Long-deleted stations

[N1WVQ]

Reading the Boston board they talked about WUPY/105.3-Lynn. I started thinking, what about the stations around here that have been deleted & can never come back? WCFR-FM, WSAR-FM, WLIV, WFCI, WHIM-FM/99.9. What would they be doing today had they survived? What about the stations that benefitted from their demise: WBSM (got 1420 & moved from 1230), WVEI-FM (got 103.7), WFRQ (there was a Falmouth allocation for 100.9 although I only remember as far back as 1990 & then-WFAL was on 101.1), WQRC (would they have 99.7?) & WWRX-FM? I think Providence could've used a few more F.M. allocations as well as A.M. but we've lost quite a few F.M.s. So, here's my exercise in nothing more than fun:

WFCI/1420: Spanish
WHIM-FM/99.9: Country "WHIM Country 100"
WCFR-FM/100.9: Urban "Power 101"
WSAR-FM/103.7: Top 40.

 

[Kenny Atkinson]

Reading the Boston board they talked about WUPY/105.3-Lynn. I started thinking, what about the stations around here that have been deleted & can never come back? WCFR-FM, WSAR-FM, WLIV, WFCI, WHIM-FM/99.9. What would they be doing today had they survived? What about the stations that benefitted from their demise: WBSM (got 1420 & moved from 1230), WVEI-FM (got 103.7), WFRQ (there was a Falmouth allocation for 100.9 although I only remember as far back as 1990 & then-WFAL was on 101.1), WQRC (would they have 99.7?) & WWRX-FM? I think Providence could've used a few more F.M. allocations as well as A.M. but we've lost quite a few F.M.s. So, here's my exercise in nothing more than fun:

WFCI/1420: Spanish
WHIM-FM/99.9: Country "WHIM Country 100"
WCFR-FM/100.9: Urban "Power 101"
WSAR-FM/103.7: Top 40.

When was WHIM on 99.9? I don't remember that? The only FM frequency I know of is 94.1 before WHJY 's pre Easy Listening days...

 

[VelvetR]

I recall "WLIV" as being WLOV with Cranston being the city of license. What studio there was - located on Neutaconkenut (spelling?) Hill with the antenna side-mounted on the original WPRO-TV/WPRO-FM tower. Jack Manzi (aka Jack Andrews, Andy Jackson, Big Ange) got his start there but the whole thing lasted a few months before The FCC shut it down for a hilarious list of violations. Jack then got hired as a salesman at WYNG (now WARV), leaving an extremely funny string of disasters in his wake before he got an air shift.

I miss Jack. Nobody could make me laugh like him and he wasn't even trying!

Oh yeah, there was also a WYCE owned by Susquehanna with Warwick as COL but it was never built and CP expired around 1961.

 

[N1WVQ]

WHIM-FM & WLOV were the same station, at least on the same frequency. But there was WLIV on 107.7 that did become the C.P. in Warwick. WHIM-FM/WLOV had a Cranston C.O.L. but I know 94.1 was also WHIM-FM. However, WEAN-FM was the original C.P. call that I've seen in the Journal-Bulletin Almanacs from that time but don't know if that 94.1 license is the same as the 99.9 license. It appears that 99.9 was issued to the Narragansett Brewery. From bostonradio.org, WLIV became WDEM-FM.

I also forgot another F.M., the 1st in R.I.: WPTL/90.9, later 91.5 owned by the Providence Bible College.

 

[freightliner]

I remember meeting Big Ange at WNBH in New Bedford. (Actually it was during his second gig there--after WPRO.) I told him I listened to him on 'PRO years earlier while at my grandparents in Jewett City CT. Unlike the daytime, reception at night in CT was a stretch....but I'd sit at the kitchen table twisting around an old Philco radio just to hear what he had to say next. It was about more than just the music when listening to him. He truly appreciated the story. He was gone by my next visit.

Years later, I was hauling an FM antenna from our CT station to Shively Labs in Bridgeton Maine for repair. While driving along in the rental truck, I heard Big Ange on then-WASY in Gorham (The Mighty 1590) and there he was doin' his thing. After dropping off the antenna, I went looking for the station. It took what seemed like forever to find it. No one seemed to know where it was. Finally, a guy just pointed to the second floor of a small building and said the studios were "up there". (A sign would've helped--but there wasn't one...)

While making the long climb up the stairs, I could clearly hear a lot of commotion. It sounded like it went from an office to the hall as Ange was trying to explain his way out of some predicament. Whatever it was, the more Ange downplayed it, the more upset the other fella (the Manager) became. I thought about just heading back down the stairs--but I had to go in. Things were just beginning to calm down when I went inside. I asked for Big Ange and the lady at the desk paged him. Down the hall came a smiling and laughing Big Ange who not only remembered me but was rattling off the names of countless others in New Bedford and elsewhere. You could cut the tension in the place with a knife--but the visit was great because as far as Ange was concerned there wasn't a problem ! He always lived... in the moment. You couldn't help but admire that about him.

 

[VelvetR]

WHIM-FM & WLOV were the same station, at least on the same frequency. But there was WLIV on 107.7 that did become the C.P. in Warwick. WHIM-FM/WLOV had a Cranston C.O.L. but I know 94.1 was also WHIM-FM. However, WEAN-FM was the original C.P. call that I've seen in the Journal-Bulletin Almanacs from that time but don't know if that 94.1 license is the same as the 99.9 license. It appears that 99.9 was issued to the Narragansett Brewery. From bostonradio.org, WLIV became WDEM-FM.

I also forgot another F.M., the 1st in R.I.: WPTL/90.9, later 91.5 owned by the Providence Bible College.

Providence Bible College (later Providence-Barrington BC, even later Barrington BC) was a gift from the Sinclair family. It originally was WJAR-FM though I've long since lost track of frequencies.

 

[pqgeorge]

If I recall, wasn't there an FM station that left the air back in the early 60's, basically because someone (an engineer) got electrocuted after bypassing the safety locks? I believe it was WLOV. Any thoughts?

 

[VelvetR]

If I recall, wasn't there an FM station that left the air back in the early 60's, basically because someone (an engineer) got electrocuted after bypassing the safety locks? I believe it was WLOV. Any thoughts?

That was WPFM. There was a gruesome story connected with that. Chuck B. (purposely left name out) was doing transmitter maintenance on a Sunday morning while the station was broadcasting a taped classical show hosted by then retired WPRO-TV news anchor Mort Blender. Chuck had bypassed the interlocks and reached inside for something that should have been simple. Verdi's "Requiem" was playing at the time. He may have stumbled and fell in or just brushed something but, in any case, nobody knew until Blender's taped show had ended and the station went quiet.

The station was in an old house on Smith Hill, very close to the statehouse in Providence; self-supporting tower in the back yard.

If I recall the sequence properly (and it's over 50 years, so don't be surprised if I have it twisted a bit) the station started out as WJAR-FM. Was given by the Sinclair family to Providence Bible College which became Providence-Barrington Bible College which became Barrington Bible College which then sold it. I believe it was part owned by Judge Harold Arcarro who also had a small stake in WNET-TV (now WNAC, Channel 16 originally but which lasted only a couple of years under the original ownership/call) also a piece Basil Brewer's (New Bedford Standard-Times) TV venture which, in 1959 became WTEV, 6, originally licensed to New Bedford then to the split New Bedford/Providence.

Anyway, WPFM was no market factor and it was ultimately sold to Brown University which turned it into WBUR with a short antenna on a university building where it stayed for some years before moving to a leased site.

Bob Stone was the last PD for WPFM. They were seriously classical. I vividly recall their unique turntables; two of them. Each was some exotic brand (I think German made). Each in a separate cabinet suspended from the ceiling on chains with sandbags in the base for stability. They were only a couple of inches off the floor. All that because the old building vibrated with traffic; a problem effectively eliminated by the chains.

Again, memory suggests that the deciding factor in the final sale was Urban Renewal. The house/studio and tower were bought up by a redevelopment agency and the cost of relocation made no sense given the low potential for FM revenue at the time.

Yes, I was there so none of this is out of books....only from memory.

 

[iyiyi]

If I recall, wasn't there an FM station that left the air back in the early 60's, basically because someone (an engineer) got electrocuted after bypassing the safety locks? I believe it was WLOV. Any thoughts?

That was WPFM. There was a gruesome story connected with that. Chuck B. (purposely left name out) was doing transmitter maintenance on a Sunday morning while the station was broadcasting a taped classical show hosted by then retired WPRO-TV news anchor Mort Blender. Chuck had bypassed the interlocks and reached inside for something that should have been simple. Verdi's "Requiem" was playing at the time. He may have stumbled and fell in or just brushed something but, in any case, nobody knew until Blender's taped show had ended and the station went quiet.

The station was in an old house on Smith Hill, very close to the statehouse in Providence; self-supporting tower in the back yard.

If I recall the sequence properly (and it's over 50 years, so don't be surprised if I have it twisted a bit) the station started out as WJAR-FM. Was given by the Sinclair family to Providence Bible College which became Providence-Barrington Bible College which became Barrington Bible College which then sold it. I believe it was part owned by Judge Harold Arcarro who also had a small stake in WNET-TV (now WNAC, Channel 16 originally but which lasted only a couple of years under the original ownership/call) also a piece Basil Brewer's (New Bedford Standard-Times) TV venture which, in 1959 became WTEV, 6, originally licensed to New Bedford then to the split New Bedford/Providence.

Anyway, WPFM was no market factor and it was ultimately sold to Brown University which turned it into WBUR with a short antenna on a university building where it stayed for some years before moving to a leased site.

Bob Stone was the last PD for WPFM. They were seriously classical. I vividly recall their unique turntables; two of them. Each was some exotic brand (I think German made). Each in a separate cabinet suspended from the ceiling on chains with sandbags in the base for stability. They were only a couple of inches off the floor. All that because the old building vibrated with traffic; a problem effectively eliminated by the chains.

Again, memory suggests that the deciding factor in the final sale was Urban Renewal. The house/studio and tower were bought up by a redevelopment agency and the cost of relocation made no sense given the low potential for FM revenue at the time.

Yes, I was there so none of this is out of books....only from memory.

Pretty much the way I remember it also. 95.5 was WJAR-FM. Outlet Company decided there was no future in FM so unloaded it circa 1960 and it became WPFM and did as you said. Brown U. bought 95.5, called it WBRU, moved the studios to Faunce House and popped the horizontal polarized antenna and 5KW RCA (still sporting the electrocution burn marks) across the road on Brown Street. Huge popularity with the March '69 flip to Alternative quickly put them atop the Sci Li with 50KW. RF interference to many projects and experiments at the University just as speedily put 95.5 diplexed to 94.1 (WHIM) with 18.5KW, where they are today. Incredible fun radio scene at WBRU those days!

WYCE-FM was originally slated for 107.7. WLOV had their finals jumpered and were running off the drivers when the FCC yanked the plug on them. Mort Blender was a radio/tv big name back then. WJAR AM/TV used the FM studios for commercial production and all the jacks and control room were still labeled FM at least into the early '70s. Pappy Philbrook's 20KW Collins FM (WHIM) was the first big fm transmitter I'd ever seen. Every thing I dealt with prior was 5KW or less. I looked at it run for hours and was totally impressed with it's operation. Pappy claimed 18,000 hour tube life for the finals. Also it was the first one I saw with two separate 10KW PAs fed to a combiner, where he could perform work on one final stage while 94.1 could remain on air at half power.


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