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wibg-fm ???

S

StemCell

Guest
I was listening to the oldies salute on the XM-60's channel tonight, they did a take on a station from Louisville, on the ID the station ID'd as AM and FM...in the past the FM was always the tag along. I remember this with WIBG's ID, especially in 1964 with the AM/FM. I do remember the FM at 94.1 with a mellow rock format, automated, and you would hear the jocks mention to listen to them on the AM 990. My question is... did WIBG AM ever simulcast with the FM and if so was the FM in full dimentional stereo....for them to say WIBG AM/FM they probably did but I only remember the FM being separate with a good signal going almost to the south jersey shore.
 
WIBG-FM always simulcast 24/7 until the "50-50" rule, requiring separate programming at least half of the FM's time, went into effect. I think that was l966.

I can't imagine WIBG-FM being heard at the shore. Storer let the FM license lapse around 1969, probably because it was not a full-powered Class B. It was short-spaced to a full-powered Class B on 94.1 in Sunbury, Pa.

In 1971 or 72, SJR (for San Juan Racing Associates, of all things) negotiated an agreement with the Sunbury station to allow them put a full-powered Class B on 94.1 in Philadelphia. The call letters WYSP stood for "Your Station in Philadelphia," and it was very bland easy listening.
 
I listened to WIBG-FM in Newark, Delaware back in those days, primarily hearing Hy Lit and Frank X while listening at the place I worked. Once the switch was made to WYSP, I seldom tuned to 94.1 again.
 
btw stemcell: you had bad timing...on june 13, xm's 60s on 6 paid tribute to wibg during their friday salute to classic radio stations.
 
WIBG FM ran separate programming from 11pm-1pm daily, to meet the new simulcast guidelines in 1966. 94.1 WIBG FM in Philadelphia, (I still have the FM ID’s voice by newsman Jerry Grove). Programming originated from a newly installed gates automation machine, accessible from the engineering/transmitter room. WIBG was a full service engineer assisted studio operation. Engineers ran the audio control boards. The DJ’s were in separate studios. (see HyLit.com home page for WIBG studio pictures with Hy on one side of the glass, and the engineer on the other. Notice no volume controls on Hy's side, and the 50,000 watt ampliphase behind the engineer). I remember being fascinated with the FM, as this was the first industrial application of anything I had ever seen computerized, or actually, more like relay triggered. All the automation music was on cart, in 5 rows of 55. Each AM DJ programmed one row of songs. The cart deck would move up and down for a music selection on the selected cart. All commercials, of which there were very few, were on round carousel cart decks. All the FM station ID’s were on a long play cart, and played in a hard rotation. There were no reel to reel’s at all at this early stage on the automation machine.
At 1 pm daily, WIBG FM went back to simulcast, and the standard ID was, WIBG AM and FM first in Philadelphia.
 
Skeptic got it. WIBG-FM was, as most FM's at the time were, an afterthought. It's antenna was side mounted onto Tower #1 at about 200+ feet. It didn't travel far. It was a tough pull in Pottstown, som e 20 miles away, and it was in mono.
 
I have a copy of the WYSP jingles from their beautiful music days...one scored, one acapella. Music and more on stereo 94, WYSP, Philadelphia. Let me know if you want them.
 
They would definitely be a fine listen, in contrast with WYSP's current format! ;D

Can you post them online?
 
WIBG FM was tough to hear in the Chester area but I had one GE table radio that got it pretty well, in mono. As I remember, it was a 100% simulcast (where the rate card/coverage map mentioned "all commercials bonus on FM"). When the seperate programming rule went into effect, I thought it was from 6AM til 6PM so the AM would have advantage of the signal on the FM at night. The calls went to WPNA ffor a short while with an automated album rock format, and its days were numbered when one of the automation reels just dragged for days and was never fixed. WPNA went dark, maybe a year or longer before WYSP came into being.
 
DaveWilliams said:
WIBG FM was tough to hear in the Chester area but I had one GE table radio that got it pretty well, in mono.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm....just like WIBG-AM. ::) One of the reasons the FM signal stunk was that it's antenna was located on the 250 foot center WIBG-AM tower. With a 4-bay antenna at the top of the tower, that gave them a center of radiation of about 240 feet above ground level. Using the HAAT calculator that's only about 527 feet Height Above Average Terrain. I'm not sure how much power they put out from the WIBG site, but given that they only had a 10kw transmitter, if they ran it wide open, that would only have given them an ERP of about 18kw (if the bays were spaced 1/2 wave). Compare that to 50kw class B's coming out of Roxborough, it would explain a lot.
 
Sam Lit said:
WIBG studio pictures with Hy on one side of the glass, and the engineer on the other. Notice no volume controls on Hy's side
Click to expand...

Sam,
I would love to know whatever happened to those potless consoles. When I got here in the early 80s they were very neatly stored in plastic wrap in the basement prize closet, complete with documentation. When I came back in 2004, they were gone. Those consoles had a very simple premise which, when you listen to old airchecks, worked well. The audio input levels from the cart machines and other sources were set so that the levels were 6db below the jock's mic level. Input levels were maintained via compressors. When the jock would open the mic and start talking, the voice would duck the music underneath him. Neat idea for its day.
 
Rene,

Speaking of the missing potless consoles, I am still looking for one of the original RCA studio monitor speakers that used to hang off the studio and lobby walls at WIBG.

Incidentally, and you probably already know this, the engineer had to open the Mic between records. The DJ had no control over the Mic. Hy would wave his hand to signal the engineer to open and close the Mic. The hand signal communication between Hy and the engineers was very good. They almost their own hand signal language. Once the Mic was off, engineer and DJ had intercom.

The original WDAS AM studio was similar to WIBG where there were potless consoles with engineer assisted studio operations, except at WDAS AM the DJ controlled the Mic.
 
Rene Tower #3 would be one l o n g run of coax, then add the vertical distance. I was told they strapped it on the closest stick past midway to keep the run short. I'm thinking the effeciency loss would be terrible over that distance in those days. Plus, it would have been two bays vertical and two horizontal polarization, there wasn't Circular Polarization as today. I also recall it being a three to one power ratio, three horizontal to one vertical. Since most all FM listening was at home or office, the standard antenna was a horizontal dipole or TV antenna (also horizontal) split off to feed the hi-fi. There was so few FM car radios (Cadillac, Imperial and Lincoln) there was no need to waste power for their vertical antennas. And most any FM portable came with a swivel antenna just for that purpose, to pick up the station whether it was verticallly or horizontally polarized.

I think the power out at 18 k is generous. I would think 10k out at 70% efficiency, then into those dreadful antennas...It would be lucky to get 10-12K (3 bays) horizontal and 4k (1 bay)vertical. Although close to your 18K, those figures are the power which the radio antenna saw, and far different from today's 18K equivalent.

Other than a quick drive-by, I haven't been at the plant since '77, so I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a bit. But by today's standards, it was basically a glorified Class A. And with the antenna below grade of Roxborough, multipath from hills, and canyons of Center City, it was a very tough catch in most of SJ, and fair just 20 miles out everywhere else. It's biggest pluses in 1960 were it's monaural signal, and an empty FM band.

There were complete copies of deeds, land surveys, architect, FCC apps & engineering papers for the plant, including the FM, in the conference room across from the that awesome hideaway built-in wall bar/liquor cabinet. Maybe the real answer lies in thhose documents.
 
amfmsw said:
Rene Tower #3 would be one l o n g run of coax, then add the vertical distance. I was told they strapped it on the closest stick past midway to keep the run short. I'm thinking the effeciency loss would be terrible over that distance in those days. Plus, it would have been two bays vertical and two horizontal polarization, there wasn't Circular Polarization as today. I also recall it being a three to one power ratio, three horizontal to one vertical. Since most all FM listening was at home or office, the standard antenna was a horizontal dipole or TV antenna (also horizontal) split off to feed the hi-fi. There was so few FM car radios (Cadillac, Imperial and Lincoln) there was no need to waste power for their vertical antennas. And most any FM portable came with a swivel antenna just for that purpose, to pick up the station whether it was verticallly or horizontally polarized.

I think the power out at 18 k is generous. I would think 10k out at 70% efficiency, then into those dreadful antennas...It would be lucky to get 10-12K (3 bays) horizontal and 4k (1 bay)vertical. Although close to your 18K, those figures are the power which the radio antenna saw, and far different from today's 18K equivalent.

Other than a quick drive-by, I haven't been at the plant since '77, so I'm sure I'm forgetting quite a bit. But by today's standards, it was basically a glorified Class A.
Click to expand...

The 18kw may indeed be a bit generous. I came up with that figure off the top of my head based on a 850 ft run of 1 5/8 inch hardline (which is what was used) -- 600 feet to tower 3 and 250 feet up the tower -- combined with the aprox. gain of a 4-bay antenna. I have never seen any vertical bays here, but we did find four horizontal bays (one of which we kept for a possible future historical display). I did find a copy of the license about a year ago which only specified horizontal polarization, which I did find a bit suprising.

In so far as which tower was used, I know for sure it was indeed tower 3. When I arrived here in the 80s, the old isolation coil for the FM antenna was still in place. The antenna had long since been removed. The coil was comprised of, believe it or not, several turns of the 1 5/8 inch hardline! I've never seen that before of since. Can you imagine winding that thing? It was located by itself in a separate building, identical to the tuning houses, at the base of tower 3. The concrete pad for the building is still there. Somewhere around here there is still a picture of the FM antenna on the tower.

The height was definitely a major factor in their coverage. At just over 500 ft HAAT with, say, even 15kw ERP, it is still 35kw ERP below a full Class Bin Roxorough. I would say that If WIBG-FM got 30 miles to the 54dbu contour they were doing pretty good.
 
Going back to about 1964, I can remember listening to WIBG FM at a relatives home not far from Route 202 & 1 near Chadds Ford and the signal was as strong as any of the other Philly FM's at that time, but it was pretty bad in the Aston Township/Chester area
 
I have 8mm picture of the studios and the 5 towers the bays are on the middle tower if anyone can transfer to put on this site let me know..
 
having actually used that board on-air duriong my stint (albeit, short stint), it was pretty revolutiuonary for it's time. the engineers set the levels for all audio output. we p[layed records and carts...generally if you opened the mic, you tapped the VO button right below it and it would drop the music level 6db...if the intro was really soft, you tapped the VO button so the music wouldn't fade away completely (think Roberta Flack "The First Time" etc.)...I'm surprised the FM lasted that longon the tower....Buckley's kid Rick was too busy building the race cars in the back lot garages....
 
WIBG-fm Progressive rock history.

Hey Guys:

I know this topic is a little old but does anybody know when in 1966 WIBG-FM ran there Progressive rock format from 11pm till 1PM?

I see it went dark. Was it 1968? Did the format have a moniker? I was trying to find some bumper stickers but no luck yet.

Thnaks
T.J.
 
Does anyone remember WYSP with their dinner music format in the early 70s using a slogan WYSP try we I remember seeing a billboard on Rt.30 with this but the slogan did not make sense to me.
 
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