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WJCV 1290/Jacksonville

R

RadioFixerCLE

This is a weird one. Never heard a peepon AM 1290 when I first moved to New Bern. Now it's actually putting a fairly listenable, albeit noisy, daytime signal into my home. Did this station crank up its power? Was it dark for a while and just came back or.....? ???

It's doing a local, live Southern Gospel show right now, syndicated recorded religious talk to follow.
 
This was a brown brothers ownership in Jacksonville when I was in J-ville. I think they were WBBS?? Top 40 in 1976
 
WJCV 1290 is owned by Michael Bland of Jacksonville NC. It has been Southern Gospel since the late 1980's. Very community oriented with SW Onslow sports as well as connection to local events, government and public affairs. Good station!
 
Having to reactivate some memory cells from the mid-1970s regarding WBBS.

I recall a Brown brother's involvement with WBBS, and for some reason I am thinking that Ron Brown, who was manager of WJNC/WRCM in the mid-1970s was part of the family.

By 1976, I think WBBS was owned by a local FBI agent, whose name I cannot remember at the moment. Jim Kelso was one of the air personalities at WBBS in that timeframe. Jim left WBBS and became a broadcasting instructor at Lenoir Community College, at Kinston, but he had some broadcast interests, even while at LCC.

I remember the WBBS studios and transmitter site was off Western Boulevard, somewhat in the vicinity of the Onslow County Hospital, but the details on Google Earth for both the WBBS tower and the WJVC studios don't fit my long ago memory of the area.
 
WBBS's building and tower was razed to relocate US17 there in Jville. I visited the place in 1987 and it was already doing Christian as WJCV from the old BBS building. It was a neat old-school setup with the old Russco tables and Teakwood arms.

As a kid living up the road a bit I remember when religious WPJC in Burgaw switched to Rock as a sister to WBBS with the WVBS calls. Pretty much what they were playing on AM made a move to 100,000 watts of stereo! Woww! Vacationing at White Lake meant decent stuff on my transistor radio for a change.

My memory tells me that the Brown brothers killed the BBS calls for WIIZ around 1980. 13 The Whiz But it still rocked Jacksonville, just adding more top40.
 
ToddJenkins said:
WBBS's building and tower was razed to relocate US17 there in Jville. I visited the place in 1987 and it was already doing Christian as WJCV from the old BBS building. It was a neat old-school setup with the old Russco tables and Teakwood arms.

As a kid living up the road a bit I remember when religious WPJC in Burgaw switched to Rock as a sister to WBBS with the WVBS calls. Pretty much what they were playing on AM made a move to 100,000 watts of stereo! Woww! Vacationing at White Lake meant decent stuff on my transistor radio for a change.

My memory tells me that the Brown brothers killed the BBS calls for WIIZ around 1980. 13 The Whiz But it still rocked Jacksonville, just adding more top40.
Click to expand...


I haven't been on that side of Jacksonville in probably 33 years. Looking at the Google Earth shots, I can recognize a few things, but I can't quite figure out where the old WBBS location was. Google Earth doesn't go back far enough.


I see a tower at 34 45 57.27N 77 23 27.56W, which I will assume is the current location of WJCV. Correct me on this, or then who is at this LAT/LON.

As for this 1980 call sign change, I am not sure the Brown Brothers were involved with the station at that time.

I was loooking at the Broadcating Yearkbook archieves at:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Yearbook_Summary_Page.htm

Looks Like the Brown Brothers were owners through August, 1976, then Sun Broadcasting. Dave Manko was an FBI agent in the Jacksonville area at that time. Looks like Caleb Broadcasting took it over from Manko 8/79, per the Broadcaating Yearbook entries. Of course, Caleb might have had the Brown family involved, maybe taking over the note from Manko and Sun Braodcating?
 
Man do i miss Jim Kelso..What a great guy and one of the best radio people ever...Jim and I spent many hours talking shop and listening to his favorite big band records..
 
In the early 1980s, I believe WJCV also did country as WOPY "Opry Radio". Remember seeing a logo in an old telephone directory at the coast for it.
 
allenv said:
Man do i miss Jim Kelso..What a great guy and one of the best radio people ever...Jim and I spent many hours talking shop and listening to his favorite big band records..
Click to expand...

Oh yes, I will agree. Such a great gentleman and a great conversationalist.

He called me one day and wanted to know if I'd ride with him up to Brevard and help him move his daughter and I agreed. We had a great time on the drive west from Kinston and back.

I do recall one thing Jim and I disagreed upon. He wasn't thrilled with stereo. He didn't think it added anything to radio. I disagreed, telling him I could easily tell the difference between stereo and mono on the air, FM of course.
 
I was the first PD when WVBS signed on in April 1973.
Scott Robbins on the air.Jim Kelso hired me.
 
Don't have much airchecks from VBS.We did have PAMS jingles"The Music's on us".
For a while had a toll free request line that pulled in callers from quite a wide area.
Had live jocks 24 hours a day.Studio in Burgaw.
 
DaveArnold said:
Don't have much airchecks from VBS.We did have PAMS jingles"The Music's on us".
For a while had a toll free request line that pulled in callers from quite a wide area.
Had live jocks 24 hours a day.Studio in Burgaw.
Click to expand...

The reference to WVBS and Burgaw and being hired by Jim Kelso had me scratching my head for a moment until I did a little BROADCASTING YEARBOOK research, and I now see the light.

WVBS/WVBS-FM operation was originally WPGF (1963) and WPGF-FM (1964) owned by Pender Broadcasting. Brown Broadcasting bought the pair in 1973 and changed the calls to WVBS and WVBS-FM. That would tie in with your 1973 hiring by Jim.

Brown Broadcasting apparently put WBBS on the air in 1968.

I met Jim sometime in the mid-1970s, when he was working at WBBS, but I knew him only casually. The same for Manko, the owner at the time, and I knew their engineer Hal Weant, as a ham and pilot. Hal had a C-172 at the time.

I knew Jim much more closely, after he left Jacksonville, had started working with Lenoir Community College and moved to Kinston. He was a bit of train buff and clued me in on the East Carolina Railroad, which went from Tarboro to Hookerton. Jim and I donw some aerial research on the RR, flying the RR route and doing some ground research as well.
 
Did you find anything in Hookertoon? Was a wye there? Farmville was an EC Rwy goldmine for years. Easy to spot the relics. Same in Tarboro, Pinetops, etc. But Hookerton was a tough hunt.
 
ToddJenkins said:
Did you find anything in Hookertoon? Was a wye there? Farmville was an EC Rwy goldmine for years. Easy to spot the relics. Same in Tarboro, Pinetops, etc. But Hookerton was a tough hunt.
Click to expand...

Actually, we never found anything over at Hookerton.

Remember, this has been almost 30 years ago and I haven't thought about this much since then, as I left Greenville in 1989.

As best as I remember, we found evidence of some right of way along NC 123, just south of Maury. And then we lost it.

Too bad we didn't have Google Earth in those days. Jim and I weren't read adventurous to tramp across country. Wish we had.

Bridgers wrote a book "East Carolina Railway, Route of the Yellow Hammer" that I'd like to get, but I am not interested in paying over $180 for it. There was a copy in the downtown library, or at least there was in the mid 1980s.

Apparently some good research material on his book at the ECU library, as well.
 
ToddJenkins said:
Did you find anything in Hookertoon? Was a wye there? Farmville was an EC Rwy goldmine for years. Easy to spot the relics. Same in Tarboro, Pinetops, etc. But Hookerton was a tough hunt.
Click to expand...

Horrible thread drift, here, but after I wrote the note about the price of Bridger's book, I found a copy at a book store in Raleigh. Web searches and Abe's books helps and it was about half the price of the other copies.

You were asking about a wye. I haven't reread Bridger's book but in thumbing through the book, I did find a reference that the Hookerton Terminal Company's real purpose was "to build a track or line of railroad across Contentnea Creek and Hookerton with a wye and sidetracks...."

A "Bown" connection, as well. The trestle and bridge across Contentnea Creek was built by H. A. Brown. Tis trestle was said to be 3300 feet long and a height over the water of 60 feet. A rather impressive structure for the early 1900s in eastern North Carolina.
 
Jim Kelso, a true radio guy. In regard to another post here, Jim and I would travel around looking for old racetracks and military bases. I remember one time we ended up in Spring Lake (outside of Fayetteville) and we found his old station. I saw his eyes tear up when we looked in the windows and saw nothing but a skeleton of a by gone radio station. We saw old reel tapes and carts on the weathered floor. It was sad! I would see those same eyes tear up again on Christmas Eve 1997 (I think) when I stood with Jim as we watched his home burn along with many of his beloved radio memories. R.I.P. Kelso.
 
I miss Jim alot. He cared so much about the business. Radio needs about 50,000 Jim Kelso's. Can you imagine all of our radio buddies swapping stories in heaven??? So many of them had such a huge influence on me and my opinions of radio.

Allen
 
Firecop, never heard about the house fire, or if I did, I don't remember.

I left Greenville in 1989 and didn't have a lot of contract with Jim after that.

No doubt, he had a collection of personal materials, both documents and recordings.

Yea, I guess there is and will be a continuous gathering with Jim.
 
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