Stop me if you heard this one...Ontario, NY AM CP flips

[Bob1370]

This from this morning's All Access postings..."In a deal not yet filed with the FCC, CHARLES "BUD" WILLIAMSON's DIGITAL RADIO BROADCASTING is selling the construction permit for new AM WDJQ-A/ONTARIO, NY-ROCHESTER to 21ST CENTURY BROADCASTING for $60,000."

Amyone know who 21st Century Broadcasting is, what they're planning to do with a CP for a station with saturation coverage of the sturgeon in Lake Ontario and zero actual coverage of Rochester?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Anybody want to bet that loaves and fishes are involved? And maybe some translators?

 

[Mark Giardina]

This from this morning's All Access postings..."In a deal not yet filed with the FCC, CHARLES "BUD" WILLIAMSON's DIGITAL RADIO BROADCASTING is selling the construction permit for new AM WDJQ-A/ONTARIO, NY-ROCHESTER to 21ST CENTURY BROADCASTING for $60,000."

Anyone know who 21st Century Broadcasting is, what they're planning to do with a CP for a station with saturation coverage of the sturgeon in Lake Ontario and zero actual coverage of Rochester?

Who in their right mind would want to spend money on towers, a facility and personnel for an AM station whose coverage area would make the AM operation in Brockport look like a 50kw blowtorch?

The only winner here is Bud Williamson who walked away with $60,000.

My guess is that 21st Century Broadcasting is some religious outfit that will just use the frequency to piggy-back from other stations that already carry that type of format.

I just can't fathom someone trying to air either talk or music radio on that frequency, which as Bob says, just feeds the fish (and those who didn't pay their loansharks) in Lake Ontario.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Another fish feeder. Just what radio and the AM band don't need in 2009, waist deep in the big muddy. As I used to say about the Not So Mighty Big WADD, "Number 1, Sturgeon 25-54." It was a super-directional 1 kW on 1560, with Brahms and Tchaikovsky from WQXR, New York clearly audible just after sunsrise and before sunset. Killer pattern. In every sense of the term. Killer in Cobourg, Brighton and Trenton, Ontario. Dead in Spencerport, Rochester and Batavia. Just sad. Ironically, I have business in Rochester later this week. Might even take a drive down Rt 31 past the old joint.

 

[qman]

WASB has to be the WORST run radio station in the WORLD!!! This Ontario outlet CAN'T be any worse. Then again maybe it CAN!!!

 

[The Voice of Reason]

WASB, formally known as WADD in the 1970s, is the perfect example of what happens when people who have no concept of broadcasting buys a radio station.
If memory serves me correctly I believe WADD was owned by some car dealer in Brockport. (Nat O. Lester) I think his son, Nat III, recently resigned as town supervisor because he had not paid his taxes in years. Anyways Jim is right about the pattern. When I attended SUNY Brockport that station's signal would drop dead as I drove into Spencerport, which is just five miles or less up the road from the radio station.
A college buddy of mine applied for a job at the station to earn some extra money. He came back to the dorm and said the GM of the station was this lady who was completely clueless. He knew more about broadcasting than her, and he had not yet been hired at a commercial station. (He later went on to work in some major markets as a DJ then PD).
Later on, after I graduated from college, I remember reading that the station caught fire. People were broadcasting from the basement for a while as the station was being rebuilt. I believe that former Channel 13 reporter and now R-News anchor Mary McCombs once worked at WADD. So the place did provide jobs for people with some talent. But the talent was mostly on-air and not in owners or in management.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Interesting and amusing recollections of WADD, VOR. The station originally was owned by the Duryea family (primarily Irwin and Melvin), a respected family that owned beaucoup real estate, the Ford dealership at 19 & 31 and had other businesses in the area. I believe one of the Duryea brothers was an attorney.

During my short tenure at WADD, I rented a room in the elderly Duryea's home and they treated me well, although not preferentially. I worked with some solid broadcasters, Dan Kelly and Bob Bitner being two of them that come to mind. The upper management however, is much as you describe it, VOR. A radio version of the Keystone Kops.

The woman to whom you refered was a book-keeper with close ties to the Duryea family, IIRC. The mole. Not a bad lady, personally. I'll refrain from mentioning her name, although it's somewhat amusing that she was a "bean" counter. Who'd ever "bet" that she'd become the GM?

The GM who ran the place while I was there was a real piece of work. "WKRP" meets "The Shining." As the story went, he was a one time mogul in Rochester who took the WADD GM job as a port in the storm. The gentleman's name is eminently forgetable and even if I could recall it, not worth mentioning.

WADD actually sounded good when Larry Hunter (now heard doing fill-in on WBEN) was the WADD PD (before I arrived.) Larry had WADD tightly formatted doing oldies, playing the hits and the station had a loyal audience, if not one limited by its signal. He left WADD to join Dave Hammond and Larry Anderson at WGR.

This barrister of our board, one young RCS, at the time a hot rockin', flame throwin', high cumes, upwardly mobile, soon-to-be-major market jock at WAXC, visited WADD one day to say hello to Dan Kelly or some other higher up; he took a tour of the joint, told us our modulation should be hotter ("your audio sucks!") and asked "who left the Ampex 351 in the production room engaged... it's not good for the motors." RCS was as much of a radio geek as the rest of us, but he came with better creds (Ithaca College as opposed to Buffalo State) and a better voice.

On rebuttal I told RCS the Ampex machine was in "ready mode" (reels loaded, right side tape guide arm "up") because a PA show from The Mutual Broadcasting System, was coming down the line within five minutes. Gah, Mutual... phone lines... ugly audio... complete with carrier ping in the background, jammed with 1kW of RF from the three sticks that were directly behind the small block building! Ever wonder why your bones felt warm and tingly if you worked there?

Yes, young Bob Savage of WAXC fame, memorialized with ("Hollies been entertaining us all summer with that song... Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress" -from American Airchecks vinyl) sporting yellow tinted egg-style Monroe County Sheriff shades at the time... shakin' us down for leaving the Ampex engaged and havin' lousy processing! Heh, heh. I coulda told you he was gonna be either a cop, a lawyer, an FCC Field Inspector or a respected broadcaster.

As you said VOR, there were people who came through the doors of the Big WADD who went on to better things, some better than others. But at least it gave us a paycheck that didn't bounce (at least while I was there) and a chance to work on trying to improve our skills, make airchecks and get the hell out! Not a bad deal at the time.

 

[Play Freebird]

One of the mistakes made at the Brockport station was the move from 1560 to 1590. The original 1560 facility wasn't very good (and the requirement to protect WQXR on that frequency only allowed daytime operation) but at least the pattern threw a little power to the east, although a sharp reduction to the southeast was needed to project first-adjacent WCGR in Canandaigua.

However, on 1590, the day pattern had to modified to protect co-channel WAUB in Auburn, which required two more towers to be built on a northwest-southeast line. This did allow the station to operate fulltime, but the critical hours and nighttime noise on 1590 is quite high, so little was gained from that expense. Resulting daytime coverage towards Spencerport and Rochester decreased significantly, which contributed to the station's demise.

 

[Savage]

a-HEM. My recollection of the WADD visit was that I was at least SOMEWHAT more diplomatic that that. But who the hell didn't have all the answers when they were 22? If Clear Channel existed then, I could have become "an Honorary Mays," pardon the oxymoron.

Let's fast forward 35 years, shall we?

The late Pastor Somebody (the guy whose assistant committed suicide with a .357 inside the church - I personally think pastors should keep smaller-calibre firearms in their pulpit lecterns, but that's just me*) whose family still owns 1590 and 1310 in Canandaigua invited me up to his office one day in 2005, where he pitched me on buying the stations. I drove down to Fourth Section Road after our meeting to do a quickie inspection.

If 1560/1590's processing sucked in 1972, it was positively unhearable in 2005. In the rutted, unplowed driveway leading up to the little TX-studio building, WYSL, coming in from 35 miles to the southeast, was at least five times louder. Plus there was a pronounced 60 Hz hum under the audio on the carrier, which I would guesstimate was being modulated at no more than about 10%, with frequency response I would gauge at around 500 Hz to 3000 Hz.

Without getting out of the car, I spotted about $50,000 worth of FCC forfeiture violations. The now 5-tower array had NO base enclosures around three of the towers - you could walk right up and grab one if you chose. Not, however, that you would be likely to get an RF burn: the northwest stick added for DA-N (with a southeast stick on the opposite side) on 1590 was obviously not in use, since a Sears utility shed had been plunked at the tower base with Heliax coming out of it and heading up the tower to feed George Kimble's Brockport FM, which had a side-mounted low-power bay about 50 feet up. Get it: NO isocoupler; the co-ax simply emerged from the shed and headed directly up the tower, attached to the tower leg with what appeared to be copious amounts of black electrical tape.

It's safe to say that WASB wasn't using THAT tower, since the AM RF would have instantly just burned holes in the FM Heliax. There was also an STL Paraflector aimed at 1310's site in Canandaigua. I can't recall if that was on a separate tower or on the same one as the FM, but I clearly remember it wasn't isolated from the tower either. Obviously the station wasn't troubling with the inconvenience of changing pattern for night operation.

The general condition of the site was, in a word, a "disaster." The field hadn't been mowed or cleared in many years, and small woody vegetation like young trees and bushes were growing up through the ground screen. If one still existed. I doubt if the original 3-tower array had been painted since installation in 1969. You could see badly faded and flaked orange and white paint peeking through rust. The grounded half of the center tower's ball-gap was missing.

On a followup visit I informed the Pastor that I would only be interested in purchasing the authorization, which I planned to move to a new frequency and COL - only AFTER I filed for permission to remain silent and took a bolt cutter to all RF feedlines at the WASB site to make sure that mess was off the air - permanently.
He wanted a crazy amount of money for the station, so negotiations ended. He passed away the next year.

* The suicide is yet another colorful 1560-1590 war story.

 

[aaronread]

WASB's signal might be...ehem..."weak", but it simulcasts with WRSB in Canandaigua, which throws quite a lot of signal right at Rochester. Nighttime coverage is so-so, although a lot of it is over the more lucrative towns (Victor, Pittsford, Canandaigua itself, etc) but during the day you can get WRSB pretty much right up into the inner loop. Hell, while I'm sure WXXI would have a heart attack over it, I certainly wouldn't mind having WRSB simulcasting WEOS!

OTOH, I also wouldn't mind having WRSB simulcasting WEOS...except during Red Sox games. Hint hint hint. :

Hey Bob, have you tried asking the pastor's widow if she'll sell to you?

As for the Ontario CP, while I won't disagree that the facility can't be more than a lame joke for most owners...it's important to remember that demographics matter. Sure the population in Wayne county might be a lot smaller overall, but if a lot of those folks like godcasting (which is entirely possible) then maybe it'll do okay.

 

[scooterodell]

The late Pastor Somebody (the guy whose assistant committed suicide with a .357 inside the church - I personally think pastors should keep smaller-calibre firearms in their pulpit lecterns, but that's just me*)

I think the last name was was Wolf... maybe Fox... some sort of animal of which one should be wary.

My WASB experience consisted of running the board for a soccer broadcast when a guy named "Big Al" was leasing time on the station. I had run the board for Al when he leased time at WDCZ (as an employee of WDCZ), and he asked me to come over and run the WASB board while he was broadcasting from the soccer game, which I believe was an MLS match with the NY/NJ Metro Stars.

The WASB studio was a riot - shag carpet and dark wood paneling all over the place. The Wolf/Fox guy gave me a full guided tour. The equipment was atrocious but fascinating. The soccer broadcast went off without any serious issues... but it didn't happen again. Apparently no one was listening.

 

[Savage]

I did receive a visit from David Wolf's son Dan, who is very nice, and who seems pretty normal. Actually since he's taken over the family appears to have renewed interest in the stations - for what that's worth. I would gather they're not interested in selling - nor am I particularly interested in buying at this juncture.

"Big Al" - that would be Al Schneider, a kind of local nut from Honeoye Falls-Lima, whose grandiose claims to fame included a high-profile attempt to actually lure the Olympic games to Avon. (Pause here for the laughter to subside.) Al was/is a rabid Rhinos and pro soccer fan. I'm not sure if he's still in the area. Back when we had the Rhinos on WYSL "Big Al" was one of the 5 or 6 regular callers (and the ONLY callers) on "Soccer Sam" Fantauzzo's excruciating post-game call-in show.

Al wanted to move a weekly soccer show from the Wolf stations to WYSL. He balked, however, when we told him he would have to pay for the airtime weekly up front. He was also unhappy when we informed him we would NOT sell him an hour of airtime each week for $50.

"A little birdie" told me that 1310 may have a pretty good signal in suburban Rochester - but once again, that's because there appears to be "a pattern change problem" that could be several years old. (Can you say...."voluntary DA-1??")

 

[Savage]

Actually I did get a peek behind the curtain with Brockport and 1560/1590 and what was going on there with the frequency switch. This comes from one of the consulting engineers who redesigned the array (IIRC the original 1560 designer was A. D. Ring or some other big Washington gun. They had proposed 500 watts NDA but the Duryeas insisted on 1kw. That was unfortunate because at the time WADD went on the air, the rules required a First-Phone operator for the directional system...posing an immediate unnecessary cost and operational hurdle.) In any event:

It was about 1977ish, and the station was struggling (one of the post-Duryea owners) because seven years or so of experience had revealed two serious problems: the daytimer status, and the co-channel skywave from WQXR was proving to be a serious problem, especially in the winter months. The owners (I think it was in the WJBT incarnation) asked the engineer what could be done to improve things, since at that juncture they were seriously considering just turning the authorization back in to the Commission and calling it quits.

The consultant proposed the switch to 1590 with the caveat that with the new frequency, much eastern coverage would be lost daytime. The then-owners felt they could make the station work by just superserving the western suburbs. The thought was that as long as they could be on at night with a local signal over Brockport, they could make money with high school and SUNY Brockport live sports.

 

[qman]

My limited experience with WASB was co-hosting a gospel show with Kasandra Fox (of WDKX fame) once a week on a Saturday afternoon. Dr. Wolfe gave us the airtime for a piece of our advertising revenue. After doing the show for a couple a weeks, I was told by Dr. Wolfe that he didn't have a license to broadcast music so I had to use Public Domain supplied by him and not the music that I supplied. I said no thanks and took the show to Crawford.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

RCS, I laughed out loud at two of your lines. First this mornin, "The late Pastor Somebody, the guy whose assistant committed suicide with a .357 inside the church - I personally think pastors should keep smaller-calibre firearms in their pulpit lecterns, but that's just me."

Then this evening, "'Big Al' - that would be Al Schneider, a kind of local nut from Honeoye Falls-Lima, whose grandiose claims to fame included a high-profile attempt to actually lure the Olympic games to Avon. (Pause here for the laughter to subside.)"

In between reading those posts, I drove to Brockport to take care of some business. You'd think Chase bank would have a branch in Buffalo, but noooooo! Before hitting the road, I enjoyed a phone call with Scott Fybush. Originally, I'd planned to give the EZ Pass a workout, but instead opted for the scenic tour. I had business in the northtowns and so my drive took me through Clarence, Pembroke, Batavia, Alden, Corfu, Batavia, Bergen, Sweden, North Chili, ending up in Brockport.

I scanned the AM and FM band and listened to a greater variety of stations than I’ve heard to in the last four months. Maybe it’s the nature of being on the outside looking in, but lately I tend to listen to WNED-AM & FM and WBFO for long periods with occasional stops at the regular watering holes just to stay in touch with what my friends are up to.

I checked in with 1490 WBTA, which came in quite well froma round Clarence to Batavia. Sometime before 3 this afternoon was the first time I'd heard "When I Ruled The World" by Coldplay on an AM music station. The songs is a staple for AC formats on FM, but I'd not heard it on any AM. WBTA is put together quite well. At the intersection of Rt 5 and Rt 33, I switched to 1040 WYSL in time to hear the 3 p.m. newscast with bountiful local sound bites anchored by Bob Savage. Signal was good and the newscast was major market.

I was surprised to hear 970 WNED-AM in Batavia, with Jim Ranney doing a news cut-in sometime after 3. WNED-AM has one of the most bizarre directional patterns in America and knowing it kinda-sorta protects WROC 950, it was a pleasant surprise to hear it. But driving northeast on Rt. 33, WNED-AM disappeared before Bergen.

I went to the FM band to sample WDKX, wanting to hear how 6 kW @ 103.9 in Rochester stacked up against first adhacent 50kW @ 104.1 in Buffalo. Somewhere around Bergen, both stations came in distinctly. Enjoyed hearing the rap version of “The Way It Is” on WDKX as well as a few other tunes, one of which had a neat sonnet of lyrics about “takin’ you home to meet my ma.” Cool. (You’ll excuse me if I’m not down with the latest Urban or Churban Hits.) I noticed that WDKX has good audio overall, but every once in a while, a song would sound “crunchy.” Wonder if that's because it’s one of those brick wall limiter hits.

Sampled some of WHAM, checked out WHTK 1280 and 1460 WHIC. For some reason, WHIC wasn't that strong. 1280 was loud. 1370 WXXI-AM, although not loud, was clean.

And having participated in this thread, I looked forward to hearing 1590. So while driving north on Rt. 19, noting the “Entering the Town of Sweden” sign, I tuned in the station. It was barely audible. Like the "quiet talker" on Seinfeld, hardly modulated at all.

I did an A-B test to figure out if it was power or modulation. Not more than a mile away from the 1590 array, (which as RCS noted, looks rather ragged) WECK was louder; WLVL was louder; WCJW was louder, even WJJL was louder. When I could hear the audio, it was a preacher doing his thing. Why would people listen to that when WDCX-AM is booming on 990 and WDCX-FM is thundering on 99.5?

I couldn't leave Brockport without checking out 89.1 WBSU The Point just to hear what was going on now that the seniors have graduated. Didn’t hear a live jock, but what I did hear sounded well put together and the audio sounds clean and crisp.

I drove home scanning the FM band. Tried to hear Legends but just couldn’t pull it in. The clarity of WXXI-FM is impressive. Listened to 92.5 The Bee for a stretch just to hear how they do Country compared to WYRK in Buffalo. Bee is an impresive station.

Westbound through Batavia, I checked WGCC for a stretch. Under the auspices of WHTT's Val Townsend who teaches at GCC, the station has an unpredictable mix and sounds better than when it was "all metal, all the time." WGCC also has a killer signal (for 880 Watts) that can be heard as far west as Lancaster; while listening, I heard the Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show seg'd into a decent speed metal track, followed by AC-DC’s classic, For Those About to Rock. Pretty eclectic.

I scanned down and listened to Toronto’s jazz station from about Bergen to just west of Batavia. What a signal and format! Then it was back to WBFO for Small Things, er All Things Considered.

Round about Alden, I spot checked WXRL which has surprisingly good audio within its 5mV/m contour, WECK, WGR and WBEN.

Somewhere around Transit Road and the 400, the radio went off and I slid my Best of Temps & Tops into the CD player, rolled the moon roof open and turned the speakers up to “eleven.” It was a perfect day to crank “Ain’t To Proud to Beg,” a timeless classic!

 

[JIBGUY]

I looked forward to hearing 1590. So while driving north on Rt. 19, noting the “Entering the Town of Sweden” sign, I tuned in the station. It was barely audible. Like the "quiet talker" on Seinfeld, hardly modulated at all.

I did the same thing a few years ago..... traveling east from Niagara Falls to my Boston station, I decided to take the back roads too, specifically to check out the Canal Towns especially Brockport and the Mighty 1590. Couldn't hear 1590 in Albion... came east on Rt 31-A so I could see WADD/WASB... near Brockport (Town of Sweden), I started picking up this awful hum, with "hootin' & hollerin' in the background. YES, in the background. So I'm thinking this is a long trip, since I still must be far from Brockport. No, I wasn't! The hum suddenly got louder, and off to my right was the tower site! I could not believe that my car radio was supposed to be getting 1,000 mv/m at the end of the WASB driveway on 4th Section Rd (which is as far as the 1,000 mv/m contour went to when it was 1560; and similar as 1590). I didn't turn around to go into the station's driveway.... judging from how the station sounded and what it was airing, it was too sad a thing to do; to see the place. Brockport has grown immensely since the early 70's, but that station has gone in the other direction since then. - Buy the way, I used to have to take the field intensity readings with a field intensity meter every week (of WADD's signal), and as many of you know, such readings are usually in the nulls of a station's signal. Most of WADD's FCC-assigned points (signal nulls) were within 5 miles of the station. Enjoyed listening to WQXR in the meter's earphones, along with saying to myself "why am I here?!?". One real good thing about working at WADD is that it gave me a bit more credibility DJ'ing the Brockport area nightclubs for a long stretch in those days. Anyone remember "The High Bridge" (in town along the canal) and "Auntie's Attic?"(a bit north of Brockport on Rt 19). We packed in over 1000 people in there on Wed & Fri nights.

 

[cee]

Anyone remember "The High Bridge"

Yes, I do. I remember seeing you there before I found out you worked at WADD. IIRC, draft beer in a cup was only 25 cents. Great for a college student's limited budget. Actually, 25 cent drafts would be good for today's budget I think you used to play Brown Sugar a lot and cut the audio when it came time for Mick to go "whewww" and lead the audience in shouting it instead(I have no idea why my brain retains such memories). Again, IIRC, the owner and his wife would both tend bar - did they eventually lose the place? I bet at one time they billed a lot more than WADD with they're main advertiser - station owner Duryea Ford. Don't recall Auntie's Attic - I may have been gone by then(already on my career path in the glamorous world of radio).

 

[JIBGUY]

Anyone remember "The High Bridge"

Yes, I do. I remember seeing you there before I found out you worked at WADD. IIRC, draft beer in a cup was only 25 cents. Again, IIRC, the owner and his wife would both tend bar - did they eventually lose the place?

Actually, it wasn't the owner (and wife) tending bar; they were the managers. And yes, it closed down in '74 or '75. Amazing it lasted that long with area residents (homes clustered nearby the night club) getting their lawns ripped up by, being woken up by 700+ not too sober college students that had to leave at closing time 2 AM. Most weren't driving, as "The High Bridge" was easy walking distance to the college dorms. Sure was a hopping scene then.