WMGM Becomes WHN - 2/28/62
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2kjVjD_rNk
Going nowhere fast.
I can't believe all the verbiage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2kjVjD_rNk
Going nowhere fast.
I can't believe all the verbiage.
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WMGM Becomes WHN - 2/28/62
- Thread starter Zenith Transoceanic
- Start date
C
cd637299
Guest
I'm listening right now....but I have wondered:
How did NYC get a new 3-letter call? 3-letter call letters were abandoned in the 20s or 30s, no? The only exceptions I can see are:
(1) There had to have been a station with the calls WHN earlier, and these were restored (although I am not aware of such a station);
(2) Politician's decree? (I believe that KUT Austin's calls was ordered by Lyndon Johnson.)
So, how did that occur?
cd
How did NYC get a new 3-letter call? 3-letter call letters were abandoned in the 20s or 30s, no? The only exceptions I can see are:
(1) There had to have been a station with the calls WHN earlier, and these were restored (although I am not aware of such a station);
(2) Politician's decree? (I believe that KUT Austin's calls was ordered by Lyndon Johnson.)
So, how did that occur?
cd
So, in 1962 did folks gripe about 1050's signal coverage?
...that's precisely what happened. WHN was the call sign when it signed on the air in 1922; the ownership changed several times until it was eventually bought by Loews Corporation, which also owned the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie company. Loews cranked up KMGM (now KYSR) in Los Angeles in 1948, and at the same time decided to put the MGM letters on its New York radio station. When Loews sold the New York station to Storer in 1962, Storer felt the WMGM call sign was too closely identified with the Top 40 format it was abandoning, and they brought back the WHN call sign...cd637299 said:
oldiesfan6479 said:So, in 1962 did folks gripe about 1050's signal coverage?
Not from a business sense. The radio market consisted of fewer counties (Pulse and Hooper) and noise levels were much lower... so less issues with fringe area coverage on both counts.
...plus, AM radios were usually a lot better manufactured then...
ai4i said:
Miami's survey area up to about 1981 was just Dade... which was why WFUN could compete with WQAM in the 60's and occasionally win. In '81, Broward was added.
Arbitron became dominant in the early years of the 70's and Arbitron used the Metropolitan Survey Area as its base, and that was defined by the influence of stations in individual counties. As AM surrendered to FM in the 70's, listening in Broward became shared with Miami stations, and the subscribers voted to merge the markets... even though some managers voted against it (I was one).
The TSA was an expaned metro, usually including surrounding counties that had some listening or coverage by the home stations. It has seldom been used for advertising and was mostly developed to have a market area comparable to TV station markets, ADI's or HDMA's.
While I do not live, work, and play there, experience has taught me that a broad three tower DA-1 with 5Kw beaming right into the market on the lowest frequency in the market is nothing at which to sneeze.HHH said:
The two US stations that cover the most amount of dry diurnal American/Canadian real estate are each 5Kw.
"...plus, AM radios were usually a lot better manufactured then..."
Ain't that the truth! (Thank you all for your responses, btw.)
Ain't that the truth! (Thank you all for your responses, btw.)
In an era when there seemed to be much less electrical noise in the air, and AM radios were better, WMCA's 5-kw signal did really get out.
Another low frequency AM that covered a lot of ground was the original WVNJ-AM on 620. It had a five tower array that gave it a fat baseball bat shaped pattern that shot in from 25-miles west of Manhattan and continued half way across Long Island, while not wasting much signal over Long Island Sound or the Atlantic. The front of the pattern also covered most of North Jersey, while a narrow "bat handle" stretched all the way back to the Pennsylvania border.
When that pattern was designed in the late 1940s, it covered the NYC metro where the most people lived. But by the 1980s, lots of those city types, who liked its format, had moved to the outer suburbs that were farmland when the pattern was designed. With the rise of FM, and the population shift, by the 1980s its most effective use became a Spanish language format. Ultimately, the land the five towers sat on were more valuable as a McMansion housing development than a transmitting site, and the 620 license moved to fewer towers and lower power in the Jersey meadows.
In 1962, Storer owned top 40 WIBG Philadelphia which was getting 30+ shares in the evening. WMCA with its 5 kW signal on 570 was beating WINS and WMGM, both with 50 kW signals. WABC had not yet found its way. IIRC, Gary Owens was expected to join WMGM until Storer decided to flip the format. Ted Brown probably didn't last long at the new WHN. By the end of 1962, Dick Shepherd was doing mornings on WHN. Ted Brown was doing PM drive at WNEW.
WHN renewed its commitment to New York sports starting in 1963 when it broadcast Jets' football games. A year later, the Jets moved to WABC. The Mets moved to WHN in 1964 from WABC, remaining with WHN through 1966. For the remainder of the 60s, WHN would broadcast the Knicks, Rangers and later the Yankees from 1967 through 1970. A young Marv Albert was WHN's sports director.
WHN renewed its commitment to New York sports starting in 1963 when it broadcast Jets' football games. A year later, the Jets moved to WABC. The Mets moved to WHN in 1964 from WABC, remaining with WHN through 1966. For the remainder of the 60s, WHN would broadcast the Knicks, Rangers and later the Yankees from 1967 through 1970. A young Marv Albert was WHN's sports director.
TimeIsTight said:
Nice story--except that 620's current site (adjacent to WLIB) has five in-line (or nearly in-line) towers, just like the original site in, I believe, Livingston NJ. The current array even mimics the old array by having a tower that is taller than the other four in the middle position. The current site is allegedly temporary but the station has never made any real headway in building a "permanent" site adjacent to WBBR. That site would use an unusual seven-tower array and would run 15 kW-U DA-2. Also, I believe the current programming is mainly in Russian, although the programming was in Spanish for quite a few years.
WSNR is incredibly hemmed in by WIP, WICC, WPRO and others. With their narrow patterns, both arrays have been plagued by serious audio distortion over a large arc centered in back of the array. When the transmitter was far west in a relatively sparsely populated area, those problems were not significant. At the current site, which is much further east and where the pattern needed to be rotated clockwise a bit to provide all of the necessary protections, the areas where the signal is unlistenable fall in much more densely populated areas. In fact the Bronx and adjacent southern Westchester form such an area.
Interesting that the WSNR signal more than doubles in power at night, according to the Radio-Locator.
Daytime Power 3000 Watts
Nighttime Power 7600 Watts
Daytime Power 3000 Watts
Nighttime Power 7600 Watts
You're right the original site was in Livingston, the middle tower was taller than the others and the current site in Lyndhurst does have five towers.
Since going Spanish the station has changed owners, and format, several times, it has changed its city of license and there have also been several reports of pending transmitter site moves over the years too and I kind of lost track. Way back, somebody told me that the reduced power, after the first move, meant they could use fewer towers and save money, but obviously that info was wrong. Possibly, the owners at the time were trying to pull that off but it ultimately wasn't possible.
There was also talk at one point of a proposed transmitter site in a swampy area of Caldwell, not that far from the Livingston site. That Caldwell site reportedly would have given the station a better signal, and would have used even more than five towers??
In recent years I have heard broadcasts in Russian during the day, and hours of repeated "Hail Marys" in English at night.
[NOTE-space removed.]
I was in a minor way involved with the 1380 WLXI on Patterson Plank Rd., the spacing of AM's in the Jersey Meadowland is so close that even with massive sophisticated filtering and detuning on the arrays the amount of nearby signals appearing at the antenna common points is pretty bad. The old 1050 which has since moved and WADO were especially bad
Can also remember when 620 and 100.3 were WVNJ AM and FM beautiful music WV-enjoy
Can also remember when 620 and 100.3 were WVNJ AM and FM beautiful music WV-enjoy
If they did, they shouldn't have; WHN could be heard with audible quality in Sullivan County in Upstate NY, where scoutmasters had it tuned in at boy scout summer camp. Also, my folks kept the car radio tuned in to WHN 1050 for much of those long, 8-hour drives from Long Island to the grandparent's farm in Western PA. Actually started losing the signal west of Harrisburg.oldiesfan6479 said:So, in 1962 did folks gripe about 1050's signal coverage?
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