Well, I see the station of the year has been talked about. Here are some of my recollections.... First, the 1560 freq was chosen over 780 not because "1000 watts" sounded better than "500 watts" but because the owners (Duryea, Lester [a local attorney], and a third whom I can't remember) wanted the station to NOT be a Rochester station... they wanted it local. Which was fine, except that the pattern they did get had a severe null to the east (Rochester being 18 miles to the east), and what they didn't think about was that many people in Brockport area would commute east on Rt 31 TO and FROM Rochester, which meant that local peopel in their cars could not hear the signal well near work in Rochester. The broadcast pattern was designed to aim noth, with a smaller lobe to the south, and two small lobes to the east and west, but little to the east-southeast as 250-watter WCGR-1550-Canandaigua had to be protected. "WADD" stood for "add", with their logo with a W over the ADD. Slogan at the beginning was "The Big Plus". Salespeople were told to say it was "the Big Plus for your advertising dollar." And on the air, instead of saying "WADD" or Radio 1560", anncrs had to say "here on The Big Plus". Sounded pretty hokey. But that was at the beginning, and it was Rollie's idea for that slogan...straight out 1950's radio. - WADD signed on around February 1970. The first 2 years, it did pretty well, with a sizable spot load (including Duryea). But from 1972 onwards, the decline was gradual and steady.
The first GM was Roland Fowler. He was there before it started on the air, helping to set it up. He was an all around radio-guy who used to be known as "Jollie Rollie" at WNDR-1260 Syracuse. Jollie Rollie was the first morning man at WADD. Rollie, in his 50's had decided to leave jocking/managing/sales/engineering at bigger city stations to come work for a small local station. Sometime in the early 1970's he suffered a fatal heart attack. Middays was a leg-amputee veteran on-air named Jerry Hansen. Afternoon drive was Jerry Pirli. And Dave Saftel was full-time too, on the air (later in the 1980's-90's in Boston). Weekends was an always well-dressed Morris Levy who is now out west, but aging. After the demise of Jollie Rollie, GM's included Bob Yeager (of channel 10), Johnny Rapp (former DJ on WHEC-1460-Rochester), and Betty Beaney of Churchville, the latter not a radio person, but did well with what she had to work with. DJ's included myself (and PD for awhile), Jim Pasterick, Mark Giardina and Eric Hardenbrook. Jim also did a part-time gig at WKBW and the Lockport station (1340). Another notable DJ there was Larry Hunter who brought a very professional sound to the station in 1970, shoving away "the Big Plus" image; who had also been at WGR-550. And, therewas Dan Kelley as PD at one time; a former WHEC-1460 DJ who was very professional (he later went to a Louisville KY station). He saw the rise of FM, especially in a college town like Brockport, so he initiated a weekend program (12 noon to signoff) called "Realities" which was jockless, with only songs for 25 minutes each half hour, laced with LP tracks that no other AM station would play. It didn't catch on.
I don't ever recall locking myself out of the station, but I may very well have put cart labels on album cuts that were not for airplay. Remember it was a more conservative time.... and Lou Christie singing "making out in the rain" was not kosher.
WADD had a chance at scoring at the very beginning. Remember, at that time, Rochester had 6 AM's and 6 FM's... Let's see if I get this straight.... 680-WNYR, 950-WBBF, 1180-WHAM, 1280-WROC, 1370-WSAY, 1460-WHEC; WHFM, WROC-FM, WCMF, WNYR-FM(simulcast of AM daytimer), WVOR, (no WDKX yet), and one other.
The first two years, WADD did have an audience... not a big one, but usual for a small town station. It sounded best when Dan Kelley and Larry Hunter (real name Larry Howard, I think) were there. The problem is that there was such a huge turnover of management, DJ's and programming, typical of a tiny station. One encouraging thought..... it had a bigger audience that what it has today.
The format was chicken-rock.... most of the time in the early 70's. Probably part of the station's downward slide night have been the large playlist starting arounf 1972... 80 or 90 songs on the currents list. Too many... "Isn't Life Strange" by the Moody Blues was on it.... not a good AM hit-music-station record. This large list was an attempt to "play more music" than what the 2 top-40's in Rochester (WBBF and the new WAXC) were doing, and giving it an FM-feel.
And WADD did do remote broadcasts, quite a few of them, with some decent results... sometimes... WADD had a professional remote console, and we sometimes broadcasted from downtown Brockport during their summer saidewalk days or something like that. WADD's small cinderblock building up that long gravel straight road did house professional equipment, and in 1970-73 was far superior to college station WBSU-600 (carrier current). The station was set up quite well by Roland Fowler.... a neat, clean-looking place. One amusing note is that the old huge AP teletype ticker was actually IN the studio.... covered by a specially-made wooden large box that made it almost soundproof. WADD's news affiliate was Mutual. If you though WADD was on the edge of small-town station horrors, you should have heard Mutual then (1970-73).... sounder comes on then dead air....sound of distant door slamming...footsteps.... papers rustling... and then newscaster comes on 20 seconds after the sounder!
Come 1974 or 1975, there was a fire at the station, which destroyed a lot of it, and the studios were moved to the previously-unused basement. I imagine that it was from that point forward, and with the growth of FM, that there was no recovery for WADD in sight.
WADD had 3 towers, each 156' high, in a straight north-south line. Signal aiming for Lake Ontario just 11 miles to the north. I still have a photo of Jim Pasterick holding a coverage map with his hand gesture kind-of matching the shape of upside-down coverage map.... if you can imagine. - I imagine that if the FCC had granted nighttime flea-power earlier, WADD would have had a chance..... beaming away from everything, might have made WADD a good 24-hour station, even with just 5 watts.
If anyone enjoyed this missive, I'll write again about WSAY(never worked there, but I visited a few times) and others.
The first GM was Roland Fowler. He was there before it started on the air, helping to set it up. He was an all around radio-guy who used to be known as "Jollie Rollie" at WNDR-1260 Syracuse. Jollie Rollie was the first morning man at WADD. Rollie, in his 50's had decided to leave jocking/managing/sales/engineering at bigger city stations to come work for a small local station. Sometime in the early 1970's he suffered a fatal heart attack. Middays was a leg-amputee veteran on-air named Jerry Hansen. Afternoon drive was Jerry Pirli. And Dave Saftel was full-time too, on the air (later in the 1980's-90's in Boston). Weekends was an always well-dressed Morris Levy who is now out west, but aging. After the demise of Jollie Rollie, GM's included Bob Yeager (of channel 10), Johnny Rapp (former DJ on WHEC-1460-Rochester), and Betty Beaney of Churchville, the latter not a radio person, but did well with what she had to work with. DJ's included myself (and PD for awhile), Jim Pasterick, Mark Giardina and Eric Hardenbrook. Jim also did a part-time gig at WKBW and the Lockport station (1340). Another notable DJ there was Larry Hunter who brought a very professional sound to the station in 1970, shoving away "the Big Plus" image; who had also been at WGR-550. And, therewas Dan Kelley as PD at one time; a former WHEC-1460 DJ who was very professional (he later went to a Louisville KY station). He saw the rise of FM, especially in a college town like Brockport, so he initiated a weekend program (12 noon to signoff) called "Realities" which was jockless, with only songs for 25 minutes each half hour, laced with LP tracks that no other AM station would play. It didn't catch on.
I don't ever recall locking myself out of the station, but I may very well have put cart labels on album cuts that were not for airplay. Remember it was a more conservative time.... and Lou Christie singing "making out in the rain" was not kosher.
WADD had a chance at scoring at the very beginning. Remember, at that time, Rochester had 6 AM's and 6 FM's... Let's see if I get this straight.... 680-WNYR, 950-WBBF, 1180-WHAM, 1280-WROC, 1370-WSAY, 1460-WHEC; WHFM, WROC-FM, WCMF, WNYR-FM(simulcast of AM daytimer), WVOR, (no WDKX yet), and one other.
The first two years, WADD did have an audience... not a big one, but usual for a small town station. It sounded best when Dan Kelley and Larry Hunter (real name Larry Howard, I think) were there. The problem is that there was such a huge turnover of management, DJ's and programming, typical of a tiny station. One encouraging thought..... it had a bigger audience that what it has today.
The format was chicken-rock.... most of the time in the early 70's. Probably part of the station's downward slide night have been the large playlist starting arounf 1972... 80 or 90 songs on the currents list. Too many... "Isn't Life Strange" by the Moody Blues was on it.... not a good AM hit-music-station record. This large list was an attempt to "play more music" than what the 2 top-40's in Rochester (WBBF and the new WAXC) were doing, and giving it an FM-feel.
And WADD did do remote broadcasts, quite a few of them, with some decent results... sometimes... WADD had a professional remote console, and we sometimes broadcasted from downtown Brockport during their summer saidewalk days or something like that. WADD's small cinderblock building up that long gravel straight road did house professional equipment, and in 1970-73 was far superior to college station WBSU-600 (carrier current). The station was set up quite well by Roland Fowler.... a neat, clean-looking place. One amusing note is that the old huge AP teletype ticker was actually IN the studio.... covered by a specially-made wooden large box that made it almost soundproof. WADD's news affiliate was Mutual. If you though WADD was on the edge of small-town station horrors, you should have heard Mutual then (1970-73).... sounder comes on then dead air....sound of distant door slamming...footsteps.... papers rustling... and then newscaster comes on 20 seconds after the sounder!
Come 1974 or 1975, there was a fire at the station, which destroyed a lot of it, and the studios were moved to the previously-unused basement. I imagine that it was from that point forward, and with the growth of FM, that there was no recovery for WADD in sight.
WADD had 3 towers, each 156' high, in a straight north-south line. Signal aiming for Lake Ontario just 11 miles to the north. I still have a photo of Jim Pasterick holding a coverage map with his hand gesture kind-of matching the shape of upside-down coverage map.... if you can imagine. - I imagine that if the FCC had granted nighttime flea-power earlier, WADD would have had a chance..... beaming away from everything, might have made WADD a good 24-hour station, even with just 5 watts.
If anyone enjoyed this missive, I'll write again about WSAY(never worked there, but I visited a few times) and others.
