Goodbye to WDOD-AM, Chattanooga -- On the Air Since 1925

[csneed5]

WDOD, AM1310 signed on the air the same year as WSM-AM - 1925.
Now WDOD is silent.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_202677.asp

 

[abccbsnbcfox]

Actually, WDOD-AM is older than WSM-AM.

WDOD-AM: April 13, 1925
WSM-AM: October 5, 1925

But nobody beats WNOX-AM, Knoxville: November 19, 1921 (the eighth station to sign on in North America)

 

[LouPickney]

I understand the land being sold because of its value, but I'm surprised that there wasn't an attempt to sell the 1310 WDOD license as part of the deal. Surely there would have been some company out there interested in acquiring the license and broadcasting on 1310 from another location?

 

[Megacycler]

Bernie Barker, station general manager, said, "The equipment at the station was very old and the parts were hard to get. The components had to be made in some cases."


Anybody know the year, make and model of the transmitter and what they plan on doing with it now?

 

[Bengalsfan]

Bernie Barker, station general manager, said, "The equipment at the station was very old and the parts were hard to get. The components had to be made in some cases."


Anybody know the year, make and model of the transmitter and what they plan on doing with it now?

That's really a lame excuse. That's like saying my 1951 Nash Rambler is really old and parts are hard to come by so I'm junking it and not driving anymore.

 

[radioboy]

One of my best friends in radio got his start at WDOD and worked for Bahakel for many years.
He called me and told me about this earlier this morning.

Sorry to see such a heritage station end this way.

 

[Kent T]

Sad loss, one of the oldest Tennessee radio stations. And will be sadly missed. A legend.

 

[abccbsnbcfox]

It's sad, but it's a sadder commentary on AM radio in general.

Nobody's listening anymore, unless you're a 50 kw clear channel, or you're the only game in town, or you're carrying some specialty like the Vol Radio Network or something.

WDOD AM was fighting two other AM's in Chattanooga with 5 kw directionals, too.

Even AM stereo or even AM HD doesn't cut it anymore.

 

[Kent T]

Chattanooga also didn't have a 24 hour AM station which covered all of Chattanooga then either. WFLI on 1070 out of Lookout Mountain was the only AM which could cover most of it. And is another low powered night signal. So FM caught on in that market early on.

 

[K4WRF]

We are witnessing the end of a medium, AM radio has pretty much run out of time....

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

Bernie Barker, station general manager, said, "The equipment at the station was very old and the parts were hard to get. The components had to be made in some cases."


Anybody know the year, make and model of the transmitter and what they plan on doing with it now?

Oh bull-hockey. Equipment can be easily replaced/refurbished/upgraded. It's the licence that matters. Someone else could have gotten a chance to get the licence and either moved the facility (or even tried to buy the land).

 

[Tom Wells]

We are witnessing the end of a medium, AM radio has pretty much run out of time....

But there isn't "anything else" out there that does what AM does.

Seems to me that eons after humans cease to exist, the infrastructure for AM and FM broadcast radio will still be in place and operational.

I can't bring myself to try any kind of personal music devices or playout engines such as Pandora.
I made "mix tapes" and devised my own portable collection years ago.
How simple or how easy it is to assemble this collection of music/player is to me irrelevant.
It's still not radio, especailly not in the AM sense. Wifi is certainly NOT going to be the future in Chattanooga,
or anyplace east Tenn.

As long as this is the East Tn board, I'll say I really miss Rogersville and the old hotel.

BUt about "AM"?
What would anyone propose that we do with such long wavelengthts, unsuited to high-speed data?

 

[Huff]

Actually, WDOD-AM is older than WSM-AM.

WDOD-AM: April 13, 1925
WSM-AM: October 5, 1925

But nobody beats WNOX-AM, Knoxville: November 19, 1921 (the eighth station to sign on in North America)

There have been several articles over the years detailing 16 year old Dick Adcock’s homemade transmitter that signed on “on a Wednesday in early November 1921”, but there were certainly dozens of such homemade sets across the country that could just as similarly be called “radio stations”, but were not officially licensed as such. Because of this, they are not listed among the roll call of “earliest” or “oldest” stations. Adcock’s station was not licensed as a broadcast station (WNAV) until November 3, 1922.
The station was destroyed by a fire in 1923 and did not return to the air until 1925.

There are many claims circulating on the internet that WNAV/WNOX is the oldest station in Tennessee (on the surface it does beat WREC/Memphis by 18 days, but some radio historians argue that the facility that began as WNAV was moved to SC and became WFBC, and therefore the resulting WNOX that replaced WFBC cannot trace its lineage to WNAV.)

There are also claims that WNAV/WNOX is the 8th oldest station in the nation. The latter claim is simply not verifiable by any standards (again, what became WNAV may have started broadcasting in November 1921, but it was not licensed, and there were dozens of such unlicensed operations that sprang up around the nation with varying degrees of documentation.) Quite frankly, the argument as to what station was the first is still not settled after all these years and never will be, too much has been lost to history. So to state that WNOX was the 8th station to sign on in North America is just as lacking in substantiation.

Two of the most highly regarded radio historians (Barry Mishkind and Timothy H. White), have spent years researching the actual card files at the FCC to come up with the most authoritative databases of pioneer radio station in the US. You can sample their work here:

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/general/1st.html
http://earlyradiohistory.us/pion622l.htm

 

[Kent]

Oh bull-hockey. Equipment can be easily replaced/refurbished/upgraded. It's the licence that matters. Someone else could have gotten a chance to get the licence and either moved the facility (or even tried to buy the land).

Umm...you're kidding, right? While they may be embellishing a little about the difficulty of replacing the equipment at WDOD, that license, without any land or towers, probably wouldn't even net $500. Bahakel almost certainly got more for that land than it would have by selling it as a radio station.

If you were to have bought that license for $500 without any land or towers, there would be no way you could make any money off of it. You'd have to find a suitable area to locate the new towers and buy several acres of land. Even farmland would cost more than you'd think and would be worth more for farming than for an AM station. Plus, you'd have to pay expensive consulting fees to engineers to handle all of the FCC, FAA and other governmental agency issues as well as a study for a ground system. That ground system, by the way, if your hard-earned money proved you could build the station, would cost you an additional fortune.

Once you somehow got that license built and running, what could you run that would bring you any revenue? Good luck getting a significant audience in the money demo! You'd have to rely on an older audience that wouldn't bring in any agency buys (if you could even get a sizeable enough audience to get an agency to look at your numbers), which would mean you'd rely on small businesses that are historic no-pays.

Look, I'm as big of a fan of history and tradition as anyone. Yes, it's sad to see an institution like WDOD 1310 go away simply because the land was worth more than the entire facility. That's, however, what AM is coming to. AM will, in most of our lifetimes, go away. Even the 50 kw AM's aren't getting the audience they used to. That's why we're seeing so many of them get FM simulcasts. Even with rimshot FM signals, those stations are seeing big gains simply because they're getting 25-54 listeners from the FM's who won't listen to AM. We can debate the demise of AM all day. Maybe it was because the FCC took a laissez-faire approach with AM stereo, which meant FM ran away with superior sound quality for music while AM was left begging for manufacturers for some stereo tuner that might not even work with its system. Maybe Docket 80-90 packed the FM band and created too many formats on FM. Maybe AM operators took bad advice from consultants telling them to go ahead and go talk while they still had a valuable and marketable brand since they were going to lose before long anyway or to just sell out because some schmuck who didn't know what he was doing was offering more than what the station would be worth in a year or two. It could be any one of those reasons, a reason I didn't mention, or any combination. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, and we have what we have. With WDOD, the best that can be said is that the heritage of WDOD still lives on at 96.5 FM. In that sense, WDOD has fared better than many heritage stations.

 

[radiorob2.0]

Oh bull-hockey. Equipment can be easily replaced/refurbished/upgraded. It's the licence that matters. Someone else could have gotten a chance to get the licence and either moved the facility (or even tried to buy the land).

Umm...you're kidding, right? While they may be embellishing a little about the difficulty of replacing the equipment at WDOD, that license, without any land or towers, probably wouldn't even net $500. Bahakel almost certainly got more for that land than it would have by selling it as a radio station.

If you were to have bought that license for $500 without any land or towers, there would be no way you could make any money off of it. You'd have to find a suitable area to locate the new towers and buy several acres of land. Even farmland would cost more than you'd think and would be worth more for farming than for an AM station. Plus, you'd have to pay expensive consulting fees to engineers to handle all of the FCC, FAA and other governmental agency issues as well as a study for a ground system. That ground system, by the way, if your hard-earned money proved you could build the station, would cost you an additional fortune.

Once you somehow got that license built and running, what could you run that would bring you any revenue? Good luck getting a significant audience in the money demo! You'd have to rely on an older audience that wouldn't bring in any agency buys (if you could even get a sizeable enough audience to get an agency to look at your numbers), which would mean you'd rely on small businesses that are historic no-pays.

Look, I'm as big of a fan of history and tradition as anyone. Yes, it's sad to see an institution like WDOD 1310 go away simply because the land was worth more than the entire facility. That's, however, what AM is coming to. AM will, in most of our lifetimes, go away. Even the 50 kw AM's aren't getting the audience they used to. That's why we're seeing so many of them get FM simulcasts. Even with rimshot FM signals, those stations are seeing big gains simply because they're getting 25-54 listeners from the FM's who won't listen to AM. We can debate the demise of AM all day. Maybe it was because the FCC took a laissez-faire approach with AM stereo, which meant FM ran away with superior sound quality for music while AM was left begging for manufacturers for some stereo tuner that might not even work with its system. Maybe Docket 80-90 packed the FM band and created too many formats on FM. Maybe AM operators took bad advice from consultants telling them to go ahead and go talk while they still had a valuable and marketable brand since they were going to lose before long anyway or to just sell out because some schmuck who didn't know what he was doing was offering more than what the station would be worth in a year or two. It could be any one of those reasons, a reason I didn't mention, or any combination. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, and we have what we have. With WDOD, the best that can be said is that the heritage of WDOD still lives on at 96.5 FM. In that sense, WDOD has fared better than many heritage stations.

It makes me wonder if someone was to offer Bahakel $500 over the market price of the land would the station still be on the air?

This isn't the first time Bahakel has shut down an AM. They did the same thing twenty years ago in Bowling Green, Kentucky shuttering WLBJ.

 

[artsutton]

Oh bull-hockey. Equipment can be easily replaced/refurbished/upgraded. It's the licence that matters. Someone else could have gotten a chance to get the licence and either moved the facility (or even tried to buy the land).

Umm...you're kidding, right? While they may be embellishing a little about the difficulty of replacing the equipment at WDOD, that license, without any land or towers, probably wouldn't even net $500. Bahakel almost certainly got more for that land than it would have by selling it as a radio station.

If you were to have bought that license for $500 without any land or towers, there would be no way you could make any money off of it. You'd have to find a suitable area to locate the new towers and buy several acres of land. Even farmland would cost more than you'd think and would be worth more for farming than for an AM station. Plus, you'd have to pay expensive consulting fees to engineers to handle all of the FCC, FAA and other governmental agency issues as well as a study for a ground system. That ground system, by the way, if your hard-earned money proved you could build the station, would cost you an additional fortune.

Once you somehow got that license built and running, what could you run that would bring you any revenue? Good luck getting a significant audience in the money demo! You'd have to rely on an older audience that wouldn't bring in any agency buys (if you could even get a sizeable enough audience to get an agency to look at your numbers), which would mean you'd rely on small businesses that are historic no-pays.

Look, I'm as big of a fan of history and tradition as anyone. Yes, it's sad to see an institution like WDOD 1310 go away simply because the land was worth more than the entire facility. That's, however, what AM is coming to. AM will, in most of our lifetimes, go away. Even the 50 kw AM's aren't getting the audience they used to. That's why we're seeing so many of them get FM simulcasts. Even with rimshot FM signals, those stations are seeing big gains simply because they're getting 25-54 listeners from the FM's who won't listen to AM. We can debate the demise of AM all day. Maybe it was because the FCC took a laissez-faire approach with AM stereo, which meant FM ran away with superior sound quality for music while AM was left begging for manufacturers for some stereo tuner that might not even work with its system. Maybe Docket 80-90 packed the FM band and created too many formats on FM. Maybe AM operators took bad advice from consultants telling them to go ahead and go talk while they still had a valuable and marketable brand since they were going to lose before long anyway or to just sell out because some schmuck who didn't know what he was doing was offering more than what the station would be worth in a year or two. It could be any one of those reasons, a reason I didn't mention, or any combination. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, and we have what we have. With WDOD, the best that can be said is that the heritage of WDOD still lives on at 96.5 FM. In that sense, WDOD has fared better than many heritage stations.

I agree with the sense that WDOD(AM) was doomed. That pie was baked years ago. The center tower collapsing didn't bode well for its future, even short term. However, they could have sold the land and moved the station to another AM site and run non directional at night. Every other 1310 east of the Rockies that runs full time at night has to protect WDOD's 1310 nighttime 5KW signal. WDOD got rock solid skywave into South Georgia and Florida at night. It would be interesting to see what type power they could have gotten non DA at night but I would guess 250 watts. They could have diplexed on the 1370 site (it would have been a somewhat compex diplexer since they are so close on the dial to each other) or one of the class IV AMs might have given them something to pickup the signal. Even if you got just $100K for the license, that would have been more than nothing. Most AMs on the oldregional channels are lucky to have an interference free contour as low as 15 mV/m. WDOD had a 3 mV/m and that was from some station in Canada. WDEF has a 6 mV/m IF but its pattern is much more restrictive and northing to the north and south. WFLI is a 12 mV/m and the Class IVs are 24 to 28 mV/m. In reality if WDOD had been a viable station they could have moved a good 5 miles or so north of town and had a full market nighttime signal but Bahakel was never known for investing that kind of money in a facility improvement and it wouldn't have made much sense in the past 25 years or so.

Maybe some Am on 1280 1290 1300 1310 1320 1330 or 1340 will take advantage of the open frequency and get a signal enhancement.

Anyone wanting a pdf showing the nighttime IF signals of WDOD, WDEF and WFLI, email me and I will send you a map.

 

[Kent T]

Yes, I think someone will benefit from a signal upgrade. If they act now.

 

[secondchoice]

It makes me wonder if someone was to offer Bahakel $500 over the market price of the land would the station still be on the air?

NO!!
From Bahakel's view this is a good thing. They save a little on the power bill. If they sold it as a station, someone might have made a go of it, and might take a slice out of the radio ad dollar pie decreasing Bahakel's revenue. If I had the station I would try Comedy like Cumulus did in KC. With a a 10 year note the monthy payment is around $3,600, postive cash flow should be expected.

If the other clusters in Chattanooga start to kill off their AM's too (the excuse will be to save money but really less competion) then you have an anti trust issue.

Good luck proving that in court!!.

 

[secondchoice]

Yes, I think someone will benefit from a signal upgrade. If they act now.

If I owned 1450 or 1490, I would have already called a consultant and at least get the 5 KW daytime on 1310. Could you use the WGOW 1150 AM towers for nighttime?

 

[radiorob2.0]

It makes me wonder if someone was to offer Bahakel $500 over the market price of the land would the station still be on the air?

NO!!
From Bahakel's view this is a good thing. They save a little on the power bill. If they sold it as a station, someone might have made a go of it, and might take a slice out of the radio ad dollar pie decreasing Bahakel's revenue. If I had the station I would try Comedy like Cumulus did in KC. With a a 10 year note the monthy payment is around $3,600, postive cash flow should be expected.

If the other clusters in Chattanooga start to kill off their AM's too (the excuse will be to save money but really less competion) then you have an anti trust issue.

Good luck proving that in court!!.

It is the public airwaves and God forbid that someone might have initiative to make this work. It is idiocy like this situation "We can't have anyone compete against us!" that makes you throw your hands up in the air.

If there is a court battle on anti-trust, all the owners have to do is use the words, "Serve the Community" about a bazillion times and a judge will think these owners are deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize for announcing a school carnival at three in the morning.

As long as the public file is in order and the EAS receiver appears to work then you're a stellar broadcaster.