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NE Indiana Radio History

Prais,
Some variation of your account may be true. but, the frequency was not an FM
channel.
There were no channels open in the Lafayette market prior to Docket 80-90. This
is why WXUS 92.7 had to flip with WKMO 93.5 to create the new Muncie channel.
After Docket 80-90 passed in the 1980's, 18 Class A channels were open in the Lafayette
market.
Had the FCC not upgraded the Class A's from 3 KW to 6 KW and changed to mileage
seperation requirements, 97.3 would have been another commercial station in the market instead of an LPFM today.


From FCC

Subject: AMENDMENT FM TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS
Name of Party: BRUCE N. QUINN
Prepared By: PETITIONER ON 11/26/86
Location: WEST LAFAYETTE, IN
Channel: 294A
Rule Section: 73.202(B)
Date Created: 10/22/1991
Status: Closed
Total Filings: 1
Filings in last 30 days: 0

I'm just tired of other people taking credit for my work. Yes, I was kind enough
or foolish enough to give it away for free. But, I still did it!!!

And, there are many guys who would have never been station owners if I hadn't
given it away for free!!!
 
Wait a minute Dutch! Oasis and Artistic gave you credit for starting the stations
you sold them. Oh! They also gave you seven million dollars. Leson learned for
you. Make people pay you for your talents because when yiou give it away for free
you don't get credit or any thanks.
 
Well, it WAS an fm channel, 106.7. Hal Munn found that frequency for us.

The previous things I posted here DID all happen. We didn't get the West Lafayette freq, but I found out I could make money in radio in MANY othetr ways, and that was worth losing the channel. The Merrillville/Portage deal was the real icing on the cake. If you search wndz on this board, you'll learn more.

From the mid-70's through the late 80's I bought and sold a few
stations, and about 40 towers, all over the US, collecting lots of rent from cities, broadcasters, and private companies, and not having much to do with the fcc. Less of a hassle than radio. I also owned a few funeral homes, that I later sold (this is also a MUCH better business with a much faster, higher return than radio) and now just to keep me busy, I'm a nursing home chaplain.
 
But, why fight Kelly for 106.7? There were at least a dozen other vacant channels
and 97.3 was a better frequency. It was right between WASK and WAZY.
Had you contacted me you could have walked away with 97.3 for nothing but the
FCC $1,800 filing fee.
However, by 1990, the FCC changed mileage separation requirements and no new
commercial channels fit near Lafayette.
There are 2 so called undiscovered frequencies left in Indiana today. They are both
out in the sticks and are tickets to bankruptcy.
 
Of Course, lawyers and consultants liked people to fight. This meant money for them.
Many got bad advice and wound up with a big bill and no station. This is why I learned
to do my own work and thanks to George Sklom and Mark Lipp of the FCC
 
There were drop in stations in the 1970's and 80's that were on B Channels. It had to be Petitioned and then approved. These later became Docket 80-90 Channels. One could stop an allocation by Petitioning against it.

They could block an allocation but they couldn't stop the building of a group of ugly buildings used by the breast center that resembled, well, you know.

The FCC weeded out the riff raff by adding a filing fee in the 80's and also making non com broadcasters go to auction.

Good times , Good times.
 
Flying-Dutchman said:
Prais,
Some variation of your account may be true. but, the frequency was not an FM
channel.
There were no channels open in the Lafayette market prior to Docket 80-90. This
is why WXUS 92.7 had to flip with WKMO 93.5 to create the new Muncie channel.
After Docket 80-90 passed in the 1980's, 18 Class A channels were open in the Lafayette
market.
Had the FCC not upgraded the Class A's from 3 KW to 6 KW and changed to mileage
seperation requirements, 97.3 would have been another commercial station in the market instead of an LPFM today.


From FCC

Subject: AMENDMENT FM TABLE OF ALLOTMENTS
Name of Party: BRUCE N. QUINN
Prepared By: PETITIONER ON 11/26/86
Location: WEST LAFAYETTE, IN
Channel: 294A
Rule Section: 73.202(B)
Date Created: 10/22/1991
Status: Closed
Total Filings: 1
Filings in last 30 days: 0

I'm just tired of other people taking credit for my work. Yes, I was kind enough
or foolish enough to give it away for free. But, I still did it!!!

And, there are many guys who would have never been station owners if I hadn't
given it away for free!!!
Click to expand...


I believe you, Bruce. I was the Operations Manager of WGLM when EMF officially acquired the station. When I was packing up all of the original paperwork at WGLM in my office, I saw your name on a few of those documents. It surprised me at first because I didn’t know you had any part in the discovery of the 106.7 frequency at the time as Kelly was always vague about how the station came to be when asked. I just wish I had the time to look through all of that stuff…it was passed over in the past since I thought the drawer contained old letters from the public and old EEO stuff.

Anyway, your accomplishments are not overlooked by me. If it wasn’t for your sleuthing, Lafayette wouldn’t have had the radio landscape that it has today…and many very talented individuals would not have graced the Lafayette area airwaves if it wasn't for you.

As for the West Lafayette 106.7 listing in the Broadcast Yearbook back in the 70s, I did not see it in any of the yearbooks from 1969-1975 nor do I recall seeing Jurek’s name on any of the original FCC documents. Could the station have been licensed to another community? One thing is for sure regardless of what happened in the 1970s… the station that currently occupies 106.7 in West Lafayette was found by Bruce Quinn in the late 80s. It’s too bad its not 2008…otherwise, I’d offer anyone contesting the statements made by Mr. Quinn to come by the office to check out the documents, but unfortunately, if you want to do so today, you’d have to make the grand ol’ journey to a storage facility in Rocklin, California (say hi to my old office furniture and what’s left of the old WGLM studio for me). ;D
 
You know...it could have after the fact...and probably would be worth finding out.

All I know is that it all got packed up in a medium-sized U-Haul for a few days after the sale closed. The Public File, the office furniture...and some of the on-air stuff went on a road trip to EMF's Rocklin storage facility (so I was told at least). The remainder of the equipment wound up in a large dumpster. The STL tower didn't even make it through day one.
 
In Fort Wayne, WGL AM 1250 had been a perennial #2 talk station as owned by Frank Kovas with second-rate shows like G. Gordon Liddy, Alan Colmes with Radio Graffiti, Paul Phillips, (actually P. Straitor who got fired over some crazy domestic dispute with his wife), Rusty Humphrey, and Rush Limbaugh (before he hit the bigtime and went to WOWO). Kovas sold to Summit Broadcasting who went to adult standards. Kovas had also started FM 94.1 (originally WGL-FM), 96.3 (originally WCKZ for his wife, Connie)

WOWO in the 60s & 70s had the real heyday music times great Fab 4 of Bob Sievers, Jack Underwood, Don Chevilet, and Jay Gould(?), then came the great talents of Ron Gregory and Chris Roberts (Hi Rick).

WOWO in the early 90s was one of the few big stick AMs to still be playing music and had a promotion announcing that "WOWO was a thing of the past" where it went to oldies for a while, almost went bankrupt under Group W. For a brief moment, Inner City Broadcasting (from NYC, former Mayor David Dinkins was co-owner) bought WOWO with the sole intention of quieting down its night signal so its WLIB could ramp up in the Big Apple. That's why you can't get WOWO all over the east/southeast coasts anymore, still ticks me off, but that's business. Inner City promptly sold to Federated Media who had the good sense to go news-talk. Long time listeners were furious at the loss of music and the new presence of Dr. Laura, etc, but that was the only way to go and it paid off well. 6pm Sportstalk with Art Saltsberg and Dean Pantazzi was excellent thru the 90s. Check out the website "historyofwowo.com" sometime.

Story as told by a long-time Huntington radio guy, WHLT AM 1300 got a non-radio manager who wanted to bump up revenue . . . by planting corn around the tower. Plowed up everything, including the ground wire system!

For a few years, WIFF in Auburn (FM 105.5 at the time) was "The Breeze" with the early smooth jazz format, pretty good stuff, but not a ratings mover. Whoever bought it, moved to FM 102.3 and simulcasted out of South Bend, dumb idea. I think it's spanish now. Smooth Jazz landed at 106.7, but as cited earlier here, wasn't one of Clear Channel's brightest ideas for a new station. It was 6KW with tower in Hicksville, Ohio, so the signal just didn't cut it in the Fort.
 
Kovas was quite liberal but WGL was an early Rush affiliate: even brought Rush to town with his "Rush to Excellence" tour. I remember WGL running anti-war messages in the breaks during the run-up to Desert Storm.
 
I spent many an afternoon listening to Rush on WGL at my first non-radio job (building x-ray machines...not for Panoramic in Fort Wayne either...these were custom units. No need to discuss here.) As for what I can add, I remember WFDT "leaving" Columbia City in the late '70s and the town was mad since nobody would cover CC High School sports. Therefore the push was made and in 85 WJHS came to town. Now it may go bye-bye if the school board closes it down. 106.3 Joe FM does a pretty good job for a "Columbia City" station; WJHS is pretty good too. I'm biased. (and if they shut down the Eagle I want the studio gear just for the hell of it. I'm now on the record.)
 
When I worked at WRSW from 1980 until 1985 I so wanted to put the TM Stereo Rock reels on the FM automation system instead of the AM Station automation.....now WRSW FM is playing Rock....I was just 25 years ahead of my time ! However, it is nice to hear Rock on WRSW FM now....better late than never!!
 
This is a follow-up to my previous post on WPGW AM/FM Portland. They FINALLY have a website, a Facebook page and streaming audio...don't know whether its Jay Country or PG-14 or a mix of both that's streaming...but is worth checking out.

http://www.wpgwradio.com
 
I worked at PG14 in the summer of 1976. Rob Weaver was teaching at Winchester and doing Sundays on the radio. Then he buys the station!
 
The calls for Kokomo when the huge frequency shift took place in 1986 was WZWZ. They were at 93.5 and moved to 92.7. When the 80-90 docket put Rob Weaver's 92.7 in Berne, that short spaced Kokomo for 6K. Mid America radio petitioned to move to 92.5 and made the switch and upped to 6K on January 13, 1995. 104.9 was originally assigned to Marion. It went on the air as WWHC in February 1965 and the 104.9 frequency was still (somehow) assigned to Marion, but was allowed as a Hartford City station. Hartford City did not have an assigned frequency until the 1986 shift.
 
92.7 was originally up the road a few miles in Decatur, it was still there in 1986 as WQTZ. The move to Berne happened much later as 105.1 became licensed to Decatur.
 
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