WKEN and Other Long Lost Radio Stations

[cee]

Thought it might be fun to mention some long forgotten radio stations of the past, not just stations that have gone through various call letter changes, but actually have gone dark.

Did you know there was once a WKEN in Kenmore? This station goes back to the 1920s. I once read their studios were on East Hazeltine Ave. in Kenmore(that's one block north of Kenmore Ave - I think that's where the Kenmore cops hang out late at night to catch people speeding down Delaware Aveneue, in order help the village balance it's yearly budget). Doing a google search, I found only this PDF file of an old radio buff magazine from the 1920(pdf file):
http://www.snugglebunny.us/radio/Stevenson's Winter 1927 OCR.pdf

Anyone know anything about this station or any other stations that are long gone?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Whatever Happened to Seneca Vocational's FM?

Some interesting entries on their radio log for Winter, 1927:

WABO, Rochester - 250W on 1180, owned by the Lake Avenue Baptist Church

WEBR, Buffalo - 200W on 1240, owned by H. H. Howell

WFBL, Syracuse - 750W on 1160, owned by the Onondaga Hotel

WGR, Buffalo - 750W on 990, owned by Federal Telephone & Telegraph

WGY, Schenectady - 30,000W on 790, owned by General Electric

WHAM, Rochester - 5000W on 1080, owned by Stromberg-Carlson

WHEC, Rochester - 250W on 1180, owned by Hickson Electric Co.

WIBX, Utica - 150W on 1260, owned by WIBX, Inc.

WKBW, Buffalo - 500W on 1380, owned by Churchill Evangelical Association

WKEN, Kenmore - 250W on 1470, owned by WKEN, Inc.

WMAK, Lockport - 750W on 550, owned by Norton Laboratory

WMBO, Auburn - 100W on 1360, owned by Radio Service Labs

WNBF, Endicott - 50W on 1450, owned by Howett Rood Radio Co.

WNBQ, Rochester - 15W on 1480, owned by Gordon Brown

WOCL, Jamestown - 25W on 1340, owned by A. E. Newton

WOKT, Rochester - 500W on 1430, owned by Titus Ets. Co.

WSVS, Buffalo - 50W on 1460, owned by Seneca Vocational School

WSYR, Syracuse - 500W on 1330, owned by C. B. Meredith

Toronto had 8 stations - all sharing 500W on 840

Rochester had 5 stations, including 5KW WHAM - the "behemoth".

Buffalo had 6 stations (counting WKEN in Kenmore and WMAK in Lockport). WGR and WMAK both had 750W, the highest power in Buffalo. So much for Buffalo's supposed "edge" in the early days.

KDKA in Pittsburg was 50KW - the highest power in the US.

WBZ in Springfield, MA was 15KW

WGN in Chicago was 15KW

WGY Schenectady was 30KW

WJZ on 660 in NYC was 30KW

WLIB in Chicago was 15KW

There were a handful of 5KW, many 1KW, LOTS of 500W, 250W, and 100W stations, and a surprising number of 50W teapots.

 

[cee]

Interesting how WKBW was only 50W back then, while WHAM was up to 5,000W. I wonder at what point both those stations made they're way up to 50,000W.

WSVS, Buffalo - 50W on 1460, owned by Seneca Vocational School

I wonder what their format was? Perhaps they were using the station to teach students radio engineering? Were there student announcers? We'll never know.

 

[aaronread]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a helluva lot harder to reliably put out 5000 watts of AM back in 1927. Hell, IIRC it wasn't too easy to do just 500! So a lot of 50 watt stations is not surprising.

I remember being at NAB this spring and being flabbergasted at the sheer size (or lack thereof) of Nautel's new 44000 watt TPO FM HD Radio transmitter. Damn thing is tiny for that much power...barely bigger than two refrigerators. It wasn't that long ago (2003) that I installed a 1000 watt FM at WZBC and it was at least four times that big...and I thought THAT thing was "tiny".

Here's a cute pic of when WCUW in Worcester, MA replaced their transmitter earlier in 2008. Lookit that teeny thing (dark grey in the middle of the right-side rack) compared to the behemoth on the left!
http://www.wcuw.org/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=77

 

[Bob1370]

"Interesting how WKBW was only 50W back then, while WHAM was up to 5,000W. I wonder at what point both those stations made they're way up to 50,000W."

KB in 1927 was building out a CP for a new transmitter in Amherst that by the end of the year would crank it up to 5,000 watts on 1470, moving to 1480 by the end of 1928 (where it would stay until the move to 1520, Big Tree Rd. and 50,000 watts in March of 1941).

WHAM bumped up to 25,000 watts in 1933 and 50,000 the next year on 1150 from its transmitter in Victor, and retuned the transmitter to 1180 in '41. (I think they moved to Chili and their current plant closer to town after the war.)

As a sidebar, the late Jack Ogilvie (my former morning show comrade on WBEN before his passing in 1979) told me that WSVS was indeed a training facility for high schoolers with aspirations to a technical career in radio or telecommunications. The Buffalo school system closed the station down before the war because of hard times, although the electronics curriculum stayed in place. He didn't go to Seneca Vocational himself (he was a Lafayette High grad) but he knew a lot of people in the business who did, and got their start at that station which shared a little time with the station that was later WBNY (AM) and eventually became WWWS.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Vocation Time

An interesting fact about WSVS is that they indeed shared time on 1370 with WBNY. In 1941, the FCC moved both stations to 1400 as part of a nationwide frequency reallocation program. A few months after the frequency shift, WSVS applied for an FM license, and gave up their claim to 1400.

I don't know if they ever got their FM license, or if the FM ever got on the air, but I know that there was an antenna that looked suspiciously like an FM antenna atop Seneca Vocational for a long time. I don't know if it's still there or not. I also seem to remember an antenna atop Burgard Vocational, but I can't find any reference to a radio station there.

 

[VoiceGuyJack]

Another couple of oldies for the list may include-

WXRA - located where the Boulevard mall now sits
WINE - Main and Cayuga
WADV FM - 22nd floor of the Rand Bldg.

 

[fybush]

Another couple of oldies for the list may include-

WXRA - located where the Boulevard mall now sits
WINE - Main and Cayuga
WADV FM - 22nd floor of the Rand Bldg.

There's probably a treatise to be written about all the various radio stations that have called the Rand Building home. Where in the building were the palatial Buffalo Broadcasting Company studios? Did WGR once have its transmitter there? WJYE before the present 12th/13th floor studioplex?

 

[OttoM]

Another couple of oldies for the list may include-

WXRA - located where the Boulevard mall now sits
WINE - Main and Cayuga
WADV FM - 22nd floor of the Rand Bldg.

There's probably a treatise to be written about all the various radio stations that have called the Rand Building home. Where in the building were the palatial Buffalo Broadcasting Company studios? Did WGR once have its transmitter there? WJYE before the present 12th/13th floor studioplex?

WJYE (B/EZ WBNY) was on the 17th floor of the Rand Building. Prior to its move to floor 12, the WYRK (WADV) studios/offices were on the 5th floor.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Hey Rob, not to nit-pick, but you're halfway right. WBNY started out tucked away on the 17th floor of the grand Rand, then moved to the 26th floor were the RF from Channel 17's antenna was so overwhelming you coulda cooked a turkey with all that RF. Channel 17's studios and offices at the time were in the glamorous Hotel Lafayette (where the doormen fought the winos for tips), diagonally across from the Rand Building and its antenna was atop the Lafayette.

WBNY later moved to the 25th floor (Broadcasting Yearbook, 1977) of the Rand when McCormick bought the joint, then down to... well, you get the gist. WADV ("First In Stereo...") during the Lesniak era, was on the 22nd floor (Broadcasting Yearbook, 1977 and a few visits to people who worked there.) IIRC, WBLK was on the 7th or 8th floor when the Hound owned it, it then moved to Franklin Street, first next door to WYSL-WPHD, then across the street to the corner of Franklin and Virginia Street, then to Main Street near Tupper (the Anacosta Center?) and then full circle back to the Rand. Apparently, the engineers were kept quite busy with all three of these facilities.

 

[Penrod Rightout]

An interesting fact about WSVS is that they indeed shared time on 1370 with WBNY. In 1941, the FCC moved both stations to 1400 as part of a nationwide frequency reallocation program. A few months after the frequency shift, WSVS applied for an FM license, and gave up their claim to 1400.

I don't know if they ever got their FM license, or if the FM ever got on the air, but I know that there was an antenna that looked suspiciously like an FM antenna atop Seneca Vocational for a long time. I don't know if it's still there or not. I also seem to remember an antenna atop Burgard Vocational, but I can't find any reference to a radio station there.

I just found an article in the Jan. 30, 1945 Courier-Express about 3 Buffalo stations-WBEN, WEBR, and WGR-submitting applications to the FCC for a commercial FM license. The FCC further said the Board of Education was in the process of building a non-com WCAH-FM.