I enjoyed Ron Crider's site and I remember Amaturo and Crider being business partners on the tower known as The Candelabra. A side note Cox was thinking about placing their FM on the tower but deemed that it would not stay up during a hurricane. Looks like they were wrong!
I don't know if it has changed but at one time the transmitters for the following stations were on the tower TV 33, 45, 51. FM 99.9, 100.7, 103.5, 105.9, 106.7. I was there in 1973 when WAXY moved to the tower. The transmitter building for WAXY hadn't been finished and I was there each night to guard the copper transmission line in case of theaves.
WFLM was owned by the Findley Publishing Company of Findley, Ohio. I don't remember what floor the station was on but at one time it was on the entire rear side of the First Federal Bank building at 301 East Las Olas behind the eleivator. WFLM used a Gates FM-10B transmitter and broadcast from a tower at the top of the building about 165 feet high with 100KW horizontally polarized only. The console desk was a Gates with A Gates Executive Console and two Gates Turntables. The board operators had to wear white gloves when handling the records played on the station. Music was mostly instrumental, The 3 Suns, Henry Mancini and Percy Faith. Later another radio station shared our floor WAVS-AM a 5KW daytimer on 1190.
Sometime after WGMA went full time country Albert Tedesco owner of WIXX - 1520 (1kw daytime only) bought WFLM and made it WIXX-FM. For awhile The Ranger was heard on WIXX-FM from 6pm till midnight in Stereo and that was the extent of the broadcast day on the FM. Later when they did get the broadcast line to 539 E Oakland Park Blvd the station went mono FM and was on from 6am till midnight simulcasting during the day while the AM was on.
If memory serves Bob Roberts and some others came in to WIXX AM/FM and decided to go after long time leader WFTL WIXX-AM was renamed WEXY and WIXX-FM became WAXY. WEXY was live middle of the road with jocks, some of which would move on to WIOD, WLYF and WFTL. There was Tom Downey, Phil Marquis, and Dave Ryder. WAXY was outfitted with a brand new Broadcast Automation Associates AR-1000 system and went with the Bill Drake format "Hitparade '70". The automation was installed at the bank so the station was once again in Stereo and the line to the AM studios was no longer needed. This lasted a couple of years and I assume the station got into some financial trouble since the contract engineer les Goldburg got the Gates studio equipment, the Executive board and turntables. He used this equipment to make automation tapes in his house for the station after the Drake contract ran out. The first format Les did for WAXY was called "Solid Gold" followed by an MOR format called "Modern Good Music". By the time Modern Good Music came along WEXY had gone back to being a Country station.
In 1972 the sale of WAXY to RKO General was announced and it took almost a year for it to get FCC approval. You may remember RKO and General Tire were involved in some problems with double billing and unfair trade practices. The sale price for WAXY was just $1 Million, and toward the end Tedesco was hoping the sale would not go though because the value of FM stations had gone up considerably! In fact RKO was really only buying the license. The physical plant was outdated and the transmitter old and giving problems. The buidlings were starting to sprout up all around Fort Lauderdale dwarfing the little tower on top of the First Federal Building. RKO bought a new RCA 40KW transmitter which is actually 2 20 KW transmiters combined and ran it into an antenna with fewer bays at 33KW. Having and antenna with less gain and fewer bays is said to eliminate picket fencing and multipath common in FM signals. At the same time studios were moved to a building on Andrews Avenue about where the new Andrews Avenue bridge sits downtown. RKO came in with a newer automation system an AR-2000, Marantz 2230 Stereo receivers, McCurdy console, 3m, Scully and Ampex reel to reel recorders. ITC and Gates Criterion Cart machines were used. RKO had 2 of everything in the airchain in case something failed. The first format on the RKO WAXY was Drake's Classic Gold which was pre-Beatles oldies. Drake had a falling out with RKO less than a year later and then one of the other RKO stations started making Oldies tapes for WAXY.
I worked at WAXY from November 1972 (before the sale to RKO) till February 1974. My job was to take transmitter readings and take care of the automation. I also managed to get on the air doing public service and news. I was also on the air a few times when the automation broke down! My first job in radio and I loved every minute of it.
WGLO was automated beautiful music to compete with WLYF. One of the campaigns was centered around the song "The Good Life" WGLO used tapes made at the station and at one point the old WAEZ-FM Miami record library was purchased. WGLO had a special music production room with Thorens turntables and McCurdy board.
Tapes were also made there for some of the other Amaturo stations KKSS FM (renamed KMJM) in Saint Louis and KMJQ FM in Houston. Both stations later went with a black format and did very well. Amaturo started calling the stations Magic and got into a legal battle with Greater Media who claimed "Magic" was their service mark. I never heard how they worked that out.
