It's been 84 for as long as I can remember. Perhaps back in the 60's and before it used the 840, but I don't remember that from any archives.
A great story about WHAS' reception. In 1985, the station tower got blown down in a powerful thunderstorm. First time it had happened since 1937. In the hours after it happened, one of the engineers actually just stuck a small metal rod out the transmitter building as an aerial and the station still managed to reach areas of Canada and a good portion of the United States on greatly reduced power-- not to mention a greatly reduced antenna!
One note here, I was planning on saying in another post. In light of the recent events along the Gulf Coast, the importance of radio has shown up again. iPods, TV and other media didn't work when the power went out or didn't provide the information needed. Radio was still able to do that-- primarily big AM behemoths like WWL. It's worth noting because radio still plays an important place in society.
> > I was recently playing around with my little transistor
> > radio when I stumbled across WHAS!! It was great, though,
> I
> > was a little confused becuase they refered to it as "84
> > WHAS", leaving out the 0. I don't know if they all do
> that
> > in Kentucky, but everywhere else I have heard them refered
>
> > to as 840, you know.
> > I am excited to be able to pick up two great college
> sports
> > programs! Its outstanding!
>
> I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma and could get WHAS pretty
> consistently. It was a little tougher when I lived in
> Dallas due to WBAP being so close, though. As for the "84
> WHAS," it's called itself that for quite some time. I don't
> know how old you are, but I'm guessing you've never seen one
> of the old analog AM receivers. That's where dropping the
> "0" came from. If you see one of those radios, you'll
> notice there are a few marked areas on the dial, and all
> drop the last zero. For example, KIIS in Los Angeles did
> not get its calls to mean KISS. It got them because its AM
> frequency used to be 1150, and it was represented as "115"
> on those analog AM radios. So, KIIS actually stood for
> "115" rather than KISS when it first signed on. It wasn't
> until the mid-to-late 80's, when digital radios became
> standard in cars and quickly followed suit on home stereos,
> that the last "0" started getting frequent use in station
> logos, especially on frequencies below AM 1000. I didn't
> understand that 84 was really 840 growing up until my
> parents got a car with a digital radio when I was in junior
> high. I thought it was just 84 and was confused by that
> extra zero at first!
>
