I'm Feeling Nostalgic...

[travist102]

Trying to think back to how radio was around here 20 years ago... let's see how accurate I am.

88.1 WRGN: Good News 88
88.5 WRKC: King's
89.1 WSFX: LCCC, signed on not too long before '90
89.9 WVIA: 90FM
90.7 WCLH: Wilkes
91.5 WVMW: Marywood
92.1 WYOS: Oldies 92, Oldies
92.9 WMGS: Magic 93, AC
93.7 WDLS: Country, just signed on the year before
94.3 WSGD: Solid Gold 94, Oldies
95.9 WBNE: B96, I think they were country
97.9 WWSH: Wish 98, Easy Listening
98.5 WKRZ: Top 40; In '87, they switched from 98 1/2 to 98.5.
101.3 WGBI: Bright 101.3, satellite AC
101.9 WAVT: T102fm, Top 40
102.3 WWRB: Rebel Radio, Top 40; originally rock/40 on 11/1/89
103.1 WQEQ: QE103, AC
104.9 WWDL: Lite 105, AC
106.5 WHLM: Power 106, Top 40; would become Mix 106 in a few weeks
107.1 WEZX: Rock 107, moved to 106.9 in '92
107.7 WYMK: Y107.7, rock



550 WJMW: Adult Standards, was a simulcast of WHLM-FM until sometime in '90.
590 WARM: Full Service
630 WEJL: Adult Standards
730 WNAK: Adult Standards
750 WWAX: Adult Standards
910 WGBI: Satellite Country
930 WCNR: Automated Country
980 WILK: News/Talk, has just flipped less than a year prior
1240 WBAX: Adult Standards
1300 WXPX: AC/Full Service
1320 WTSS/1340 WTSW: Religious
1400 WICK: Easy Listening
1440 WCDL: Adult Standards
1460 WEMR: ?
1490 WAZL: Modern Rock
1550 WARD: Talk

 

[NigelWick]

Plenty of adult standards on AM way back then !

 

[kfitz]

To complete your list;
WEMR was country.....
WAZL was modern rock when the owner was out of town and AC when the owner was in town!

 

[The Former Mac Austin]

Should we have a contest to see who has worked at the most stations on that list? I have 9 of them on my resume...

 

[travist102]

I've worked at five... won contests on four... been interviewed on-air by two... and recorded a commercial for one more.

 

[MCNDRWS]

7 From The List Here.

 

[MrRF]

In various incarnations, I have 14 over 33 years.

 

[Stormychuck]

Let's see, worked at these, in the 80's WCNR, the dirty 930 in Bloomsburg, WHLM AM/FM 106FM 550 AM, and KRZFM Wilksbere. Mid 90's 95.9FM WKXP Bloomsburg and save for last 1280AM WSQV Berwick.

 

[Stormychuck]

And what ever happened to Bob Gayle at WHLM?

 

[travist102]

Bobby Gale is now hosting 8AM-noon on NewsRadio 930 WHLM, with a pretty neat oldies show. I listened to some of it this past Saturday.

Stormy, when were you at Power 106?

 

[ThomasCarten]

Hmmm...

My career locally has been just WRKC. But I filled in unexpectedly twice as a guest at 1, pitched membership at 1, threatened to be sued by 1 (the former station whose call sounded like someone taking a pee). I think that's it.

 

[kfitz]

Oh Tom......that had to be WYZZ! I thought I was the only person who ever thought that about those calls! That reminds me of the former WNOZ, Cortland, NY....we used to think this would be a perfect liner: "You've picked the NOZ...WNOZ Cortland!" by the way Kirby owned this station....he came up with Froggy not long after this.

 

[Stormychuck]

Bobby Gale is now hosting 8AM-noon on NewsRadio 930 WHLM, with a pretty neat oldies show. I listened to some of it this past Saturday.

Stormy, when were you at Power 106?

I was at WHLM which you call Power 106 in 1981, I was hired a few weeks before the FM went stereo and they were simulcasting with the AM, Tom somebody was PD Bob Gayle was I guess then music director and Bob somebody was GM...

So from what I read Wealthy Harry L. Magee bought out WCNR's 930 is that correct? Wow that was simple since they were just next door...

 

[loeper]

Bobby Gale is now hosting 8AM-noon on NewsRadio 930 WHLM, with a pretty neat oldies show. I listened to some of it this past Saturday.

Stormy, when were you at Power 106?

I was at WHLM which you call Power 106 in 1981, I was hired a few weeks before the FM went stereo and they were simulcasting with the AM, Tom somebody was PD Bob Gayle was I guess then music director and Bob somebody was GM...

So from what I read Wealthy Harry L. Magee bought out WCNR's 930 is that correct? Wow that was simple since they were just next door...

help me out on this bloomsburg thing. I worked at 930 a long time ago/ so is 930 now WHLM? if so what happned to WHLMs old dial spot? it was 5 something. is 930 still on the air. I thought it was dark. are the wcnr calls still being used someplace?

 

[Stormychuck]

Hey Loeper When I was at WHLM in early 1982, sorry not 1981, I'm old and forget, they were 106.5 FM and 550AM and WCNR was as 930. I worked at WCNR for just a matter of minutes so-to-speak and was hired at WHLM and that in it self was a relief.

I'm sure travist knows exactly what happened to 550AM, one thing I can say for sure, WCNR had beautiful offices downstairs, walk up stairs and their studios were something out of mid-evil times, just absolute junk for equipment, crap left over from the forties and fifties, and none of it really worked, you were worth your weight in gold if you could figure out how to cart up a spot, it was just that bad. WHLM rescued me, and for sake of dissing radio stations, in my 33 year career and I've worked at some real toilet radio stations and WCNR rated pretty much number #1 on my list followed by 1280 WSQV in Berwick. WSQV operated by Russ Grebe, is a scary story within it self.

 

[loeper]

WCNR in th early 80s sounds pretty bad. I worked there in 1966 (so you know I am really an old fart) and it was my very first job in radio. I didn't know any better. we had NO cart machines (as in none) every spot was played on reel to reel tape decks (AMPEX) and there were lots and lots of live spots to read. your correct in saying that the place was a s--- hole. Bloomsburg was a lovely town though. PS...I almost killed the chief engineer at WCNR one evening. I worked till sign off and really didn't know what I was doing with reguard to the transmitter shut down. I signed the station off....tried to shut down the remote transmitter....wasn't sure it actualy did it correctly...so when back and tried to do it again......meantime he was at the xmiter site waiting for sign off to work on the trainsmitter. when I turned it back on from downtown he was working inside it and almost got electricuted. He wanted me fired the next day.

 

[stoshman]

Stormy, tom benson is the name you can't remember (charles benetende????)....i was the first intern to get an airshift while i was a student at Bloomsburg State college........oh those days of turning on the transmitter for both the am and fm in the morning :-\........when will be going back to that to save money??????

 

[Stormychuck]

Stoshman your right it was Tom Benson, and the Bob somebody GM, after I gave it some thought, and picked my brain, was Bob Schwepe.

Loeper, if you were there at WCNR in 1966 then you can only imagine what it looked like in the early 80's. The owner's enjoyed lining their pockets and made no investment into the station and that's sad, milk every dollar out of it and fold.

WSQV-Berwick, somewhere along the line ended up in the hands of two attorneys out of New Jersey, in some sort of probate litigation as the story was told to me. The attorneys hired Russ Grebe as GM, PD, morning talent so-forth, as time went on the attorneys disappeared left WSQV high and dry never to be heard from again, left the station license expire and left Russ Grebe holding the bag and operating the station. WSQV had no logs, no transmitter logs, and no transmitter monitoring equipment, the only thing it did have was an old beat-up Marti-STL on a counter top with 3 foot of cable and the STL Dish mounted outside the window on the wall of the building pointed in the direction of the tower about 5 miles away, and every time it got windy the dish would move and you had to open the window and re-adjust the dish by hand. Russ Grebe operated like that for years, he was the chief cook and bottle washer, morning talent and and ad salesman he was the only salesman and transmitter repair man, But in short Russ Grebe was a nice guy and a very hard worker I give him alot of credit for pulling that off for all those years.

After hiring on at a couple of stations like these for the sake of a radio gig, it really makes one wonder what business do I have being in the radio broadcast business...

 

[loeper]

I really believe the "golden age" of small town radio was the 60s. in the 50s lots of small town AMs sprang up across america ( many of them daytimers) . they were started by people with modest means who were true owners/operators who really tried to serve there "community of license" as the fcc used to call it. Many of these folks reached retirement age in the 80s and sold there stations to groups of lawyers, doctors, car dealers and the like . these people were not broadcasters and did really give a darn about running a radio station from day to day and never really put a lot of money back into the business. I know I sound like an old cute but, I dont think local radio has been very good at all for the past 15 years or so. most stations just re-broadcast stuff from a dish today. shame.

 

[The Former Mac Austin]

Funny thing, loeper ... Stormychuck and I experienced first-hand what happened when "radio" people took the helm at a station - it didn't fare any better.

In 1993, Bill Stutzman (formerly Bill Stewart of WARM) and the late Fred Deiter (formerly Scotty Young of WBAX) bought the 95.9 frequency in Benton, which became WKXP. Bill and Scotty were great radio guys, having come up in the biz in the 1960s and 1970s, and they wanted to have a station that sounded "big market" in Bloomsburg. So, flush with cash, they set about setting up the station with all of the bells and whistles that most jocks only dream about -- computerized automation (back when it was still new) that made the station sound live 24/7 and practically ran the show for the air staff, fat processing and modulation, state-of-the-art studio equipment and furniture, a $75k "Thundertruck" remote van with flashing LED signs and huge speakers on the doors, jingles and liners with heavy production from some top names at the time, etc. I was PD from day one, using a Music Master system to program an "outlaw country" sound that was sure to catch on with the younger crowd.

The only problem was that Bill and Scotty didn't know how to run a business. The station signed on sounding great, but there was no cash coming in the door. They couldn't keep a good sales manager or any decent sales people. The jocks were bored because they only had to push a button once every half an hour, so turnover was high. And Bill and Scotty didn't put any money into promoting the station--our first month we had some 2"x2" ads buried in the local newspaper but no billboards--so there were very few listeners. Word of mouth spread, but not nearly as much as we hoped it would.

By 1996, in total desperation, they brought Harry West on board for the morning show, not realizing that nobody in Bloomsburg had ever heard of him. Ratings continued to stay flat or drop, the station continued to bleed money, and I finally gave up trying to make chicken salad out of chicken droppings. It was so bad that I usually had to tell the air staff to run to the bank and cash their paychecks immediately before the money ran out of the account and someone's check bounced (and someone's check always did). I left the station, and it limped along for a few more months before Bill and Scotty finally sold it to Froggy 101 for a repeater.

I think the major problem is that a station HAS to be a business to survive, which means that the product suffers. Otherwise, you end up with a great sounding station that nobody listens to and nobody advertises on, leading to its eventual demise.