Was in Syracuse the other day and while waiting in the Bon Ton parking lot at Carousel I flipped around and listened to this pathetic near simulcasting of WOR. Too bad their last experiment with trying to be local didn't work out because now they are all syndicated. Rochester has WYSL, Albany has WROW, Buffalo has both WLVL and now WECK, but what does Syracuse have for the alternative? Nada!
-
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
WFBL
- Thread starter dustintv
- Start date
Yeah? No kidding there. But what a great signal they have. Probably aside from 570 and 620 one of the best around huh? Do they still have a big tower off of the truway on Carrier Circle? That used to be a nice looking tower there. I used to like to listen to WFBL1390 when we would pass through town. Are they really playing WOR? IF you had that station what else could you do? I don't know really what can you do with AM? Do they still have that rigatta there?
C
CNYRadio.com
Guest
They're a near simulcast of WOR because they're owned by the same parent company as WOR, Buckley Broadcasting.
But that'll change as of Monday. Details on the upcoming format flip are on the front page at CNYRadio.com
(To many, it's not news... rumors have been flying for awhile, but it wasn't until now that we had enough solid confirmation to publish it.)
But that'll change as of Monday. Details on the upcoming format flip are on the front page at CNYRadio.com
(To many, it's not news... rumors have been flying for awhile, but it wasn't until now that we had enough solid confirmation to publish it.)
Holy crap..You sayin there will be oldies? Real oldie music huh? WOW..that would be great while we're driving east to west on the thruway. Bill and I have a whole bunch of van deliveries in the books for the Spring. Will they have jingles? Will there be good deejays? Will they play good music or junk? I like the Shirelles, and Lesile Gore..and the Tokens. Bill wants more songs like the Outsiders, and Buddy Holy, and the Fleetwoods, and the Duprees. He once met a Dupree at a little restaruant in Somerset, NJ one night late after a "gig" at a hotel lounge. He said he got an autograph but I don't bellieve it was really the Dupree's signiture on the picture I think Bill wrote on it himself.
Now when is this gonna happen. Monday we will be going from Troy to Montour Falls with a Sprinter chassis going to a glass company. Will we be able to hear it most of the way? Holy crap this is good. I love this kind of crap. Who else knows about this?
thank you
howard
Now when is this gonna happen. Monday we will be going from Troy to Montour Falls with a Sprinter chassis going to a glass company. Will we be able to hear it most of the way? Holy crap this is good. I love this kind of crap. Who else knows about this?
thank you
howard
This is indeed most interesting. I think it's great that somoene is trying to breathe new life into an AM station. I wish them the best in this new venture.
I am just wondering what will become of AM 1050. For years, it's been a simulcast of WSEN-FM. While it is kind of a novelty to be able to hear 60s and 70s gold on an AM station, it does seem like a waste of a 2500 watt daytime signal. Perhaps they could relocate the WOR talk format there. They should really do something other than simulcast FM.
I am just wondering what will become of AM 1050. For years, it's been a simulcast of WSEN-FM. While it is kind of a novelty to be able to hear 60s and 70s gold on an AM station, it does seem like a waste of a 2500 watt daytime signal. Perhaps they could relocate the WOR talk format there. They should really do something other than simulcast FM.
What about echo? DO you think they will have echo? Man that woul be like WABC huh? Or WAPE. Did you ever hear of that station down in Florida? Man they were so big on the 70's. My papa would take us all to the beach in Daytona because you can drive your car on the beach and Papa was afraid that teenagers would steal his car if he couldn't see it. But WAPE69 came in strong all right and wow were they loud. Mom would tell me to turn it sown or the radio will melt! HAAAH. Music doesn't sound as good to me except on AM especially oldies msuic. WHen is Monday? What are they going to do on weekends? A countdown or something? Who else knows about this? Is Don Bombard coming back?
C
CNYRadio.com
Guest
Hello. All we know about the format flip is what we've posted. If you didn't visit the website after the earlier post, here's a direct link to our article: http://www.cnyradio.com/2008/04/01/wsen-wfbl-to-flip-formats/
In a nutshell:
WFBL - 50s and 60s
WSEN - Late 60s to mid 80s.
WSEN AM and FM will still be simulcasting. Buckley is not keeping a talk format on the air in Syracuse, as evidenced by the fact that WSYR is already promoting Michael Savage for its own weeknight lineup effective Monday.
In a nutshell:
WFBL - 50s and 60s
WSEN - Late 60s to mid 80s.
WSEN AM and FM will still be simulcasting. Buckley is not keeping a talk format on the air in Syracuse, as evidenced by the fact that WSYR is already promoting Michael Savage for its own weeknight lineup effective Monday.
Hey thank you for that link. It worked. Nothing else to report? wow. Bill and i are setting up to go this weekend to Erie, PA. Can you pickkup 1390 there? We will be driving back on monday from Sayre, PA to Watertown with an F550 truck that is supposed to go to some cable TV company there so you can bet for sure that we'll listen. About where can you get it on the truway when coming from Buffalo. Can you hear it at all near Rochester? They have a really good hot dog place there. We always go there for hot dogs.
thank you
howard
PS do you think they will have a lot of echo? I think that sounds cool. Echo is so cool. I have echo on my CB mike.
thank you
howard
PS do you think they will have a lot of echo? I think that sounds cool. Echo is so cool. I have echo on my CB mike.
What about echo? DO you think they will have echo?
Yes, there will be reverb. But as far as sounding like WABC or WAPE, maybe that's asking bit too much.
Yes, there will be reverb. But as far as sounding like WABC or WAPE, maybe that's asking bit too much.
Is reverb the same as echo? I know it won't be WABCMUSICRDIO but it would be neat to hear the echo anyway. Thank you so much for telling me that about the reverb. You know this could be a new thing for radio stations that don;t know what else to do huh? Petty cool if you ask me (but nobody did i guess) I'm sorry I'm just really excitd about this. I always want oldies on all the towns that Bill and I go through's radio stations. What about singing jingles? Man Monday is not soon enough for me. Well thank you
Thank you
Howard
Thank you
Howard
I'm sorry to keep asking so many crazy questions, but early Monday morning Bill and I will pass through on the way to Watertown, NY. Will they be on playing oldy music by then? Then we are supposed to get a rented car to go to Troy, NY and pickup a van to take to Montour Falls cutting down through near Elmira, NY. Does 1390 reach down there? And if I have a rented car do they still have them with AM radios in them. I could take our big GE Superradio, but then Bill would have to hold it up near the window, and that makes him cranky. I guess we could take turns or something. But thank you
sorry
thank you
Howard
sorry
thank you
Howard
HHalland said:
The flip is supposed to take place Monday morning, from what I understand.
Since WFBL moved from its old transmitter site near the Carrier Circle Thruway exit (now a cluster of hotels) to a new site up north, its coverage hasn't been as good as it used to be. During daylight hours, it's listenable from about exit 41 of the Thruway (Waterloo) to exit 31 (Utica). It's not listenable over here in Rochester because of splashover from our local WXXI 1370, and down in Montour Falls/Elmira it gets wiped out by WELM 1410 in Elmira.
Going north to Watertown, it also gets wiped by WNER 1410 close in. Heading south, it's good until about Cortland.
Nighttime is worse.
A
Adman4120
Guest
Hello...It would be nice to hear jingles and live personalities do a bang up job of this format switch on WFBL, however, I was told by someone very close to the operation that Bob Brown will be doing live in the mornings, but the remainder of the day will just be voice tracking by WSEN-FM on air staff.
I am sure they will have a jingle package, I am sure there will be reverb, and I am sure the music mix will sound very good, but, because of very little money in the WFBL budget, do not expect this full blown competitive station.
I wish them the best as I know some people at Buckley, and I hope they do well. It would be nice to have a killer Oldies AM station that sounds like days gone by.
I am sure they will have a jingle package, I am sure there will be reverb, and I am sure the music mix will sound very good, but, because of very little money in the WFBL budget, do not expect this full blown competitive station.
I wish them the best as I know some people at Buckley, and I hope they do well. It would be nice to have a killer Oldies AM station that sounds like days gone by.
Adman4120 said:
I think this is similar to any station that's flipped formats recently in the market. It's been awhile since a new station has had a full airstaff right out of the gate. Look at Movin', which started with a morning jock, and added the rest of the day later on. It's risky to hire a full air staff for a station when you don't even know if it will be successful yet. Especially for a station that's NOT targeting the "money demo," but rather skewing toward the older audiences.
Hmm interesting as soon as I make a complaint about WFBL they flip the format! I doubt any new news/talk station will pop up now especially since the centerpiece of their line-up, Savage, is now on WSYR. Still somewhere down the line I could see someone making a line-up out of Laura Ingraham, O'Reilly, Dennis Miller etc. similair to WYSL and WLVL/WECK.
O'Reilly and Hannity can't get arrested in Buffalo-Lockport, granted, they're on a 1kW rimshot on 1340 which doesn't have a bad signal in the populated northern suburbs of Buffalo. Now, O'Relli and Miller fill the afternoon drive hours on WECK, a 1kW'er on 1230 which has a solid signal in Buffalo and the eastern suburbs. Neither of this shows will get much traction against well-established local talker, WBEN, 5kW on 930.
Now then, how's WFBL sound? Posters and readers at the Western end of the Thruway would like to know. Syracuse gets an Oldies format on AM but the board gets only a few posts? Tsk, tsk! What's become of you guys?
I wasn't a fan of the talk lineup they had before... and I'm not really an oldies fan, especially "old" oldies.
In my book... nothing lost, nothing gained.
Seems like there's been mixed opinions on the syracuse.com forum. Several complaints from people who liked having an alternative to Jim Reith, as if their radios are only capable of tuning in talk stations, and they now have no choice but to listen to Reith. But also several folks saying they like the new format... though I would guess most of the target audience of the WFBL oldies format don't own computers.
In my book... nothing lost, nothing gained.
Seems like there's been mixed opinions on the syracuse.com forum. Several complaints from people who liked having an alternative to Jim Reith, as if their radios are only capable of tuning in talk stations, and they now have no choice but to listen to Reith. But also several folks saying they like the new format... though I would guess most of the target audience of the WFBL oldies format don't own computers.
Thanks for the overview, Bob. Sounds like the station is targeting the hoola-hoop, poodle-skirt, '57 Chevy crowd (loved that standard 3 on the column, BTW) and those who pine for "good times" (when discrimination was rampant and pinkos hid around every corner) and "great oldies" (Pat Boone doing cover versions of race music.) Personally, I find value in some of the music from that era (e.g., Skyliners, "Since I Don't Have You" and songs like "There Goes My Baby," among others) but the attitudes of the purists make me laugh. As if all the good stuff stopped in 1959. Ridiculous. Still I hope the station pulls some numbers. BTW, those who complain about "having to listen to" Reith (as if there's a gun to their heads and their radios are welded to WSYR) might try tuning in NPR.
Thank you Mr Fybush for the report on the interference to 1390. I have logged on to your tower web a lot. We like to take pitures of the towers and antennas all over the places we go. Do you buy pictures? We have a few nice ones. Sometimes we get chased away by people, but usually the people are okay with it. Except when i got my station wagon stuck in some kind of mud rut, and while trying to get it out of the mud I spun my rear tire enough to snap some kind of copper rod in the dirt, and it made all heck break loose and this mean dude came running out of the building with a knife.
Bill and I were pleased to hear some pretty neat stuff on WFBL last week. Pretty tasty there fer sure. But I didn't hear any echo. Do some radios not reproduce it very well or did they decise not to have echo? We heard some nice ones like Take Good Care of my Baby by Bobby Vee. That was super, and we also heard Don't Say Nothin bad About My Baby by the Cookies. I hadn't heard that in a long time here, and I love the girl groups and the Phil Specter music. I would love to go meet Darlene Love. She was really snazzy lookin to me at least. I am kind of shy. I'll bet she's nice though. What is the name of that song called "Morgan"? It is in Dutch or something but it was nice too. Who sings that?
Anyway we get to hear WFBL once more on Thursday when Bill follows me in the rented car while I drive a Freightliner trailer hauler to Burlington, Vermont..we'll be listening to WFBL. The company said he has to follow me because he likes to eat, and he can't eat in this rig as it is brand new and the people who get it don't want ants. Will they turn up some echo for the love of Mike?
thank you
Howard
Bill and I were pleased to hear some pretty neat stuff on WFBL last week. Pretty tasty there fer sure. But I didn't hear any echo. Do some radios not reproduce it very well or did they decise not to have echo? We heard some nice ones like Take Good Care of my Baby by Bobby Vee. That was super, and we also heard Don't Say Nothin bad About My Baby by the Cookies. I hadn't heard that in a long time here, and I love the girl groups and the Phil Specter music. I would love to go meet Darlene Love. She was really snazzy lookin to me at least. I am kind of shy. I'll bet she's nice though. What is the name of that song called "Morgan"? It is in Dutch or something but it was nice too. Who sings that?
Anyway we get to hear WFBL once more on Thursday when Bill follows me in the rented car while I drive a Freightliner trailer hauler to Burlington, Vermont..we'll be listening to WFBL. The company said he has to follow me because he likes to eat, and he can't eat in this rig as it is brand new and the people who get it don't want ants. Will they turn up some echo for the love of Mike?
thank you
Howard
- Status