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Wondering if anyone can shed any light on why 990 AM is no longer on the air in Muncie, and what happened to those six towers on St. Route 3 south. I was driving down route 3 Sunday for the first time in decades and noticed the towers must have been torn down. I was one of the original WERK dj's in the 60's (along with Bill Shirk, Tom Cochrun, Larry McCabe et al) and am curious what happened? ... THANKS... Big Joe London... WERK 67-69...
The station now WRFM is oldies. It was taken off the air last week in a storm. A drive to the church to find the problem is set for this week. The simulcast translator should be back on in the next week also. Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel
Tower Bill cut the towers down when a previous owner decided there was no room for Am in the cluster. The station is now on post Road in Muncie with a unipole antenna.
Larry McCabe still does liners for Bill Shirk's stations. I had a chat with Bettie Poorman the other day. I think it was her 80? birthday. She is still working. Bill says she is working driving people younger than her to their doctor's appointments.
Tom Cochrun is still in Indy somewhere. Bruce Munson is doing what now? He was a State Senator.
I think the towers were dismantled around 2000... Here's a question I've had for several years: Does ANYONE have pictures of the old WERK tower farm? I've got a friend who used to work there that's been trying to obtain some but can't seem to find any! This place was one-of-a-kind; 250 big watts through 6 towers - It looked like WIBC's site but with 1/200th of the power!
The site was built in 1962 according to the authorization instrument in the cabinet. This was 90 acres and had a creek and several springs within the tower farm. There were pictures that hung in Bill's office. I will ask him if he or Bettie have any left.
I only found out after the towers were cut in 1997 and we rebuilt with various temporary antennas until the current homebrew unipole was set. A wonderful place that "Tower Bill" maintained in his own style until the very end.
THANKS for the information. I was surprised not to see those towers when I drove down Route 3. I spent many a day in the studio building next to them. Don't usually see 6 towers together with only 250 watts daytimer, but that tower array with all that land out in the country (streams and all) was something special to see. In those pre FM days even with that low power and pattern the signal covered the Muncie and surrounding area quite well. WERK was a great little radio station, had on air personalties who all interacted well with each other, and the station was well received by the community. I always thought a lot of the Poorman's who started the thing and how Bill developed the on air sound that needed to compete with the out of town signals. In those days WOWO WCFL and WLS boomed into that area. And none of us who worked there will ever forget Cybil -- the receiptionist - office manager -- who was like a house mom to all of us. She kept us all in line, took no grief from any of us "kids" and we all loved her for it... CHIEF... when you speak to Mrs. Poorman see if she remembers the very tall dj who was there back in the beginning... and say hi for me.......... TNX..... Joe London...
Funny, but radio-locator.com still shows the 6-tower rig off Route 3, blasting 250 daytime watts due north... and a 6-tower night-time solo watt booming over several blocks of Southeast Muncie.
Great radio station, in it's day. Mr. London, are you by any chance still hanging around the radio business, 44 years later?
Funny, but radio-locator.com still shows the 6-tower rig off Route 3, blasting 250 daytime watts due north... and a 6-tower night-time solo watt booming over several blocks of Southeast Muncie.
Great radio station, in it's day.
Indeed a great radio station in the realy 70's...the airchecks I heard were light years beyond what you'd expect in a market that size. They say that WERK was audible in Michigan.
Funny, but radio-locator.com still shows the 6-tower rig off Route 3, blasting 250 daytime watts due north... and a 6-tower night-time solo watt booming over several blocks of Southeast Muncie.
Great radio station, in it's day. Mr. London, are you by any chance still hanging around the radio business, 44 years later?
radiolistener66... Thanks for asking. After stops in Louisville, North Carolina and Ohio I switched from fulltime radio to television engineering in 1981. Still at my first TV station (WXIX) after all these years. However I still do a little radio for the last five years -- thanks to the dreaded voice tracking -- for an oldies station in Cincinnati (WDJO) playing the same songs we did when they were newies. Its fun. Ironically its a stand along AM just like the "good ol" days. There aren't many left... Big Joe
Cybil and Annie were great in the front end and the whole operation was amazingly organized for a small station. AM was still king at the time of the early 70s. FM radios finally began to penetrate the market and after that their days were numbered.
The signal was even more fun during "testing sessions" after midnight. Phone calls from many states. The East null protecting Dayton was the main drawback in the pattern.
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