conditions, you could have heard stations from Southern Michigan, and across the Lake in Wisconsin, and later from the Upper Peninsula. And there was Sporadic E, which many believed at the time was only very rare on FM, and then only on the lower part of the Band.

FM receivers in the early 1960s mostly had poor selectivity and AGC, and with the AFC and capture effect, strong signals had a wide footprint, which made it difficult to keep tuned to a weaker signal on even third or fourth adjacent channels. But if you have logs or recollections from that era, we'd like to hear about your experiences.

 

[TheBigA]

There were two very distinct periods for FM in the 1960s: Before 1966 and after 1966. Because before 1966, FM was a trademarked technology, licensed by the Armstrong estate. When the copyright ran out, and the litigation with RCA ended, then manufacturers were more willing to add FM to portables and other radios. Two other things happened at that time: The FCC came out with its non-duplication of formats rule, and manufacturing started to shift to Japan. That led to the rise of Panasonic and Sony.

But there was an audience for FM among audiophiles and classical music fans prior to 1966. It led to the rise of magazines that catered to that audience, such as FM Guide and Audiophile. Some of this led to the rise of the home stereo movement that happened in the late 60s and 70s. The rise of FM ownership and the FCC rule led to new formats and more interest in FM.

There were some groups who failed to see the wave coming. The one that stands out is the Washington Post group of radio stations. They owned WTOP-AM/FM in Washington. They decided there was no future in FM, and donated WTOP-FM to Howard University, a historically black college in Northeast DC. That station today is WHUR, which is consistently one of the top rated stations in town.

 

[DavidEduardo]

David, did you do any FM DXing in the Leelanau Peninsula in the early to mid 1960s? If so, what kind of receiver and antenna did you use, and what are some of the stations you heard? In 1963, there were only three stations above the 44th Parallel in Michigan, WIAA 88.3, WWTV-FM 92.9, and WJGS 98.5. WCCW-FM 92.1, WLDR 101.9, and WTCM-FM 103.5 came on in the the mid to late 1960s. Also, WJML-FM 98.9, WHSB 107.7, and WCBY-FM 105.1 came on in that era with fairly high to high ERP.

All I had through my last times in Omena in 1962 was a Zenith portable (which was a pre-1960 one with no AFC). There was nothing I could hear other than WWTV, and that was not consistent.

By the time i returned to that area about 15 years later, I had two little girls in tow and was busy rediscovering how my per-adolescent friends had turned out as adults... and pouring sand out of my shows from dragging the kids up Sleeping Bear!

I imagine that with favorable tropospheric conditions, you could have heard stations from Southern Michigan, and across the Lake in Wisconsin, and later from the Upper Peninsula. And there was Sporadic E, which many believed at the time was only very rare on FM, and then only on the lower part of the Band.

I had horizon blockage that would have prevented everything from Milwaukee to Sault Ste. Marie, but there were not that many things to miss in those early 60's days.

After finding little to hear and not having an outdoor antenna, I sort of gave up on FM. Most of my late 50's to early 60's DXing was Midnight to 6 AM, so I did not see as much daylight as I might have. So you could say that I pretty much ignored FM.

By around 1966 when I built my first Quito FM, there was no other FM to the south until you got "FM 100" in Lima, Perú, and in the north it was the sole FM in San José, Costa Rica and a few 10 to 50 watt FMs used as STLs in Colombia.

FM receivers in the early 1960s mostly had poor selectivity and AGC, and with the AFC and capture effect, strong signals had a wide footprint, which made it difficult to keep tuned to a weaker signal on even third or fourth adjacent channels. But if you have logs or recollections from that era, we'd like to hear about your experiences.

I did occasionally find the Lima station, and even the one in Costa Rica on rare occasions. I had no obstruction to Lima from my home at just over 10,000 feet AMSL. Costa Rica had severe blockage by Guagua Pichincha and Ruku Pichincha, but somehow I got the signal a few times. And I heard several Colombian STLs but all were network stations and hard to determine which and where; I did get postive ID on one from Bogotá and that was pretty much line of sight in both the exit and entry paths to me.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

In the mid to late 1960s, I was told that Fisher Receivers and Tuners were the best, but quite expensive. In 1971, my parents bought me a Sony AM FM Portable with a Cassette Player. The AM was good, and the FM was amazing. And easy to record DX. I heard KFI and KNBR on it in West Central Michigan. Much Sporadic E before the Docket 80-90 stations started signing on. The first adjacent selectivity on FM was good, but not like the Panasonics coming out by the late 1970s. It was difficult to tune weak stations on first adjacent channels next to strong local ones. Second and third adjacent channels were no problem.