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WGTL 870 in Concord

WGTL...or "world's greatest textile land" was licensed officially to Kannapolis. O\O by one Fred H Whitley, William E Rumple- chief operator, air talent- anyone who would show up every day for minimum wage, format- whatever they could play without paying ASCAP\BMI fees... Used a Raytheon RA-1000 am transmitter from the day it signed on till the day it signed off, some 40 years later. Hated to see it go. CP currently held by Art Sutton.
 
Art, since you are here is there anything to report on your new station...? er, I mean station move! ;)

How's it going? New tower up? I might want to load my HF ham rig into the tower to see how it would do. ;D
If only I had done that while I was doing contract engineering work at WNOW, but alas I didn't have my General Ham license back then.

W4DXL
 
Art,

WGTL had a square Blaw-Knox self supporter, roughly 220' if memory serves me. It was slant wire fed, and like most of those- never quite worked right. Had a great signal on that quiet frequency tho.
 
Mike Sheridan said:
Art, since you are here is there anything to report on your new station...? er, I mean station move! ;)

How's it going? New tower up? I might want to load my HF ham rig into the tower to see how it would do. ;D
If only I had done that while I was doing contract engineering work at WNOW, but alas I didn't have my General Ham license back then.

W4DXL
Click to expand...

We're waiting on our CP to be granted at our site on I-85 near Brookshire. I'm gonna check and see if WGTL is available for use.
 
Art Sutton said:
Mike Sheridan said:
Art, since you are here is there anything to report on your new station...? er, I mean station move! ;)

How's it going? New tower up? I might want to load my HF ham rig into the tower to see how it would do. ;D
If only I had done that while I was doing contract engineering work at WNOW, but alas I didn't have my General Ham license back then.

W4DXL
Click to expand...

We're waiting on our CP to be granted at our site on I-85 near Brookshire. I'm gonna check and see if WGTL is available for use.
Click to expand...

Really? I doubt that many people remember WGTL. Just us radio geeks. How about WBCY or WEZC? I don't think they are being used.
 
It looks like WGTL and WEZC are still available. WBCY is a college station in Fort Wayne.
 
Art,

If you get those calls, Fred Whitley Sr. will probably leave Las Vegas and show up at your door towing a 40's era Raytheon transmitter and WXII's original 50's era audio console.

After he was evicted from his studio building, he tried to sell off his antique broadcasting equipment to most every station in the area, then just stored it somewhere and drove off to live with Freddy Jr. in Las Vegas.

Anyone know if he's still living?

Later....
Matt Smith
WGSR-TV
 
If that old transmitter is still around he could probably sell it to a ham radio operator. They love to tune those old rigs up on the ham bands. It takes some modifications and lots of room, that really separates the men from the boys!

Check this out: http://www.amfone.net/ECSound/syq8.htm

Mike W4DXL
 
Matt,
I think Fred has moved on to broadcasting heaven...seems like someone told me Freddy has passed away also. I can remember standing in front of that old transmitter and looking thru a hole in the floor into the basement of the old building. The floorboards had actually worn away! The tx fan motor bearings were worn out, allowing the fan blades to wobble around and strike the fan guard, made a curious jingling sound you could hear on the air. Now those were the days...........
 
Mike,

Back in those days WGTL probably had more listeners than Y-108.
 
ghattaway said:
made a curious jingling sound you could hear on the air. Now those were the days...........
Click to expand...
When they would start a record, the music almost always made this jerking sound. Kind of like the record was tired.
 
Matt Smith said:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGTL
Click to expand...
This article is wrong. I have the actual Tribune article which said it was Christmas Day 1992.

In fact, if you want more proof than that, the station added this show in Spring 1992 which had old commercials but also a lot of the geek content you might find here. I think they were interested in the old commercials. I know it was Spring 1992 because the people who moved into my grandparents' old house had an open house around that time, and my grandmother was still there until Sept. 1991.
 
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