WASB 1590 AM

[Mark Giardina]

What was the origional non-DA AM frequency for which the station SHOULD have applied? I heard it was 720 {WGN} or 830 {WCCO}.

Don't quote me, but I heard that someone, perhaps a media consultant, advised the first owner of the station to go for the 720 frequency because it would cover a wider area both day and night.

However the owner decided against 720 AM because it was at a lower wattage than in the 1560/1590 spectrum and didn't realize (or understand) that the while the wattage was higher, the pattern was directional and just fed the fish in Lake Ontario.

 

[Savage]

The engineer advising the Duryeas on 720 kHz must have been using data from the era when CJRN was still on 1600 kHz. Between CBL on 740 and CJRN 710 a Brockport 720 would have been massively restricted.

Certainly there couldn't have been any nighttime available to Brockport on 720 due to WGN.

Hang on - just pulled my yellowed "Partial AM Search" for an originally-defined new station to be licensed to Scottsville, NY, by engineer Ken Larkin, dated October 1985. We looked at 720, 890 and 1030 kHz. The conclusion was that only 1030 would work. The plan was later morphed to 1030 in Avon to give us a comparative advantage to the 80-90 allocation for 93.3 mHz in Avon when the filing window opened.

We originally planned to file for 4.5kw on 1030 but learned through a well-placed source that WBZ was planning to file an objection which could have tied our app up for years. We strategized to file initially for 500 watts so avoid even a remote possibility of overlap with Boston's 0.1 mV/m daytime, then once on the air, filed for an immediate increase. We built the station for 1kw but simply ran it at 0.5kw for the first eight months of operation. As noted in the WYSL thread, we applied for the increase 2 weeks after the station went on the air.

 

[JIBGUY]

Hearing some of the tales of WJBT, etc., amazing.

BTW, how many call signs did that place have and what was the origional non-DA AM frequency for which the station SHOULD have applied? I heard it was 720 {WGN} or 830 {WCCO}.

I heard it was 780. And 790 may have worked too. I'm sure they could have had 500 watts days on 780. I can't think of any other stations that would have prohibited a 780 or 790 move.

Was it true that WJBT was manged by JaBba, the HutT? So, what what did the J really stand for in 'WJBT"?

I remember when money was needed, WADD signed up with that "Safety Spot" agency in Chicago. Announcers read those live, often 20 times an hour. One of them was for a trash collection service, and the text at the end of it was "serving the Town of Perinton only". WADD's signal didn't have a prayer of putting even a 0.005 mv/m signal into Perinton.

You may be amused by the fact that I chose the callsign "WWBK" for a station I briefly owned in BrunswicK, Maine (900 AM). Then afterwards, I realized that WWBK was used on 1560 (or 1590?). To remove the curse on the Maine station, I changed it (for the new owner I sold the station to) to the newly-available WCME, which stands for Coast of MainE. Meanwhile, my other two stations (one in Maine, the other in Cambridge Mass) both start with WJ-- , and neither look like, sound like anything 1560/1590 ever had.

W-ADD: The "Big Plus" in your advertising dollar..... That was the well used slogan in 1970, it's birthyear. BirthDAY was April 1st. Can you believe it? DJ's in 1970 were told not to use "WADD" nor "1560", but always to use "The Big Plus" between every record. "It's 3:45 PM here at The Big Plus". "Here's a new group called 'The Carpenters', singing 'Close To You' here on The Big Plus". Big Plus weather....."

1971 saw some REALLY GOOD talent on WADD.... Larry Hunter, Tom Griffiths, Dan Kelly... made WADD a friendly major market sound. - 1970: Roland (Rollie) Fowler (seasoned radio guy from Syracuse) was on air from day one. I think he passed away while being GM at WADD. Other WADDites included Dave Saftel and Jerry Pirli. And I still can't think of the last name of that guy who was on WADD (his first radio job), and was snapped up by WHAM in his 5th month at WADD.

I'll be coming thru Rochester in late June. My first in-car DXing will be to hear Legends, which this board has talked about, and also to to pick up 1040. While on I-90, I'll try to pick up the hum on 1590. (Sorry Savage, didn't mean to put 1590 and 1040 in the same paragraph!).

 

[Savage]

Rotsa Ruck getting 1590 on the Thruway. It's hard to hear it in Stone Church. Feel free to enjoy the massive 1-0-4-0, but we're restricted towards Toronto to protect CHUM first-adjacent, so west-northwest isn't our strong suit as you head towards Batavia.

I don't think 780 would have worked for Brockport and 790 certainly wouldn't have...there's 1kw nondirectional WLSV Wellsville on 790 and there's 800 in Belleville, ON.

 

[Bob1370]

Quoth Bob Savage..."I don't think 780 would have worked for Brockport and 790 certainly wouldn't have...there's 1kw nondirectional WLSV Wellsville on 790 and there's 800 in Belleville, ON."

I doubt the station then known as WWNY, now known as WTNY, in Watertown (790, 1 kW-U, DA-N) would have been thrilled either. They'd certainly have cut up about 790 and might have had a problem with 780 as well.

BTW, Bob, how's the 1220 project going?

 

[JIBGUY]

770 would have worked. 500 watts on 770? Would have been great until an hour or two before sunset.... or at least the same as it did on 1560 with WQXR bombing in.
"SEVenty-SEVen, Double-U A B Ceeeeeeeeee"
"SEVenty-SEVen, Double-U A D Deeeeeeeeee"

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Ironically, WADD with 1 kw on 1560 kHz could be heard in Watertown on a good day. Bizzare. Couldn't hear the station ten miles east on Rt. 31, but it got into Watertown. In a way, the signal reminds me of WNED-AM 970, a much better station and one that I enjoy listening to. Drive north-south on Transit Road in Lancaster-Depew and you'll go through at least four serious nulls, but check the station out in Lewiston or on a line due north of it's five tower array on Rogers Road in Hamburg and WNED-AM is a flamethrower! Unfortunately for WADD, the only part of its signal that qualified for flamethrower status fell over Lake Ontario. Oh yeah, Oshawa got a great signal too. Eh? Shoulda put the towers in Bergen or Batavia! Amusing isn't it that we're talking about a station that had a half life of an isotope of Darmstadtium. Okay, maybe Cobalt.

 

[Savage]

There is now a 13kw daytimer on 770 in Youngstown north of Buffalo, WTOR. It's a highly directional (to protect WABC) Sima Birach station aiming brokered ethnic and religion across the Lake towards Toronto, hence the callsign. The station has no presunrise or postsunset authority - meaning it signs on in the winter as late as 7:45am local time and it would have to sign off in December at 4:30pm. One supposes this would also work in Brockport albeit at a considerably lower power level today, but wouldn't offer any practical advantage over the original 1560 daytimer. WQXR or WABC...hard to say which would deliver more harmful skywave during critical hours.

In any case 770 never would have been permitted under the allocations rules as they existed in 1969 - 1970.

Actually - I know this will raise eyebrows - the 1590 DA-2, if properly maintained, could have been Brockport's best shot at having a viable LOCAL (read: not Rochester) station. The information I've gotten over the years indicates that the directional system was never taken care of, nor was the transmitting plant ever restored which was badly damaged by the fire and flooding of the basement after utility power was cut off for nonpayment.

A contract engineer who once worked on WASB related to me that he wanted to check field strengths and monitor points to get the DA-2 tuned up and the signal improved. There was a slight problem. The station didn't have a copy of its own license, so without phase/loop parameters and monitor point descriptions the engineer couldn't tell whether the array was working. WASB's manager didn't want to contact the FCC to ask for a replacement copy of the license (this was in the pre-internet days.) Nobody knows when the last time any actual measurements had been done on the antenna system.

IIRC the station also lacked operating base current meters or phase monitor, and couldn't afford replacements.
It's amazing it's been permitted to continue in this condition for years. I presume the Commission's thinking is, if it isn't generating interference complaints, we'll ignore it - at least it's providing some minimal kind of community service. If we put the hammer down the licensee will just give up and take it dark.

 

[Mark Giardina]

It's amazing it's been permitted to continue in this condition for years. I presume the Commission's thinking is, if it isn't generating interference complaints, we'll ignore it - at least it's providing some minimal kind of community service. If we put the hammer down the licensee will just give up and take it dark.

WASB would probably have more listeners if it went dark.

 

[cee]

WASB would probably have more listeners if it went dark.

Or as Howard Stern once said about WMCA "you'd have more listeners if you yell out the window"

 

[qman]

The cats on the property wouldn't know how to handle themselves LOL

 

[Mark Giardina]

All kidding aside for a moment but does anyone actually work at this station or is this just a latch-key operation?

Sorry but I can't pick up 1590 here in Webster. Not that I would have the station pre-set on my car radio to begin with. I thought maybe someone who lives a mile from the station, and could actually hear it, might know the answer to my question.

 

[audio4tv]

Re: My favorite WWBK Brockport Story

My other WWBK story is about a guy named Mike Goosens who helped me get work there. Goose went to work one Sunday AM, and when he unlocked the front door, he nearly stepped into the basement. The station had burned down the day before. He ran to a payphone to call the owner, who, of course, knew the station had burned. No one called him to tell him not to come to work at sign on Sunday AM.

At one time, we were thinking of calling it Mike radio, as one day, all of the on the air staff had first names of "Mike", including Doyle, Goose, and me. I remember when the station went on the air, hearing Bob Bitner and all, in the WADD days. The station really did a nice job serving the community at the area in the WADD era. I started working at the station in high school, and then into college. Glen Garmen hired me to do fill ins and weekend board op stuff. (I just loved the Mets and the Jays, the worst teams in baseball at the time). The calls were WWBK at the time. Duane Schepler was the news director (last time I heard he was a tech at WROC-TV). Don Fuller was the GM, and really was the "Big Guy" in terms of the way he acted. WWBK was WKRP. Jay Stevens was also working at the station at the time, as well, before becoming the "Moon Child" on WHFM. Tom Sanfillipo (Tom Scott) was also on the air. Gary Arnold was the engineer, who I heard had passed away. Too many funny stories. Skunks on the porch, not letting anyone get in the building, Glen walking off the air, playing Take This Job and Shove It, and yes, the snakes in the transmitter room. They did keep the mice out of the station. And there were mice everywhere, in the audio console, typewriters, transmitter, phasor, you name it, there were mice. They also had a news reporter, Debbie Burns, whose husband was in charge of WRHR (WBER) at that time. If Les Nesman had a sister..... When the owners bought Don out and sold the station (Frank Penny and Warren Haas from Owego), they sold it to 4 guys from DC, including on air personality Jerry Clark. Somone asked what the call sign stood for, WJBT. The BT was Brockport, but the intials were in all there names. J was for both John and Jerry, I believe. I think there was Thomas and a William, if memory serves me. The GM they hired was one Barry Rimler, from Alabama. The first day he arrived, in winter, down that long, driveway, in a white Corvette. He gets out wearing a cowboy hat, boots, and a sheepskin jacket. He later moved on to WBBF doing sales, so I was told. Interesting place. The last time I was in the door of the place was in 1982. I was out that way a couple of weeks ago, and I would agree, based on what I saw from route 31, the FCC will have a field day with the place. Too bad, considering what it once was....

 

[qman]

I don't have the quote feature on my cell but, in answer to Mark Giarfina's question, there is ZERO payroll @ WA SB. The secretary at the Baptist Church on Lyell Road is the lone board op/announcer who only comes in to engineer whatever live programming airs. Otherwise, the computer runs music and pre-recorded programming. A guy named Ken is their "chief engineer" (notice I use quotes). I doubt anyone takes meter readings all day any day. What Ken's function is, besides add more music in the computer, is anybody's guess.

 

[yugoidar]

What ever happened to GM Don Fuller? Doesn't anyone have a clue?

 

[Kohoutek]

Does anyone recall whether WASB's site is actually in the Village of Brockport - of the Town of Sweden?

Town of Sweden

 

[qman]

I concur! It's in Sweden

 

[qman]

oops it's Giardina. Sorry. I used the WORD function on my cell and it doesn't recognize surnames and I didn't double check before posting.

 

[MikeBarnes]

Bob Savage you are one of the great hall of famers in Rochester Radio from WHEC to WYSL

hey I was a teenager living in Spencerport back in the 70's i used to listen to WADD, (WJBT,WWBK, WASB)
even WBTF in Batavia...and used to scan the PM airwaves CKLW, WABC, CHUM, WLS & WCFL for that big city METRO sound......
Most of all , I found the whole concept of small town radio interesting . I actually applied for an on the air job back in' 74 never heard a word......just as well although they cliaim WKRP was really a spoof of WQXI
in Atlanta (GA not NY) sounds like WADD or whichever calls you chjoose was the real deal..snakes, rats and all.........

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

A nearly two year old thread about WADD/WJBT/WASB rises from the ashes. Cue violins from Psycho or Tubular Bells or Dueling Banjos, all on grey Fidelipac.