Great story WTF; was just what I was looking for. Thanks!
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
waso
- Thread starter cough
- Start date
In hunting around for the original T-P story, I ran across an archived radio trade report from the week after Katrina. It is interesting to look back upon all of the well-intentioned activity and wonder...
http://www.rwonline.com/dailynews/show_issue.cgi?year=2005&month=9&week=36
http://www.rwonline.com/dailynews/show_issue.cgi?year=2005&month=9&week=36
Perhaps one of you could better inform this outsider as to this Namer character and what he did to get the feds to gut his stuido/xmiter.
It's good to see someone had the resources and talent to pump life into a dead station in the wake of a natural disaster such as Katrina. Kudos to the Doc.
It's good to see someone had the resources and talent to pump life into a dead station in the wake of a natural disaster such as Katrina. Kudos to the Doc.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASO_(AM)
Robert Namer, a conservative talk show host who launched the station after he left WTIX AM.
In 2005, the FCC transferred control of the license to the receiver liquidating the assets of America First Communications to satisfy a court judgement[2][3] and the station went silent pending its possible sale.[4]
The judgement was the result of non-payment of a $3 million award from a lawsuit brought and won by the Federal Trade Commission in 1991. The FTC brought the action and won at trial claiming "Namer and NBC [National Business Consultants] made numerous material misrepresentations to potential franchisees, made unsupported earnings claims, failed to provide required supporting documentation, and failed to make required disclosures.". That judgment was appealed and affirmed by the Fifth Circuit US Appeals Court in 2004.[5]
Robert Namer, a conservative talk show host who launched the station after he left WTIX AM.
In 2005, the FCC transferred control of the license to the receiver liquidating the assets of America First Communications to satisfy a court judgement[2][3] and the station went silent pending its possible sale.[4]
The judgement was the result of non-payment of a $3 million award from a lawsuit brought and won by the Federal Trade Commission in 1991. The FTC brought the action and won at trial claiming "Namer and NBC [National Business Consultants] made numerous material misrepresentations to potential franchisees, made unsupported earnings claims, failed to provide required supporting documentation, and failed to make required disclosures.". That judgment was appealed and affirmed by the Fifth Circuit US Appeals Court in 2004.[5]
there still is a "home town station up here in Amite City, WABL 1570 with the rural slant,,
and we still have Swap Shop on WFPR...
way back in the 60s I remember a local famous DJ on one of the local stations doing a commercial for a home town meat market.. and yes even though it is and age old joke I heard him utter the lines" you can beat their prices , but you can't beat ****** ****. needless to say . he was OTA for a few days...
and we still have Swap Shop on WFPR...
way back in the 60s I remember a local famous DJ on one of the local stations doing a commercial for a home town meat market.. and yes even though it is and age old joke I heard him utter the lines" you can beat their prices , but you can't beat ****** ****. needless to say . he was OTA for a few days...
MikeSFNM said:Time has not been good to the little town stations surrounding New Orleans. KAGY 1510 Port Sulphur, another daytimer, is gone, its last years a fundamentalist station until Katrina destroyed the transmitter and most of Plaquemines Parish; KLEB 1600 Golden Meadow originally, still serves the community with a fine signal that goes all the way into New Orleans. WFPR in Hammond is pretty much oriented to the bedroom community that serves Baton Rouge. WFCG Franklinton, near the Mississippi line, along with its FM, targets the trans-lake bedroom community, too. WSDL Slidell, on the eastern end of the lake, targets New Orleans now. Only the two Bogalusa AM's seem to have so far retained their small-town flavor and service, for Bogalusa is off the Interstate system, much to its unhappiness, and continues to be a small Southern paper-mill and market town, perched on the Pearl River almost in the corner of the Florida Parishes. When I was young, the owner of one the stations was financially run out of town when he editorialized against racism. His advertisers were warned to cancel their advertising and those who did not were intimidated into doing so. The story got national coverage.
The news of the destruction of the WARB/WASO tower is sad. I hope it does not mean that the station is gone for good.
Bogalusa, did some time there at WIKC.station was awesome in the early 60's with Ron Hunter, Bob Mitchell among others.also got to do duty at WFPR.station was by the railroad tracks in the guaranty bank bldg.(Pal Al worked there,too)needless to say everytime you got into a newscast,that darn train would blow the whistle and man could you hear it on the air.I stopped in the middle of a newscast and said"would somebody open the door and let the train in".But radio was more loose and fun back then.We now refer to Bogalusa as the "last stop on the Stephen King Horror Tour".Ray Fisher
I apologize in advance if anyone is offended that I am "bumping" such an old topic, but my kids were asking me about Hurricane Katrina and I told them about my role at WASO during the time. I searched for some info online and found this forum.
I'm Tim Harris, former broadcast technician at Access St. Tammany Channel 10 in St. Tammany Parish. Most of what has been written here about Dr. Pittman's role is correct... he did help get the station on the air again, he did provide the generator and the playback equipment for the CD's I recorded each day. I knew nothing about operating a radio station, which was OK, cause all I had to do was manage the content, record the CD, drive up to the station, put the CD on, and hit "play." In fact, after the station was brought back online, all that really needed to be done was to keep the generator running. It was rigged-up pretty good, but it was efficient enough for our purposes.
With our cable station down there wasn't much for us to do (myself, Danny Zechenelly and Champ Reavis), so we helped out whatever departments needed help. We answered phones, shot archival footage. Really we were trying to keep as busy as possible because, as you can imagine, it was a very depressing time to be in southeast Louisiana. When my boss gave me the opportunity to, essentially, be program director for a radio station... I jumped at the chance. Through the efforts of Suzanne Parsons-Stymiest, Ken Burkhalter and others, we were able to get interviews with Bobby Jindal, David Vitter, and many other people from local government, FEMA, the Red Cross and others. I'm happy I was able to be a part of that. Most nights there was about 30 minutes of "news" content, and I'd often add about an equal amount of music as well... whatever I felt like playing at the time. People seemed to enjoy it. I tried to keep the broadcast as light-hearted as possible, I even had a "disco night". ;D
I left the area in 2007 for St. Louis, and it saddens me that the WASO tower is no more. I'll always remember it though. Anyway, I've rambled on enough. I just saw this thread and thought I'd add a bit to the story.
I'm Tim Harris, former broadcast technician at Access St. Tammany Channel 10 in St. Tammany Parish. Most of what has been written here about Dr. Pittman's role is correct... he did help get the station on the air again, he did provide the generator and the playback equipment for the CD's I recorded each day. I knew nothing about operating a radio station, which was OK, cause all I had to do was manage the content, record the CD, drive up to the station, put the CD on, and hit "play." In fact, after the station was brought back online, all that really needed to be done was to keep the generator running. It was rigged-up pretty good, but it was efficient enough for our purposes.
With our cable station down there wasn't much for us to do (myself, Danny Zechenelly and Champ Reavis), so we helped out whatever departments needed help. We answered phones, shot archival footage. Really we were trying to keep as busy as possible because, as you can imagine, it was a very depressing time to be in southeast Louisiana. When my boss gave me the opportunity to, essentially, be program director for a radio station... I jumped at the chance. Through the efforts of Suzanne Parsons-Stymiest, Ken Burkhalter and others, we were able to get interviews with Bobby Jindal, David Vitter, and many other people from local government, FEMA, the Red Cross and others. I'm happy I was able to be a part of that. Most nights there was about 30 minutes of "news" content, and I'd often add about an equal amount of music as well... whatever I felt like playing at the time. People seemed to enjoy it. I tried to keep the broadcast as light-hearted as possible, I even had a "disco night". ;D
I left the area in 2007 for St. Louis, and it saddens me that the WASO tower is no more. I'll always remember it though. Anyway, I've rambled on enough. I just saw this thread and thought I'd add a bit to the story.
- Status
- This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.