Happy 50th Birthday WVON

[DToTheJ]

Special programming planned for Monday, April 1.
http://www.radioink.com/Article.asp?id=2628698&spid=24698

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

I believe that there were stations serving the AA community before WVON. I believe that WHFC 1450 Cicero, the predecessor of the original WVON and expanded band WVON 1690, had substantial AA programming. Also, WGRB 1390 Chicago became WVON for a long time before becoming WGCI. Before late 1962, 1390 was WGES, which was an R & B station before becoming WYNR. WYNR was a Top 40 station with AA disk jockeys, which leaned toward R & B, before returning to R & B about the time WCFL went Top 40, and before becoming a All News Station as WNUS and later Beautiful Music.

It is important to realize that Top 40 and R & B charts were so nearly the same in terms of appeal to the AA community in the early 1960s, that Billboard stopped publishing an R & B chart. When it returned, the music had changed so that British Invasion groups were clearly Top 40, and most "White" acts disappeared from the new R & B charts minus the British Invasion and later Psychedelic/Folk Rock/Anti War/Album Oriented Top 40 era. R & B then became dominated by Motown and other "Northern Soul" labels. Ewart Abner went from Vee Jay to Motown, and probably figured into the signing of the Jackson Five and resurgence of other AA acts from the Chicago area.

Broadcaster and Chicago Fire Department Public Relations Director Larry Langford, Jr. is an expert on this topic and should be interviewed. I asked him about this a couple of decades ago and this is a paraphrasing of what he told me and what I already knew.

Another huge source of information about Chicago Radio/National Radio/Radio Personalities and Format descriptions is archived at americanradiohistory.com.

 

[cyberdad]

Can't wait to hear this.....

My WVON story....

In college, I knew a couple of AA students....roomates....who were from Chicago and missed WVON. I tried to coach them on setting up their radios for DX in the slim hope that the 250-watt nighttime signal on graveyard channel 1450 could somehow make it all the way to Iowa. I had pretty much forgotten about that when weeks went by and they never said anything else about it. Then one night, shortly after midnight, I was in bed almost asleep, when they came busting into my dorm room. "We heard it! We heard it!". Turns out they had tried for it almost every night. And they heard it a few times after that as well.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Back in the analog display days when you were sometimes plus or minus 10 kHz on where you thought your radio was tuned, I thought I heard WVON 1450 one night in the early 1970s when I lived in Flint. Normally WKMF 1470 blasted over 30 kHz either side in the pre NRSC days. I heard what I thought was WVON, when WKMF was testing in the experimental period, but it was actually just WPON 1460 Pontiac, MI, about 30 miles away, but was almost never heard. Another set of call letters that were really confusing was when there was WEAW 1330 Evanston, IL and WELW 1330 Willoughby, OH. If WPON was near twilight and on 500 watts PSA or 1000 watts daytime nondirectional at the original site, I wouldn't doubt that it could have been heard in Iowa. And it had an R & B format at night in the 1960s and early 1970s. I heard it a time or so in Park Ridge at twilight, 4:15-4:30 PM CST in late November.

 

[radioman148]

Can't wait to hear this.....

My WVON story....

In college, I knew a couple of AA students....roomates....who were from Chicago and missed WVON. I tried to coach them on setting up their radios for DX in the slim hope that the 250-watt nighttime signal on graveyard channel 1450 could somehow make it all the way to Iowa. I had pretty much forgotten about that when weeks went by and they never said anything else about it. Then one night, shortly after midnight, I was in bed almost asleep, when they came busting into my dorm room. "We heard it! We heard it!". Turns out they had tried for it almost every night. And they heard it a few times after that as well.

That's really good hearing WVON in Iowa. Sometimes back in those days they could get crowded out at night in the Northern Suburbs.

 

[cyberdad]

That's really good hearing WVON in Iowa. Sometimes back in those days they could get crowded out at night in the Northern Suburbs.

I never once heard them....or the old WHFC...at night growing up in Wauconda. In fact, once when WFMT was also on 1450, I heard them getting totally stomped on one night driving by Wrigley field.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

That's really good hearing WVON in Iowa. Sometimes back in those days they could get crowded out at night in the Northern Suburbs.

I never once heard them....or the old WHFC...at night growing up in Wauconda. In fact, once when WFMT was also on 1450, I heard them getting totally stomped on one night driving by Wrigley field.

Other than after midnight when other 1450s were signed off in those days, it would have been difficult to hear WVON at 250 watts. Did you tell your friends to build Beverage antennas or something? That's how they would have heard it in Finland. Cyberdad, radioman148, and others in the Chicago area, did you ever log WPON 1460? That would probably have been easier, especially if they went to DA later than the prescribed time, in places like Wauconda, before WBRN went fulltime.

Before WVON moved to 1390, it was even difficult to hear on 1450 many nights in areas on the South Side of Chicago. Frankly, WLS picked up many of those listeners after sunset, and also after WGRT signed off. Many Top 40 stations would lean to R & B after sunset because few R & B stations were able to be heard. WLAC Nashville, and CKLW Windsor on the East Coast were huge in areas with no listenable R & B station at night.

 

[radioman148]

That's really good hearing WVON in Iowa. Sometimes back in those days they could get crowded out at night in the Northern Suburbs.

I never once heard them....or the old WHFC...at night growing up in Wauconda. In fact, once when WFMT was also on 1450, I heard them getting totally stomped on one night driving by Wrigley field.

Other than after midnight when other 1450s were signed off in those days, it would have been difficult to hear WVON at 250 watts. Did you tell your friends to build Beverage antennas or something? That's how they would have heard it in Finland. Cyberdad, radioman148, and others in the Chicago area, did you ever log WPON 1460? That would probably have been easier, especially if they went to DA later than the prescribed time, in places like Wauconda, before WBRN went fulltime.

Before WVON moved to 1390, it was even difficult to hear on 1450 many nights in areas on the South Side of Chicago. Frankly, WLS picked up many of those listeners after sunset, and also after WGRT signed off. Many Top 40 stations would lean to R & B after sunset because few R & B stations were able to be heard. WLAC Nashville, and CKLW Windsor on the East Coast were huge in areas with no listenable R & B station at night.

I never picked up WPON to the best of my memory. You're right about WLS picking up many of the R&B listeners. In fact in the mid 60s they published an R&B survey in conjunction with the regular "Silver Dollar Survey".

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Many markets didn't have good Top 40 signals to listen to at night, let alone R & B. The better III-A signals tended to be MOR/AC and Full Service. Top 40 tended to be on 250 watt night Class IVs and 1000 or 500 watt directional night Class III-Bs. Even on 1390 with 5000 watts night, WVON 1390 had a deep null to the east at night that crossed Chicago. This was a result of antenna locations that were chosen when the stations were 1000 or 500 watts nondirectional at night, upgrading circa 1941 to 5000 watts night. One of my high school teachers, who grew up in Chicago, spoke of listening to WLS and WCFL at night when she went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the 1950s and early 1960s. The premier over the air Top 40 in that era was WPAG 1050, of course a 1000 watt, later 5000 watt daytimer at the time. They broke a lot of records early, like ARSA reveals a lot of college town stations did, but left the air at sundown. Fulltime WHRV 1600 was mainly an MOR/AC/Full Service station. Other college town Top 40s like WCOL Columbus, OH were 250 watt Class IVs.

 

[radiorob2.0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iEwSinozuk

A WVON Commercial from 1980. Bonus, studio shots.

 

[drded]

In 1968 WFOX was a daytimer on 860 in Milwaukee. The Chess Brothers, Leonard & Phil, bought the place from Gateway Transportation who wanted to sell it as fast as they could. The Chess brothers were competing with WAWA so they applied to change the calls to WNOV, the Negros Other Voice.

We (the staff) met them about 9 a.m. and we were all fired around 9:30.

Dave

 

[nuffsaid]

Was that not the day they changed The Fox to WNOV?

 

[drded]

It sure was. From what I recall, it was Leonard Chess who did most of the talking.

They had the replacement jocks and others already hired and they took over as we went into the conference room. We picked up our checks on the way out.

Dave

 

[nuffsaid]

I remember that day! The jocks came in with produced liners, music, and a format all preproduced and ready to air. Not sure if it was Leonard Chess that did the deed or Bob Bell his Vice President.

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

WVON sounding AWESOME today on Retro Day - and no April Foolin'!



Can't wait to hear more of their celebration.

 

[radioman148]

WVON sounding AWESOME today on Retro Day - and no April Foolin'!



Can't wait to hear more of their celebration.

I'm enjoying this too. This is the way radio should sound. Personality driven, but what do I know I'm only a listener.

 

[Biondi4Mayor]

WVON sounding AWESOME today on Retro Day - and no April Foolin'!



Can't wait to hear more of their celebration.

I'm enjoying this too. This is the way radio should sound. Personality driven, but what do I know I'm only a listener.

Yeah, we don't ever know what we want. ;D

Too bad this isn't WVON's normal format, it's ROCKIN!!!!