Radio presets

[JohnW]

Presets on a 70's era Yamaha analog tuner:

WRUR - 88.5
WITR - 89.7
WYSL - 92.1
WXXI - 91.5
WJZR - 105.9
WLKK - 107.7

CFZM - 740
CJBQ - 800
WROC - 950
KDKA - 1020
WYSL - 1040
WXXI - 1370

What surprised me was how many times WLKK appeared in this thread, even though they don't do much in the Arbitrons.

 

[Mark Giardina]

What I noticed is the number of posters who put down WYSL 1040 or 92.1. According to Arbitron, nobody listens to that station. :

 

[MediaBoy4Radio]

AM WINE ,WEBR, WMAK, WWT,

FM WADV,WYSL-FM (103.3) ,WBNY-FM (96.1)


It's a very old radio...........................................................

 

[fybush]

It's a very old radio...........................................................

Not that old, evidently, or it would be getting WBEN-FM instead of WADV at 106.5 megacycles!

 

[Mike_Saffran]

It's a very old radio...........................................................

Not that old, evidently, or it would be getting WBEN-FM instead of WADV at 106.5 megacycles!

Scott (and mediaboy), your comments inspire me to take this thread in an entirely different direction....

I have a Firestone floor model (built circa late 1940s) with push buttons and manufacturers’ stickers indicating WGR, CBL, WBEN, WHAM and WHEC. I never turn it on — in fact, it’s not even plugged in — because it sounds awful (it needs a new tube or something). But that’s OK — I bought it a number of years ago not for listening but because of those call letters above the push buttons. It’s displayed prominently in my living room

 

[cee]

On my father's '60 station wagon, I think we had 5 presets on the radio and think they were: WGR, WBEN, WNIA(easy to find with one of the 2 little EBS circles next to it), WBNY and of course......WKBW. FM back then - "what's that?"

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

On my father's '60 station wagon, I think we had 5 presets on the radio and think they were: WGR, WBEN, WNIA(easy to find with one of the 2 little EBS circles next to it), WBNY and of course......WKBW. FM back then - "what's that?"

From Harv Moore, a great line: "I was on FM before anybody knew what it was. FM stood for Find Me."

 

[Play Freebird]

Around 1970, WFBL 1390 in Syracuse ran a billboard campaign showing a typical American car radio with five buttons. The fourth was labeled PUSH.

Of course, that made me wonder how many people actually set WFBL as the fourth button. The "normal" Syracuse configuration was apparently assumed to be:

1 - WSYR 570
2 - WHEN 620
3 - WNDR 1260
4 - WFBL 1390
5 - WOLF 1490

The first two were a pretty safe bet in those days -- but in some cars, 3 might have been set to WSEN 1050, WSOQ 1220, or even WHAM -- in which case, WNDR could have been bumped up to 4. Or, button 5 could have been claimed by WPAW 1540, forcing WOLF down to 4.

Any other theories?

 

[therealjm12]

I grew up about 50 miles east of 'Cuse. As I remember that Dad 's Buick presets were set to WTLB 1310 & WIBX 950. I don't think any other stations mattered. Maybe WRUN 1150 was set and I probably set WNDR 1260. Latter on when WOUR 96.9 came on I bought an FM converter and a button would have been used for that.

Later on my Father got rid of the Buick and bought the fastest, coolest Plymouth Sports Fury with a 383 (metallic burgundy with a jet black interior). It was about the time my older brother & I were starting to drive. I always thought he was trying to kill us. Still no FM but we did have the converter and the rear speaker reverb.

 

[heydaybegone]

Later on my Father got rid of the Buick and bought the fastest, coolest Plymouth Sports Fury with a 383 (metallic burgundy with a jet black interior). It was about the time my older brother & I were starting to drive. I always thought he was trying to kill us

therealjm12:::
I can only chuckle...you were living in my house, and didn't know it?

HSBG

 

[Paul_Warren]

"How do you know you're reading a radio board?"

"When posters have consciously set more than three or four presets on their radios!"

I once had a Pioneer "Supertuner" in my Chrysler with something called "Best Stations Memory." You'd turn the radio on, invoke the feature, and it would allocate your presets based on signal strength. I think it actually worked on signal-to-noise, so it would have accounted for IBOC and other forms of interference.

I remember parking in a couple different parts of town (Orlando at the time) and seeing how the mapping changed.

Can anyone out-geek that?

 

[heydaybegone]

Can anyone out-geek that?

My crystal ball says...someone Will. (not necessarily named Will)
AND that will answer you're age old question from WAY BACK

But the question is, why are you parking in Orlando? With so much going on in Orlando, you're worried about tuning your radio?

(just a "how life goes" on question...sorry)

HDBG

 

[umtrr-author]

I fondly remember the 1967 Dodge Coronet that my parents had (following the '56 Chevy Belair). It was the car I learned to drive with, and I think I was the one who figured out to set the mechanical presets.

Tune to the station desired, pull out the button and carefully push it back it. I think it's a fair amount of geekitude to wonder exactly how that worked.

What stations were on the presets? I'm guessing, but probably WNBC, WOR, WABC, WCBS and WNEW. All AM, these.

I don't remember whether the Plymouth Volare, which co-existed with the Coronet for many years, had FM. But the Plymouth Acclaim had the first radio I ever saw with the extended AM band.

I suppose it's not good for radio that the next car I purchase must have an "Aux In" jack for my iPod.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

I suppose it's not good for radio that the next car I purchase must have an "Aux In" jack for my iPod.

To say nothing of USB port(s) for flash drives and other applications, as well as CD & cassette players, Sirius/XM, Wi-Max and good ol' FM and AM. Terrestrial radio's last domain, the in-car listener. Yet, for how long?

Later on my Father got rid of the Buick and bought the fastest, coolest Plymouth Sports Fury with a 383 (metallic burgundy with a jet black interior). It was about the time my older brother & I were starting to drive. I always thought he was trying to kill us. Still no FM but we did have the converter and the rear speaker reverb.

A classic MoPar car. "Hey, that thing have a hemi in it?"

I once had a Pioneer "Supertuner" in my Chrysler with something called "Best Stations Memory." You'd turn the radio on, invoke the feature, and it would allocate your presets based on signal strength. I think it actually worked on signal-to-noise, so it would have accounted for IBOC and other forms of interference. I remember parking in a couple different parts of town (Orlando at the time) and seeing how the mapping changed. Can anyone out-geek that?

Ding, ding, ding. No more calls please, we have a winner. Pioneer made great car radios. Just one question, did the SuperTuner have a "mono" button? As production director every upgrade car radio I bought had to have a mono button to check phase.

 

[Obtuse1]

1400 was a popular WNY pre-set among those of us teens in the 80's who were saddled with our parents AM-only car. (14 Rock, 14X, WPHD/WUFX simulcast...)

It was also the frequency used by the Sparkomatic under-dash FM converter. Had on of those in my dad's '72 Chevy pickup until I replaced it with a $14 AM/FM Cassette from one of those travelling "electronics blowout" sales. No presets, but the (manual) tuner was actually pretty decent.

 

[therealjm12]

For the benefit of Mr. Pastrick: Later on I set one of my presets in my Plymouth Roadrunner to 1550 WBVM. I had to listen to something different on the way home. I just couldn't stand listening to Disco Duck every hour & forty-five minutes on WRUN anymore. Hemi on the Roadrunner not the Fury. Both cars were faster than a human being needs to go on land.

 

[cee]

1550 WBVM

Am I wrong or wasn't that the daytime oldies station Mr. Pastrick was PD of back then? IIRC(and nowadays I don't always) -- didn't Brian J. Walker and a few other young Buffalo guys work there as well?

 

[therealjm12]

Cee Said: Am I wrong or wasn't that the daytime oldies station Mr. Pastrick was PD of back then? IIRC(and nowadays I don't always) -- didn't Brian J. Walker and a few other young Buffalo guys work there as well?

If there had been FM translators back in those days, the things that could have been........

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Okay, enough with the "Mr. Pastrick" stuff, okay guys

Translators? We tried to grab the FM assignment for Frankfort. Long after we left, 102.5 was allocated and then the avalanche of Docket 80-90s.

Brian J. Walker was indeed our midday guy at WBVM Utica using the name Dr. Don LaMarca. He liked the name so much after two years he left for Binghamton and changed his name. He remains a good friend to this day. While he was in Utica his personality and persona made him one of the highest rated midday guys in the market on a half-pint 1kW daytimer that had no PSA, no production room, run by a mom and pop owner. The call letters stood for Blessed Virgin Mary, a tribute to a previous owner's faith for answering his prayers. Can't knock that. We re-worked the call letters to stand for "Better Variety of Music."

Bob Dimock was our morning guy, great pipes and a wonderful wife and family. He barely could pay his rent and buy groceries on what he earned, but none of us made a killing. Paul deLaubelle (Syracuse), Jeff Moulton (Rochester-Utica-Syracuse), Gary Briggs (Albany), Peter Eilenberg (NY agency maven) as "John Taylor" the son of WRNY owner and Orange PBP man Carl Eilenberg and a few others passed though the station and became very good radio-media-advertising professionals.

About the only thing we had going for us at WBVM was a lot of chutzpah and a desire to do the best possible radio we could, never to use our limitations as an excuse. Plus good processing and a very efficient tower (at the time, anyway.) We had our day in the sun, as every dog does. We were young enough to really enjoy the area and radio at the time was far more forgiving. Media saturated even then, with two Gannett newspapers and two local TV stations (Ch's. 2 and 20), more signals arrived with Docket 80-90. After about a year at WBVM the competition got wise to our act and took 100kW WRUN-FM Drake-Chenault oldies as WKGW, KG-104. Dr. Don was on his way to Binghamton and I found my way back to Buffalo. Apologies for the historical screed, but since two posters asked, I thought I'd humbly and respectfully oblige. Thanks.

 

[SirRoxalot]

If you took a daytimer up against a market full of full-time signals and did enough business to pay the rent, you must have been doing something right. Gotta tip my hat to any programmer with those kind of skills. That's the kind of thing that would make Jeff Kaye proud.