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WATR Sold

I somehow wound up on this detour board while looking for a WBRY history page, and reading the now-discontinued thread about WBRY / WTBY / WQQW. Fascinating memories from you folks.

I noticed just recently here about the WATR sale, plus some stuff from the NRMB, so figured to add a few things.

1. Hya Big John Libynski if you're still on the earie! Long time no dialogue!

2. Since first reading the WATR sale post, I had been wondering if they ever DID take ratings for Waterbury -- or if the four AM's there 'made the book's of Hartford or New Haven. But someone on that now-defunct site says they did. That survey might've been one from a company like Trendex, or Hooper, or Pulse. Anyone know?
All four of those AM stations (counting the Naugatock 1380) were signal-challenged. WBRY was directional day and night with the same pattern iIrc ; WWCO and WATR were 1000 at night, and WOWW 500 watts at night. But indeed -- there was a ratings battle at one time ?

3. WLNG 1600 would roar, daily, down Long Island Sound and be heard on I-95 in New Rochelle, Mamaoneck and the Bronx's own Pelham. Neither WTBY nor WWRL ever reached that spot. With that swell water path, WLNG's 500-watt AM signal probably covered more distance in any direction than their FM ever did.

4. It was likely around 1970's-ish when there popped up a construction permit for a new 1590 station -- in Port Chester NY. That locale was maybe 20 feet from Greenwich Connecticut. Again, mere memory suggests that the calls were supposed to be WNJZ. There couldn't've been any sensible place to send their unavoidably directional signal, so maybe they were grinning and twiddling their thumbs waiting for WWRL to buy them out even before 'WNJZ' hit the air. With both WWRL and Waterbury corsetting their 5000 watts away from each other, Port Chester was a reception void on 1590.

Anyway, that WBRY thread was really thought provoking and brought back lots of memories.
 
That Naugatuck station at 1380 was WNVR when I came to Connecticut in the '80s. Its most famous alumnus is probably Chris Berman, who made the move from that little station to the fledgling ESPN in nearby Bristol and became one of the network's stars. The station is now WFNW, with an "ethnic" format consisting primarily of Portuguese music. WNVR was a good-sounding adult contemporary station in the early '80s. It used to come in well in Meriden.
 
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