The First WBT-FM 99.5

[Mike Sheridan]

I'm very interested in radio history. Probably because it gets lost and forgotten so easily. Sometimes it's a big job to uncover the facts even just a few years later.

Did you know there was a WBT-FM 99.5 many years ago? The transmitter was at Spencer Mountain with WBTV. It went on sometime in the late '40's and only lasted till sometime in the '50's before Jefferson Standard gave up and turned in the license. I don't have and exact date when the station went on or off.

The second WWBT-FM at 107.9 came along in 1962. I often wonder if being at the end of the dial hurts the station.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Slight correction it was 99.9 not 99.5. A 1950 listing shows they had a license for 273,000 watts! It's not certain they ever got up to that power or how high the antenna was on the tower.

By 1958 there was no listing for WBT-FM.

 

[Matt]

Mike,

Recently, I added a piece about that on WLNK's Wikipedia article [url]http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLNK [/url]

I remember hearing Clyde McLean discussing his career with "Jefferson Standard" once, and he said that he was initially hired as the disc jockey for WBT-FM in 1947. As I remember it, he said he and an engineer would sign the station on at 8:00am and he would spin records and read news until 12:00 noon. The station would sign off from noon until 1:00pm while they ate lunch, then back on the air until 5:00pm sign off.

Evidently the station primarily provided background music for in-store listening (remember, no SCA's or Muzak in those days) and WBT-FM made their money renting high-fidelity receivers for that purpose.

As better-quality receivers became more affordable, probably the receiver rental business became unprofitable. With little prospect of selling commercial time, and a new studio complex to pay for, they turned the license in in 1954 (according to McLean).

One thing I've been curious about in that vein...both of WBT-FM's early operations, the 99.9 and the 107.9 (started in 1961 BTW) closely mimiced the way WMIT's operation was done on Black Mountain. Eventually, WMIT operated out of studios in Charlotte by the time WBT-FM came on the air.

The biggest difference between WMIT and WBT-FM was the signal reach...the Mount Mitchell signal of WMIT went (my estimation) three times the radius of WBT-FM's signal from Spencer Mountain.

Given the considerable expense of FM broadcasting, and the little amount of return, I'm sure the owners of WMIT in the late 1950's (before BGEA became the owner) would have gladly sold the station to anyone offering a decent price. Any speculation on why Jefferson Standard didn't just buy WMIT, move the Charlotte Studio to One Julian Price Place, and have an FM signal with a reach comparable to that of WBT-AM?

Food for thought

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV

 

[Mike Walker]

Ahh, you people are so young! When I was in radio school (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...about 1977...I'd already been in radio three years), it was still WBT-FM, and played "beautiful music" (as did "EZ 104"...WEZE (104.7). In, I think 1979 WBT-FM became WBCY. Then B-100, etc. The dinosaurs were extinct by then (but the FM band was full of "beautiful music" stations until the mid 80s).

 

[NewsNow]

The equipment that was used for WBT FM 99.9 went from Charlotte to Chapel Hill where it was used to launch WUNC. Flash forward a few decades, and old equipment from the main studio at WBT-AM was used to outfit the early studios of WFAE.

 

[Mike Walker]

Of course I meant WEZC, as the former call letters of 104.7. This 'puter can't spell worth a damn.

 

[jtudor]

I was always told that one of WBT-FM's old transmitters (likely a standby) wound up at WMNC-FM. It was an old RCA kilowatt transmitter so it had to be a standby if it really did come from WBT-FM.

That thing was so unstable with the original exciter, I remember one night I had to constantly tweak it to keep it on frequency until after midnight so it could be properly repaired. Once we got an optimod it turned out to be a pretty good transmitter.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Thanks for all the great posts everyone.

Matt, your idea about WMIT is very interesting. Maybe the timing wasn't right or Jefferson thought they could do their own cheaper.

MW you aren't so old. I started in radio back in 1972 with at a station with lever cart machines, Ampex 601's and turntables. None of which are used in radio stations today.

I remember hearing that WBT donated studio equipment to WFAE. You should see the stuff WFAE is using today, very nice! WFAE is small but quite attractive, well equipped and maintained.

 

[Mike Walker]

Mike Sheridan the last time I used "lever cart machines" was at WNNC (Newton...they were Spotmasters) in the 80s. I last used an Ampex 600 at WWWC in Wilkesboro in about 1988. The last turntable I used on-air was at WKSK West Jefferson in 2000, when I worked parttime there just to keep my on-air "chops" (I'm legally blind, and do production at my home studio these days). The station had all the latest digital doo-dads, but I found a pristine 45 of "Kind of the Road" by Roger Miller, and couldn't resist (despite the fact that it was available on cd).

Ya' know, I think we could work almost as well if forced to go back to the gear of decades past. I'm quite proud of some of the spots on my "demo reel" done with reels, carts, and lps. It stands up today, and I wouldn't hesitate to put it on the air. Modern doo-dads are great, but gear doesn't do the work, WE DO!

 

[NewsNow]

I remember hearing that WBT donated studio equipment to WFAE. You should see the stuff WFAE is using today, very nice! WFAE is small but quite attractive, well equipped and maintained.

After my very first radio job at WBCY, I got an actual paid part time position at WFAE (those were rare at the time, students mostly filled the weekend shifts). My friends at JP told me I'd be working in junky studios.

They were great, even back then. Auditronics 200 boards in control and production, and the last of the WBT boards (Continental? Did they make boards?) in production 2. And a great news/talk studio in the middle. That was back when half their space was unused storage. Now I believe it's the Logitek digital boards.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

WFAE is so neat it's almost too neat. It made me feel like I should come in wearing a suit and tie. Actually maybe I did, but it's that kind of place. Everything looks brand new! Yes they are in deed Logitek boards and from what I saw they are very nice. The computers are new Dell machines and they are whisper quiet unlike some studios I have been in that shall remain nameless.

The old WBT boards you are referring to might be Cetec Centurian. Some were rotory and some were sliders with a meter bridge over the top and wood trim. Does that sound like what they had? The boards looked good when new but I don't think they stood up well. We had them at a station I worked for in Florida and I know WBT had them before I got there. WBCY had one in production before they rebult the room.

 

[Matt]

Actually, the ones with the slide faders ended up at WABZ in Albemarle. They installed them in the studios Charlie Hicks built for the station when they moved out of the old bank building.

The worst problem they had was that the protection boots built into the fader slots wore out sometime before they left WBT, and one spilled cup of coffee was sufficient to doom them. Fortunately, there were lots of spares, and the modular design meant I could change one out in a long song.

Bill Norman kept the one we used in the control room when he bought the station and moved it over to his Magnolia Street complex. I'm not sure if it stayed in Albemarle when Radio One moved the station, but all in all, not a bad console for operators. I'm sure engineers weren't the happiest with its design.

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV

 

[JOHNNY on the RADIO]

WABZ

Bill Norman kept the one we used in the control room when he bought the station and moved it over to his Magnolia Street complex. I'm not sure if it stayed in Albemarle when Radio One moved the station, but all in all, not a bad console for operators.

Matt,

Bill took the old boards out of the WABZ studio long before Radio One took the station. WABZ was using one of Bill's BE Stereo boards just like WZKY up until 2000. I'm not sure what happened to the old WABZ boards. I think WJRM in Troy used one of the boards for awhile before changing to a BE. I'm not sure what happened to them after that. There was an old board with slide faders back in the storage room at WJRM, so that could have been the one you are talking about. If that was it, it had been torn apart.

I don't think WABZ was using any equipment left over from the Piedmont-Crescent days when Radio One took it. I don't think Radio One would have wanted it anyway. I don't even think Radio One set foot in Albemarle when they bought the station from Susquehanna. I could be wrong. I left from there in 2000 from my full-time position. I'm back there now part-time and the old WABZ studio is now the main production room.

 

[NewsNow]

So the germ isn't using that gigantic RCA board anymore? Welcome to the 20th century!

WFAE had both a slider Centurian and a rotary pot Centurian. When I started there the rotary board was out of service. The slider board worked fine, except for blowing an occasional fuse.

The suit and tie thing is kind of funny, because when I talked to their deep voiced ops director before my interview, I pictured him in a suit and tie. When I got there, he was wearing a dead Elvis on tour t shirt.