N1WVQ said:
I'm just glad the original location of WALE (Durfee Theater, I think) is gone. A station in the BASEMENT of an old theater? No thanks!
WALE started out as an FM only with a call like "WCFR" or, perhaps, "WFRM". The tower was on the roof of the Durfee Theater building, originally constructed with a base insulator in anticipation of one day getting an AM assignment. There was no ground system originally but one was added when the Sisson Brothers (George and J. Roger) were given 1400 at 250-Watts. The FM operation continued as a simulcast for only a year or two.
Entry was through a small doorway on Central Street which also served Central Cab (dispatcher in a small room) and a pool hall.
There were two studios off the corridor that served the pool room, one that had been for sometimes-separate FM; the other for AM. In later years the first of the two (Raytheon boards) served as a sort of production room and news-reader booth. Toward the end it housed a Schaeffer automation system (reel to reel and cartridge carousels).
Indeed it was a basement....but, wait, there's more!
The AM transmitter was in the control room and there was a space alongside it where the FM had been. Tubes; hot, glowing tubes. There was a thru-the-wall air conditioner that helped keep you from cooking and a switch for it by the operator's left knee so it could be turned off when the mic was on. The Raytheon transmitter had a plate relay that was about shot and would hum loudly at times. The remedy was to punch it off and on several times until it settled down.
On the far side of the wall with the air conditioner was a storage area where the defunct FM transmitter was stashed. It also served as access to the men's room for the theater! Imagine the stench in there.....the toilets accentuated by the heat being dumped by the AC.
There was a venetian blind on the control room window to the corridor so you didn't have to watch the old diminutive person (we called them something else in those non-PC days) who sat on a high stool peeling skin cancers off his arms with a pocket knife.
It was while weenending at WALE that I first truly learned to appreciate the scent of Lysol as a fine perfume.........
That was in 1958-59.
