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WNWR 1540 Programming Moves To WWDB 860 on June 13th
- Thread starter 1310
- Start date
The story I heard--and I can't verify that it is the TRUE story--is, nevertheless, one of the better radio stories.
Supposedly, the owner was so displeased with the nighttime coverage that he refused to pay the consultant who had designed the night pattern. The consultant still had the keys to the transmitter building and, one night, he went to the building, removed the night phasor (and maybe the 500W night transmitter) loaded it all into the back of his pickup truck and departed. Since there was no sign of a break-in, it was obviously an inside job and the trail led immediately to the consulting engineer, who maintained that, since he was owed for the job and the station owner had refused to pay him (something he could document), he was simply taking possession of property that was rightfully his. The owner sued but I don't know whether the case ever got to court. And I don't know whether it was the owner or the engineer who returned the CP to the FCC and had it cancelled. It wasn't that the CP was never built. It actually was built--and then, umm, unbuilt.
Oh, and I have no idea who either the owner or the engineer were.
Now, if somebody knows the REAL story, does it top the version I just told?
Supposedly, the owner was so displeased with the nighttime coverage that he refused to pay the consultant who had designed the night pattern. The consultant still had the keys to the transmitter building and, one night, he went to the building, removed the night phasor (and maybe the 500W night transmitter) loaded it all into the back of his pickup truck and departed. Since there was no sign of a break-in, it was obviously an inside job and the trail led immediately to the consulting engineer, who maintained that, since he was owed for the job and the station owner had refused to pay him (something he could document), he was simply taking possession of property that was rightfully his. The owner sued but I don't know whether the case ever got to court. And I don't know whether it was the owner or the engineer who returned the CP to the FCC and had it cancelled. It wasn't that the CP was never built. It actually was built--and then, umm, unbuilt.
Oh, and I have no idea who either the owner or the engineer were.
Now, if somebody knows the REAL story, does it top the version I just told?
J
jhguthlac
Guest
BTW DaveWilliams, I wonder if you are thinking of Imus and not Rush? The I-Man was on 860 for awhile when CBS (Westwood One) wanted a Philadelphia outlet for the show. It had been dumped from 1210 so they could go live/local in the morning.
Scott is right about the engineer; the late Mike Venditti wangled the 500 watt night power for the then WPGR. I was told by the Director of Engineering that the station could get some decent night power, but chose not to use it, thinking that the audience was pretty much a daytime one. i had a similar case in Providence working for the 990 there,m which also was a 50 kW daytimer. It had a 500 watt PSRA/PSSA it was able to use. Signal wasn't too bad, but some nights, it would get beat up by the 990 in Rochester NY. After an ownership change, a COL change to Greenville RI from Providence was done, and the station was able to get 5 kW nights.
I knew "The Bittner Twins" survived on donations, but don't they also sell some ads as well? Either way I like the idea. I think the idea could be appropriate for a standards format, especially if somewhat more obscure elements like jazz, big band or 'modern-day crooners" were to be added to the playlist. Such an approach might also work if the station was to go Americana or to a presentation like what WPAZ offers, those also might be considerations.DG02816 said:
dg seems to have the story. that part happenned after i left. however, i can tell you a HUGE part of the arguement was a dissagreement about one of the caveats to get the 500 watts, and that was also a COL change. 1540 was, for a while anyway, moved from philadelphia to COL as bala cynwyd. bringing 1st service to bala cynwyd got us the nighttime authority. and it was indeed mike venditti. as to the rest of the story, well, mike v's done some legendary stuff!
DToTheJ said:
1360 started as WWBZ (named for the three founders, Wood, Bullock, and Zugg) in Vineland, NJ. I grew up in the hallways of the place because my Grandfather, Lew DeMarco, was the principal shareholder in the place until the late 1980's. It operated as full-service throughout its time in Vineland. Ironically, I got into broadcasting just as my family was selling it.
In 1986 the station was sold to Gus Cawley, who had quite questionable business practices with a lot of people. As a result, he eventually had a hard time finding advertisers in Cumberland County. In 1989 he made the desperation move of moving the station to Pitman (without bothering to apply to move the license or 1K transmitter), shacking it up in a little closet of an office with board, desks, satellite receiver, and STL all together in a tiny cramped space. He had two employees during the move: himself and me. I left to go back to college at the end of the summer and was replaced by Norm Donohue as the only employee. Around that time he applied for and got the WVSJ calls.
Shortly afterward, Cawley picked up Rush Limbaugh, which brought up the billing of the station enough for him to survive. When Rush jumped to WWDB it was the beginning of the end (again), and around then he sold out to the WNJC crowd. I'm sure others could fill in the gaps after that.
Pab,
Are there any pictures of the WWBZ studios around?
Are there any pictures of the WWBZ studios around?
amfmsw said:
Bala was good for two reasons: (1) Despite a fairly high NIF (the likely main contributors would be KXEL and ZNS-1; WPTR/WDCD probably not; Albany's pattern is deeply nulled toward the Bahamas and Philadelphia lies in that null), the 500W night signal apparently could cover 80% of the population of the new CoL--normally a requirement, though fairly often waived. (2) As you said WNWR (or whatever the calls were back then), would have been the first broadcast station licensed to Bala. Nobody in his right mind could have believed that 500W on 1540 would deliver an interference-free signal to a large percentage of the City of Philadelphia's population at night.
Yes!
On a visit to Philadelphia in 1993, I found WPGR's night time 500 watts to provide pretty effective coverage...Also...at that time...WPGR signed off at midnight...at least on Sunday nights...and surprisingly...WPTR-Albany was the dominant station on 1540 at night with WPGR off...
J
Jul
Guest
Why is WWDB-AM still airing ESPN Deportes programming? As I post this, they are airing the programming, not the WNWR programming.
That absolutely positively sucks. It would be good to get away from conservative talk radio and establish a truth-talk oriented station. (Alex Jones kind of stuff for example) But it would never work because there aren't enough advertising dollars willing to support such a format, especially in a major market.
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