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WABH, Deerfield

B

b-turner

I had asked about the station. This was before it sold and relocated to Churchville. Ralph owned the station and I spoke to him many years bck but all he wanted to talk about was the Christian music the new owners played (Ralph was not a fan) and how they aired ministries back to back, which he disliked. Ralph felt you needed a few minutes of soft Christian music to 'digest' what they heard befor the next ministry aired.

I understand they were country and I understand bluegrass and Southern Gospel got some play.

The guy that responded refered to Ralph as rather portly, usually in overalls. It seems the building by the station was where a Saturday night dance happened (hosted by the station).

ABH in the call letters stood for Augusta, Bath and Highland counties, supposedly the coverage area. Bath County was never more than 5,000 people and Highland County always below 2,500. Deerfield aways was tiny, about 250 at it's peak.

The guy that responded might respond again as he worked the station.

There was just not much there as far as potential advertisers went. I think eastern Augusta County listened and advertised on local stations. If the signal made it over the mountains to Bath and Highland Counties, it seems he likely had few ads. Can anyone clue me in on what the commercial load was?

Back then, the biggest towns in Bath County were about 250 then and the biggest town in Highland County was about 150. This is a very rural area. North, Churchville was about 350 but had a few businesses. Not too far east is a town of almost 1,000 then, Craigsville, that actaully had a new car dealership and a couple of banks.

Looking at the newspaper for Bath and Highland Counties seemed to indicate locals drove south to the bigger towns for things they could not buy locally versus coming over the mountain to shop in Augusta County.

Can anyone fill me in on what the commercial load was like and I'd love to know more about the music played.

Thank you!
 
1380wabh.com

1380 WABH

WABH-AM is a radio station located in Bath, New York in the the United States. The station broadcasts on 1380, and is popularly known as 1380 WABH. The station is owned by Tower Broadcasting, LLC and offers a Country format.
1380wabh.com 1380wabh.com
This site has a similar layout to another station recently reported on up here, WWGP. Will investigate further, ASAP.
 
The WABH call letters change with the sale of the station in the early 1990s. I'm not mistaking it for a station elsewhere. I had the chance to hear it because my dad tried to sell new pews to churches and he made a pitch in Deerfield on a Saturday. Whenever I could go with him I really enjoyed following along on the highway map. I was just too young to give it much thought.
 
Josh Owens said:
1380wabh.com

1380 WABH

WABH-AM is a radio station located in Bath, New York in the the United States. The station broadcasts on 1380, and is popularly known as 1380 WABH. The station is owned by Tower Broadcasting, LLC and offers a Country format.
1380wabh.com 1380wabh.com
This site has a similar layout to another station recently reported on up here, WWGP. Will investigate further, ASAP.
Click to expand...

not really that close of a lay out and no need to "investigate" they use the same website template company
 
b-turner said:
The WABH call letters change with the sale of the station in the early 1990s. I'm not mistaking it for a station elsewhere. I had the chance to hear it because my dad tried to sell new pews to churches and he made a pitch in Deerfield on a Saturday. Whenever I could go with him I really enjoyed following along on the highway map. I was just too young to give it much thought.
Click to expand...


OOPS, sorry for the wrong station, should-a-investigated a little further. Great followup story though, in'er'stin'. Rainesville Pew Company is who does (and has) ours, right now, refinishing them and matching them up, for the new building.
www.wnlr1150.com

WNLR AM 1150-New Life Radio- Local Christian Radio Serving the Shenandoah Valley Since 1981- - Home -WBTX & WNLR Partnership!

New page
www.wnlr1150.com www.wnlr1150.com
 
WNLR is what became of WABH and as I recall they have struggled, first as a commercial station and now as pretty much listener support.

I'm looking for any memories of commercial load and format from WABH when Ralph Hamilton owned the station.
 
I don't think @b-turner is referring to the current WABH in Bath, NY--the counties he list don't match up. What does match up, however, is Churchville, Craigsville, and Deerfield, VA, all currently in Augusta County which is located somewhere between Lexington and Harrisonburg, VA. Virginia also does have a Highland County, though I think that may be a little east. None of the towns @b-turner mentions have radio stations currently licensed to them but that doesn't mean that one of them may have had one in the past. As @b-turner notes, this is a very rural and sparsely populated area of the state so any radio stations that had been licensed in the past to any of these three towns certainly would have had trouble surviving.

But, of course, I'm guessing here as @b-turner does not name the state these three towns are located in in his original post.

Oops! I wrote my response before seeing Josh's post and remembering that Churchville (just outside of Staunton) does have an AM outlet, WNLR at 1150 kHz, though I thought I'd seen a note on this Board from last year saying that the current owner was threatening to cancel the license because he was having difficulty locating businesses willing to advertise on the station. I'll have to look that one up through either Google or Startsearch.
 
Last edited:
Okay. I found a couple of things here. First, Wikipedia's entry on WNLR:

en.wikipedia.org

WNLR - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org


which appears to be one of the more accurate radio station profiles it has. There is also a note in a Google groups (I didn't check to see who made it) about the station when it was known as WABH that confirms some of the information on the Wikipedia page:

Deerfield Abandoned Transmitter Site

groups.google.com groups.google.com


And that's all I could find at the moment.
 
I gathered from talking to Ralph Hamilton the emphasis was on Deerfield and Churchville westward to Highland County (Monterey is county seat) and Bath County which is more souhwest (Warm Springs, Millsboro and Hot Springs the major towns). In Augusta County Craigsville, Buffalo Gap, Auguata Springs. Goshen in Rockbridge County. I gathered this was his programming and advertising emphsis.

If you remember the more rural stations, they had all the small businesses on. The little country store spent maybe $20-$30 a month for a spot or two weekdays. A cement company might sponsor the time and temperature. There are plenty of tiny villages of a dozen or so homes that had a store. I knew one station in a very rural locale. A bank sponsored every time check (8 an hour) for $125 a month (all they got was a name mention). An insurance company bought an hourly weather forecast for $50 monthly and a flooring store bought the 2nd forecast of the hour They got a 10 scond spot. There were a bunch of stores, some offering lunch, some a meat counter, others selling feed, in every dot on the map and they almost all bought. I'm guessing a small town station might have done $3,000 a month but I suspect for WABH, it was the dances that likely kept the station afloat. Keep in mind minimum wage was low and expenses 55 years ago were maybe 15% of today.
 


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