Should WSPD go to the FM?

[Howard Dean]

Keep it on 1370am but add an FM simulcast, Its Clear Channel so I guess 103.7fm would be the logical choice, since the station is now closer to Toledo. CKY's alright but there pretty much a non factor, the station people go to when K-100's playing a song they dont like.

 

[Goldilocks94941]

judging by the response to your question, the answer, from this board, would be "no."

I think the kind of one-sided political screeds they broadcast would not benefit from FM-quality audio. It would let you hear the drool sliding off the hosts' lips.

Then again, Toledo is a good example of a market with no really strong local AM signals. Never was. WSPD, with its nighttime array, is probably not much better in coverage than a class-A FM like WTWR. And what's left on the rest of the AM dial, not many people really care anymore. The power reductions in recent years on 1520 and 1560 are a sad sign of just how irrelevant those facilities have become, and how FM really has replaced almost everything on AM, for much of the country.

I, for one, sure miss the old 1470 WOHO - even tho' its signal wasn't really great. But it sounded like it was maintained and processed well. It was an important station for the Toledo of the 1960s and 1970s, and "felt like home."
I wonder if Ken R or somebody still has the different jingle packages, or airchecks from back then, that they could post on online somewhere? Would be fun to hear it again. Especially those July Fourth and Labor Day weekend "oldies" theme packages they used to run, with the one-forty-seven WOHO jingles that sounded like they were from the late 1950s. Guess it's all moldy oldies now. . .

 

[CaptBob92]

WOHO was a great station. I worked there is 1969. They got that great sound with just a audimax and volumemax. nothing special no special settings.The music was all on cart and eqd by the pD. Mikes were RCA 77DXs . Just a stay level in production. Everything was RCA, boards, mikes but the transmitters were Gates.

They hooked Greylab timers to the ATC cart machines and you set them to count down to firing the next deck. Sort of poor man's automation.

Ken R came later I think when they bought the FM. That talk format was done out of the back garage for the most part.
Great place to work, great jings, great sound. They should have moved the format over to fm.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

WOHO was the best - it was 'real radio' back in 78-79 when I was there. WKRP was on the (TV) air, and it was a pretty close comparison. By then, the double-wide Gates transmitter was the backup and they had a 'refrigerator' Harris 1KW unit, but audio processing was always decent. The FM was EZ and still reel to reel automation with a DOS computer for WXEZ 105.5FM. (Sir Bernard) Bernie Quayle had returned by then, and was he transitioned 105 into "Z-105". The AM still had higher ratings than the FM, so they did a morning simulcast, and they were live 24/7 on WOHO, except for Sunday night/monday morning 'transmitter maintenance' as required. Loved the 'Good Guy' format too. Wish they'd bring the WOHO jingles and format style to WRQN, as Buddy Carr was one of the "WOHO Good Guys". Ken (R) removed the R from his name, is still in town, gave up the jingle business and just writes articles for fun (for Radio World, etc.)
I cry when I drive by the Pickle Road studios as the buildings are abandoned ratholes, nothing there but the 1470 transmitter running on 1/3rd power to the 4 dilapidated towers because the ground system is shot and the Dickey Brothers at Cumulus have forgotten that this was their Dad, Lew Dickey, Sr.'s very first radio station (Midwestern Broadcasting/Stratford Research) that morphed into their family's Cumulus Broadcasting. So much for family heritage and pride. They owe it to Dad to restore this station to its former glory.