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New Manager coming for Batesville Broadcast Group

J

jboyd

OK, I have faced that over 51 years in broadcasting, and 31 as head of my group, is enough! Effective January 1, 2010 my sales manager, Jessica "Jake" Kidder will become station manager of the three station group. This will probably lead to an eventual transfer of the stations. I have lots of friends and associates in this state, and those of you that have reason to deal with our stations, Thanks! I will remain GM until further developments. All the best: J Boyd
 
jboyd said:
OK, I have faced that over 51 years in broadcasting, and 31 as head of my group, is enough! Effective January 1, 2010 my sales manager, Jessica "Jake" Kidder will become station manager of the three station group. This will probably lead to an eventual transfer of the stations. I have lots of friends and associates in this state, and those of you that have reason to deal with our stations, Thanks! I will remain GM until further developments. All the best: J Boyd
Click to expand...
JB, keep in touch. I'll be in the state in July, and look forward to seeing you - no matter what your capacity. There aren't that many of us still around........
 
Great: From the WJFL days in Vicksburg, Greetings. Doug, As you know, about 15 FM stations in Mississippi were allocated and built in the 70's by my firm in the "free for all Fm days."..What a ride! Look forward to seeing you! And thanks to all my friends....JBI
 
JBI,
I wish you all the best. I'm going to come through Batesville again and maybe one day get to drop by the studios again. I met your son when I came the first time. It'd be a pleasure to meet you. I work in Vicksburg now, KLSM, and Vicksburg's apretty nice place. I had no idea you had history here.

Best to you,

Chris Burks
 
I did engineering for WQMV in the 70's when it was owned by Gene Underwood, and also WQBC and WJFL. I was living in Jackson at that time. Look forward to seeing you. JBI
 
J Boyd, I don't remember you doing things for WJFL. Then again, I wasn't there for long.

You should come back and visit Facebook more. Meach is there...
 
My work was mostly after midnite at the transmitter...Proofs, etc. long after beddy -by time. Hope to see
you...as for Facebook, somebody hacked my account so I aborted, it appears they are having security problems.....JBI
 
Were you involved in the 1180 (WKKE/WJNT) upgrade? ... or is my old memory failing (again).
 
A very small involvement...it was Sisk Engineering that was the primary
mover and shaker. I was involved in the WOKJ upgrade and frequency change in 1964-65. Talk about complicated!
 
jboyd said:
I was involved in the WOKJ upgrade and frequency change in 1964-65. Talk about complicated!
Click to expand...
JB, Would love if you could find a way to tell us more about WOKJ's change. I can't imagine all of the issues you had to deal with, primarily without the aid of computers etc. That was a one-of-a-kind place. Maybe you should write a book......maybe a chapter about the Warren County deputy who had no idea that a transmitter site existed on Thompson St in Vicksburg. It would have helped if WJFL had real tower, and not a pole.....
 
It would take a book! It was interesting on the day the switch took place...suddenly WOKJ was on 1550,
and WWUN was on their old frequency with a wild rock format with a black/white mixture of music.
Remember , this was 1965 and the kids went wild! There were 5 incoming lines, and within a few minutes
the lines were all swamped...WWUN was giving away a new Mustang! Went to #1 in the survey 60 days later, and the rest is history. Mr. McClendon, the owner of WOKJ was never satisfied about the coverage of the 50 KW facility. The night pattern was to the west/northwest with a primary lobe, and they had regular contacts with listeners and DXers in the mid west, hundreds of miles away...but in close, it left
a lot to be desired. Strange things happen on that end of the dial...if it was in the middle or lower end of the dial, it would have been a tiger, I think. WWUN had it's problems, too. I was their CE from the beginning to 1975. Their nite pattern was critical, with a null to the East.Right along County line road...that was not an issue in the beginning, there was nothing out there except a cemetary and a Tote-Sum store. You know what has happened since then. Memories.....JBI
 
When I was a Fort Benning in 1966, a lot of the guys listened to WOKJ at night. Apparently there was a lobe toward Columbus GA.
I used to pick it up in Oklahoma City like a local at night.
 
At one time I had a complete copy of the engineering with maps for this project. Sadly, I had a house fire in 1976, and lost it. Each engineer working on the project had a copy to assist in tune up. They had a 50 KW GE for the daytime, and a 10KW Gates for nite. There were very few of the GE rigs built. Mr. McClendon bought it off the floor at a NAB convention. It took almost three years from start to finish to get it done! The engineer on the project was Ralph Bitzer, who was a character. He said that it would be impossible for it to work, and that's the kind of project he liked. Then, he did it!
 
jboyd said:
At one time I had a complete copy of the engineering with maps for this project. Sadly, I had a house fire in 1976, and lost it. Each engineer working on the project had a copy to assist in tune up. They had a 50 KW GE for the daytime, and a 10KW Gates for nite. There were very few of the GE rigs built. Mr. McClendon bought it off the floor at a NAB convention. It took almost three years from start to finish to get it done! The engineer on the project was Ralph Bitzer, who was a character. He said that it would be impossible for it to work, and that's the kind of project he liked. Then, he did it!
Click to expand...

WOKJ was on the way out when I started engineering in Jackson. I've heard a lot of stories about the WOKJ site from the late Ed Hobgood and others. I think everyone in the area with a First Phone did a shift at the WOKJ transmitter site at one time or another. Was it true that during the proof of the array that McClendon had telephones installed at each of the monitoring points so everyone could call in field strength readings while the array was being adjusted?

RFB
 
rfburns said:
jboyd said:
At one time I had a complete copy of the engineering with maps for this project. Sadly, I had a house fire in 1976, and lost it. Each engineer working on the project had a copy to assist in tune up. They had a 50 KW GE for the daytime, and a 10KW Gates for nite. There were very few of the GE rigs built. Mr. McClendon bought it off the floor at a NAB convention. It took almost three years from start to finish to get it done! The engineer on the project was Ralph Bitzer, who was a character. He said that it would be impossible for it to work, and that's the kind of project he liked. Then, he did it!
Click to expand...

WOKJ was on the way out when I started engineering in Jackson. I've heard a lot of stories about the WOKJ site from the late Ed Hobgood and others. I think everyone in the area with a First Phone did a shift at the WOKJ transmitter site at one time or another. Was it true that during the proof of the array that McClendon had telephones installed at each of the monitoring points so everyone could call in field strength readings while the array was being adjusted?

RFB
Click to expand...
"everyone in the area with a First Phone did a shift at the WOKJ transmitter site at one time or another."

Very true!
 
OldGM said:
When I was a Fort Benning in 1966, a lot of the guys listened to WOKJ at night. Apparently there was a lobe toward Columbus GA.
I used to pick it up in Oklahoma City like a local at night.
Click to expand...

WOKJ also came in well at night on I 25 in Colorado south of Colorado Springs, especially between there and Pueblo.
 
After WOKJ went to 50kw, the manager, Charles Fletcher gave me a car tag that had
WOKJ, 1550 AM, 50,000 watts in red and black on it. They were promotional tags sent to agencies, advertisers, and select others. This, even tho I was then working for WWUN. It is in my prized microphone collection, almost 45 years later. If you can, stop by and look!
 
JBoyd, I'd like to hear a little more regarding your knowledge of the history of WKKE. Was that signal allocated in the "clear channel breakup" of the early 80's, or is it older? Google thinks the WKKE tower was at the same place where the 50KW is today, is that so? What were the facilities on startup? Any significance to the KKE calls (if so, what did they stand for)?
Thanks!!
 
WKKE has a sharp knell to the north. In fact it is on the bridge on Lakeland at the end of the left runway at the airport.
That is an absolute to protect WHAM 50,000 watts D/N non directional in Rochester NY The tower are two short for the frequency because they had to be too close to Jackson Iinternational for it all to work So they are 199 feet and top loaded.
It is a three tower dirction night only. 50KW daytime, 10KW Critical hours and 500 watt directional night.
It's on one of the few sites that would city grade COL Pearl with the night direction array.
I don't know why WKKE...the call letters had originaly been assigned to a Top 49 Station in Asheville, NC.
And it was WPRL for a short while.
 
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