Poking at the roots of the BBC

[fybush]

No, not that BBC - I speak here of the Buffalo Broadcasting Company, which took a decade-long stab at monopolizing the Queen City's airwaves before the FCC changed its rules and outlawed duopolies in 1941.

After a few evenings of poking around some newly-available web resources (the newspaper archives at fultonhistory.com and the FCC's online archive of Radio Service Bulletins from the 20s and 30s, among others) and consulting with fellow historians (including Tom Langmyer, Randy Michaels and Tom Atkins), I think I have a better understanding now of the birth of WBEN, among other things.

Here's how I think it went down:

We know that the Federal Telegraph Company put WGR on the air in 1922 from its plant on Elmwood Ave (now FWS), and that I.R. Lounsberry put WMAK on the air the same year from Lockport. Those were two pieces of the puzzle. In 1926, Clinton Churchill put WKBW on the air, and there's some uncertainty about where its transmitter site was. It may have operated initially from right next door to the Tabernacle on Main Street...which would have put its antenna on the spot where "Radio Center" would sit three decades later. In any case, it soon migrated north to roughly the spot where the 990 now crosses Sweet Home Road in Amherst.

Also to the north, WKEN in Kenmore signed on sometime in the mid-20s, eventually moving to Grand Island.

In 1927, Lounsberry moved WMAK south from Lockport to serve Buffalo, building a new transmitter plant on Shawnee Road just over the North Tonawanda line.

In 1928, "General Order 40" rearranged the AM dial around the country. WGR was shifted from 990 to 550 on the dial, where it was slated to share time with WSYR in Syracuse. WMAK went from 550 to 900, slated to share time with WFBL in Syracuse. WKBW, which had been on 1380, moved to 1470, where it was slated to share time with WKEN, which was already on 1470.

Before General Order 40 took effect in November 1928, the FRC revised it, moving WSYR to 570 and moving WKEN to 1040 as a daytimer.

In 1929, WGR, WMAK, WKEN and WKBW joined forces as the BBC. Newspaper articles of the day tried to make the case that it wasn't a "merger," just a joining of forces for operational efficiency...but all four stations ended up sharing studios at the Rand Building and came under common management, too.

Around the same time, the Buffalo Evening News applied for its own station, but apparently petitioned the FRC to take over the 900 kc dial position where WMAK was operating. A court fight ensued (or at least threatened to ensue), and the outcome found the BBC shedding a signal. The News took over 900 kc and the Shawnee Road transmitter site, and thus was born WBEN in 1930.

(I'd long believed that WBEN was a continuation of the old WMAK, and should thus claim 1922 as its sign-on date, but it's becoming clear now that the only continuity between the old WMAK and the new WBEN was the frequency and transmitter site. This line of thought is reinforced by another part of the 1930 switch: the BBC changed the calls on what had been WKEN at 1040 on the dial, which became WMAK, continuing the identity of the old 900.)

By this point, WGR and WKBW were sharing the Sweet Home Road transmitter site that WKBW had built in the late twenties. I'm still not sure where on Grand Island WKEN/WMAK 1040 was located...but it didn't last long after the call change, since any vestige of WMAK on 1040 disappears from the records after 1932.

That left the BBC with just two stations, albeit big ones: WGR and WKBW. In 1941, they moved from Amherst to a new shared site in Hamburg. WKBW, which had made a minor shift from 1470 to 1480 after General Order 40, moved to 1520 when NARBA took effect on 3/29/41. WBEN, of course, went from 900 to 930 at the same time - and a few months later it abandoned Shawnee Road for Grand Island, albeit not the same site WKEN/WMAK had used.

Within a couple of years, the BBC was history, and WKBW and WGR split off to separate owners...and we all know the rest of the story, in which the old BBC lineup was reassembled (and then some) to create today's Entercom cluster of WGR/WBEN/WWKB/WWWS.

Anyone have any insight to add to this? Once I get all the pieces together, I'm planning to put something more comprehensive on my site (tracking Buffalo's other AMs as well, though their histories are far simpler) and to offer it to the Buffalo Broadcasters for their site as well.

 

[Nick Gerard]

Whew...fascinating stuff! I love these early histories and can only wonder what was the nature of local programming on stations like WMAK and WKEN in the 20's and 30's.

I'm struck by the durability of some of these call letters - WSYR, WGR, WFBL, WKBW - over the decades.

A couple of questions:

1) Was the breakup of the BBC in the 1940's government mandated or just the natural course of commerce?

2) Was Mary Lounsberry, who ran WNIA, related to I.R. Lounsberry referenced above? Seems likely, considering that it is an uncommon name.

I don't have much to add to Scott's excellent complilation except a snippet unrelated to the BBC: WEBR operated for a while on 1340 before moving to 970.

Nick Seneca

 

[Savage]

BBC was broken up when the FCC ordered NBC to divest one of its networks (it had both NBC Red and NBC Blue until 1944) and at the same time limited ownership to one signal in a market (later revised to one each AM, FM and TV, with overall total caps of 7-7-7, the maximum number TVs being 5 Vs and 2 Us.)

 

[Philip_Airtime]

I have nothing to add but a big thank you to Scott for a most interesting posting. I remember when I first learned about the Buffalo Broadcasting Company during my college years that I was amazed that a single company owned TWO Buffalo radio stations. How could that be? Little did I know that someday... Well, you know the rest!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Superb investigating providing very good reading, Scott. Your findings echo some of the facts uncovered by Buffalo radio historian John Zak, although your research contributes more detail regarding the WMAK-WBEN succession. (For the record, Tom Atkins and I have long held that WGR is officially Buffalo's first radio station.) Tom Shannon, John Zak and Dan Neaverth might be a good sources for information about WKEN and more Buffalo radio history and if nothing else, having lunch with them is a fascinating, funny and humbling experience.

The only disheartening thought that comes from reading your historical analysis is the loss of a beautifully framed large lithograph of the WGR Elmwood Avenue transmitter plant (with horizontal curtain antenna) that for years hung in the lobby of WGR at Franklin Street, later moved to Delaware Avenue (where it was appreciated primarily by the 'old school' residents of the building, John Otto having signed the glass with a black Sharpie.) To the best of my awareness, that litho has not been seen since 2000 (when WGR moved to 500 Corporate Parkway.) I can only hope that somebody with an appreciation for the station's heritage and Buffalo radio history had the good sense to "appropriate" it and care for it. John Zak has provided 8 x 10 copies to some of us who appreciate the history of AM in Buffalo, but the original was simply amazing.

 

[Savage]

There is also a fairly extensive introductory tabloid-size booklet - IIRC its title was/is "A New Era In Radio," heralding in pictorial form the BBC operation including WKBW and WGR at the time KB moved to 1520 and went 50kw.

This publication, in typical early 1940's black-and-one-color process, included numerous studio plus transmitter photos out at the combined site on Big Tree Road. Mary Lounsberry and a youthful Uncle Fid were depicted, as was a photo tour of the spanking-new Westinghouse HG-50. Readers were also taken out to the tower foundations and showed the open-wire feed systems and ATUs. There were action photos of live remotes.

It's a fascinating piece. Last I knew Tom Atkins had a copy. Perhaps some of you have seen this book.

 

[alw]

"A couple of questions:

1) Was the breakup of the BBC in the 1940's government mandated or just the natural course of commerce?
The breakup was mandated.

2) Was Mary Lounsberry, who ran WNIA, related to I.R. Lounsberry referenced above? Seems likely, considering that it is an uncommon name.
No Relation.

Hi Nick!

 

[Obtuse1]

In 1927, Lounsberry moved WMAK south from Lockport to serve Buffalo, building a new transmitter plant on Shawnee Road just over the North Tonawanda line.

Always wondered whose building/towers those were...still there, BTW. Wonder if they were just left to rot, or if Entercom still has some use for them.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

IIRC there was a thread not long ago that addressed those towers, which can be seen if you drive the backroads to NCCC. The towers were later used by WBL Marine Radio. Not sure if they're active today but the last lime I drove by the site (about 40 mph with a big dumptruck in the rear view mirror) there appeared to be a horizontal mast atop one of the sticks, looked like a ham rig.

 

[Bob1370]

An additional sidebar...

A little extra WBEN technical history was provided by former WBEN chief engineer/air personality Dave May in a conversation we had while we were both working at 2077 Elmwood...The WBEN transmitter plant on Grand Island was built and brought on line in 1940, at a time when the station had already obtained autuhorization to bump up to 5 kW DA-N even before moving three clicks up the dial the following year in the NARBA shuffle. They operated on 900 with 5 kW fulltime, DA-N, for a few months before having to change to 930--given that it just required mild recalibration of the phasor to get the right pattern for protecting Oklahoma City while pounding a maximum signal into Buffalo and Rochester, complying with NARBA in March of '41 was no big deal.

The old WBEN site on Shawnee Road (Rt. 425) in North Tonawanda is still standing. The towers were used in lster years by Buffalo Marine Radio, which served Great Lakes shipping traffic. A profile of that operation is available on line at imradioha.org/WBL.htm.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I read an article about WBL and the Shawnee site but I can't remember where. It might have been Popular Communications.

Bob thanks for your post. I was wondering just the other day where the previous WKBW transmitter site was located and what year they moved to Big Tree Road. I knew the improved facilities went on the air in '41 but thought they might have been there before that.

Here's a little added information. There were towers added to the Big Tree site sometime later so that WGR could have 5KW at night. They had been 1KW night. I read that somewhere and I don't remember what year the towers were added. I believe they are the two towers that are closest to the road. WGR uses the towers in each corner for night pattern (the one at the rear left is shared by both stations) The KB towers are the 3 in line at the rear.

I'm interested in any and all things written or pictures. I hope someone will do an in depth website on this before the information gets lost.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

WBL Marine Radio was featured in Northeast Radio Watch, a fine article by Scott Fybush.

As to WGR, the nighttime towers are the corner towers in the parallelogram. The southeast tower is shared by WGR (DA-N) and WWKB (DA-1.) WGR's northwest guyed tower was used for daytime non-DA radiation. In the 70s, IIRC, Randy Michaels, Mike Rozman and Peter Bravorka moved daytime radiation to the self-supported northeast tower, but after the Cricket cell phone bays were added to that tower (IIRC, around 2002), daytime radiation returned to the northwest guyed tower.

IIRC (again) TransAmerica owned WGR in the 50s when the FCC granted the night time power increase from two towers @1 kw to four towers @ 5 kw. This required adding the northwest and southwest towers (3 and 4). WGR's 1 kw nighttime pattern was a loopy elipse. According to those familiar (the late Mike Rozman, Tom Atkins, Victor Michael) with its characteristics, was better at covering all of Erie and Niagara counties than the present 5 kw nighttime pattern, which is a figure eight with sharp nulls to the east and southwest. WGR can be heared 70 miles up the QEW in Toronto at night like a local; drive ten miles east to Lancaster or East Aurora and it gets mighty phased out. Such is AM directional transmission.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Jim you're close, it was Transcontinent that owned WGR just before Taft, Transcontinent also owned WROC AM-FM-TV before Rust Craft bought them. As a radio geek I used to look though the Broadcasting Yearbooks. Now the useless information is stored in my brain.

A friend of mine is a consulting engineer, he told me one time that the guys at MStreet Radio reminded him of me. He said I would fit right in there. I took it as a compliment.....at least I think it was, heck now I'm not sure!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Jim you're close, it was Transcontinent that owned WGR just before Taft, Transcontinent also owned WROC AM-FM-TV before Rust Craft bought them. As a radio geek I used to look though the Broadcasting Yearbooks. Now the useless information is stored in my brain.

A friend of mine is a consulting engineer, he told me one time that the guys at MStreet Radio reminded him of me. He said I would fit right in there. I took it as a compliment.....at least I think it was, heck now I'm not sure!

Transcontinent! You are correct, Sir! Apparently Savage isn't the only one here who has issues with this stuff.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Jim or Bob you may know the answer to this. Why is the Northeast tower self supporting instead of guyed like the rest? Is it because of the proximity to the transmitter building? That's what I assume.

You can see those towers from a long way off at night.

 

[Savage]

It's because of the size of the land parcel. Typical guying extends 70 percent of the tower height. With the required tower spacing to achieve the desired patterns for both KB and WGR the guys would extend out over adjoining pieces of property. While there are examples of easements granted for tower guy anchors, they're not typical - generally the entire structure including guy systems would have to be contained on the native property, which would mean, "a lot of land."

The freestanding towers, while more expensive to initially construct and maintain, don't occupy as much real estate as guyed sticks.

 

[fybush]

And of course there wasn't the land for a guy system because that tower wasn't part of the original 4-tower configuration at the Big Tree site. The ASRN records for the two "new" towers dates them to 1947 - was it really that early?

Here's a story about what happens when you don't own the land where your guy anchors sit: Salem's WAVA 780 in Arlington, VA had to move tower sites a couple of years ago...because even though Salem owned the tower and the land beneath it, one of the guy anchors was actually on an adjoining piece of property that had been an old AT&T Long Lines site. That land was sold, and they couldn't reach a deal to keep the guy anchor there. No guy anchor, no tower - and now WAVA is at a different site a few miles away.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Another question if you guys don't mind. I don't know if you're aware of it but KB was hard to listen to on 1520 if you were listening within a mile or two of the transmitter on a typical 1960's era radio. The sound was overloaded and distorted. KB would pop up around 640 on the dial and have a very listenable signal. I know all about harmonics but this is lower than a sub harmonic if that even exists. Anyone know about this. Maybe it was just a case of front end overload on the radios?

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Savage & Fybush for answed your questions to the T, Mike. Yet, there is a certain irony to the land restrictions on the Big Tree site. When WGR was sold to Keymarket Sinclair, I had the opportunity to look at the survey for the Big tree site. What surprised me was the amount of land not usually seen or attributed to the Big Tree site. To the casual eye, the site looks like a rectangle or mild trapezoid (running lengthwise east to west parallel to Big Tree Road.) However, there is a sizeable tract of land, some of it wooded, that runs south from the east side of that trapezoid, which makes me think that the original plan may have included separate arrays for each station.

Scott opens another consideration with regard to the two additional towers, noted in the ASRN as being constructed c. 1947. This is intriguiging because it lends itself to the theory that the original WGR two tower night time array was WKBW tower #1 (farthest east) and WGR tower #3 (southwest tower.) The layout looks like this:


South^


#KB1&WGR2 #KB2 #KB3 #WGR3

West >

#WGR1 #WGR4
Self-supported

This is pretty arcane stuff which makes some readers' glaze over. But I thought it would be of interest. If Tom Atkins posted here (he's a pretty busy guy these days especially), he'd offer some definitive answers to your questions of receiver overload, Mike. Hamburg is a unique location. Harmonics and IF issues are abundant with three stations on 550, 970 and 1520. There are some unique correlations. It's quite likely that living as close to the Big Tree site, your six transistor Cheapamito was overloaded to the point of screaming "no mas!"

 

[Play Freebird]

Another question if you guys don't mind. I don't know if you're aware of it but KB was hard to listen to on 1520 if you were listening within a mile or two of the transmitter on a typical 1960's era radio. The sound was overloaded and distorted. KB would pop up around 640 on the dial and have a very listenable signal. I know all about harmonics but this is lower than a sub harmonic if that even exists. Anyone know about this. Maybe it was just a case of front end overload on the radios?

This is what's called an "image"; it was a result of overload, and I suspect you heard it at 610, rather than 640.

The local oscillator of most AM receivers normally operates 455 kHz (450 in some recent designs) above the desired frequency and mixes with the incoming signal to convert it to the intermediate frequency (IF), where it is then amplified, filtered, and demodulated. For example, when you listen to KB with the dial tuned to 1520, the LO runs at 1975 kHz.

However, when the LO is set 455 kHz below a strong signal, undesired mixing can also take place, although most good receivers incorporate front-end filtering in an effort to reduce this problem.

So when you tuned down to 610, the LO was operating at 1065 kHz. 1065 + 455 = 1520, and there's the image.

A related problem near that site is intermodulation; on some receivers, 1520 will mix with 550 to generate a difference product which falls directly on another local station's frequency -- but I'll let you finish the calculation.