WSAN

[edarmsttrong]

How long does this station have to reside in the ratings basement, until changes happen? Even Timmer beat them this winter, and he signed off in the middle of afternoon drive!

 

[Daveradio]

What a shame that the station's been crap since they ran scared as a country station in the early 80s and changed to MOR. The format revolving door has continued since.

 

[RADIOTopOfTheWorld]

All one has to do is listen to that PM Drive crap they air to tell that no one at Clear Channel cares about the station. Or worse, they are aware of what is being aired and approve of it!

 

[TODDMAYOR]

then go dark and save the ppl bill. no listeners no ratings no $$$ i am suprised cc has not sold it off. cool tower array those three self supporting in the whitehall mall parking lot. what a heritage station.

 

[Richard B]

then go dark and save the ppl bill. no listeners no ratings no $$$ i am suprised cc has not sold it off. cool tower array those three self supporting in the whitehall mall parking lot. what a heritage station.

My God!! I haven't been in the Valley for nearly 20yrs. Are those towers still standing? They should have converted to wired towers years ago. They offer a better distribution of the signal (less interference from the bulky legs.)

WSAN was the cool station when I was in High School in the mid-70's. All the stoners listened to it. I may still have the t-shirt from them then. they had a contest and the winner was the creator of the logo.
They played the album music no one else would then. A gutsy move for the time.
I worked for WEEX/WQQQ right after HS, and loved it, but I was still embarrassed by the Top-40 format. I wanted to get into SAN so badly then. I submitted demo tapes and interviewed several times.

Then they went country, FM became the thing to listen to and that was that.

So now they are owned by clear Channel, huh? Probably as a tax write-off.

 

[Interstate 78]

Why can't WSAN pick up the True Oldies satellite feed? It'd be better than a sports station that gets 0.0 ratings. True oldies isn't bad and may actually be able to beat Timmer! :

 

[EasyBakeOven]

It was only a few years ago that 1470 had a very good sounding oldies format that was all local (branded as WKAP), but I think corporate stepped in and mandated that they clear Fox Sports in the market. In-between oldies and sports, the station was religious for several months.

 

[humwing]

WSAN should get the True Oldies Channel.

 

[klutch00]

then go dark and save the ppl bill. no listeners no ratings no $$$ i am suprised cc has not sold it off. cool tower array those three self supporting in the whitehall mall parking lot. what a heritage station.

My God!! I haven't been in the Valley for nearly 20yrs. Are those towers still standing? They should have converted to wired towers years ago. They offer a better distribution of the signal (less interference from the bulky legs.)

WSAN was the cool station when I was in High School in the mid-70's. All the stoners listened to it. I may still have the t-shirt from them then. they had a contest and the winner was the creator of the logo.
They played the album music no one else would then. A gutsy move for the time.
I worked for WEEX/WQQQ right after HS, and loved it, but I was still embarrassed by the Top-40 format. I wanted to get into SAN so badly then. I submitted demo tapes and interviewed several times.

Then they went country, FM became the thing to listen to and that was that.

So now they are owned by clear Channel, huh? Probably as a tax write-off.

I assume that WSAN was the progressive rock (or AOR) kingpin of the Lehigh Valley before Z-95 (WZZO) showed up on the scene later that decade.

WSAN should get the True Oldies Channel.

I like that idea. Something else worth considering might be do MOR modeled similar to that of Albany NY's WROW.

 

[Bob Farro]

WSAN indeed was THE *underground* radio station in the valley in the 60's and into the 70's. Dave Fox, Rick Harvey, Denny Somach and many more earned their chops there. Those of us who were around then remember "The Voice of the Turtle" as one of the great shows on the station. One of the best things they had going for them was a really good signal. You could pick them up on any radio nearly anywhere in the valley. Obviously, this was before the insurgence of FM as the music band of choice.

 

[humwing]

Don't forget a really cool local show that aired on sunday nights 10pm to 2am from 1974 to 1978....the Wooden Sound Machine.a great soul/R & B/funk music show.I got hooked on Parliament & Johnny Guitar Watson thanks to John Wood.plus other soulful jams.sadly his show got canned for Dr. Demento and Jazz Album Countdown in febuary 1978.he remained on air sunday afternoons on WSAN till the fall of 78.I did speak to J Wood in 1980 and told me he was leaving the area.too bad! he could have been on WMUH in summer 1981.

 

[Seltzer]

One of my WSAN memories was late at night and hearing the DJ say.."Hear at WSAN, we don't normally play the Osmonds but consider this"......He then played Crazy Horses.

 

[TODDMAYOR]

what about when they were country under the fulmer regime...there was a jock who could not say the call letters right. it was w-ass-a-n

to funny all the free mcdonalds coffee you could drink however. when fast food meets broadcasting wow???? or broadcasting meets fast food. thanks ed leonard for the fun helicopter rides...you were a true class act for that outfit.

 

[Seltzer]

what about when they were country under the fulmer regime...there was a jock who could not say the call letters right. it was w-ass-a-n

to funny all the free mcdonalds coffee you could drink however. when fast food meets broadcasting wow???? or broadcasting meets fast food. thanks ed leonard for the fun helicopter rides...you were a true class act for that outfit.

Yes..radio meeting fast food with Fulmer..long before radio consolidation kept this meeting alive....radio being the commodity it is today in most places.

 

[Daveradio]

Gotta give Fulmer credit. The man did synergy before the word was invented. He also owned a real estate company (helps buying property!) and a printing company. They all worked together and for each other.

 

[DPGumby]

I worked there for a while in the late 70's. Dave Fox was the PD at the time, we had my friend Bob Fisher working early evening, I followed Bob for a while at 10pm, then I did overnights for a while. At the time, the station was transitioning from their AOR format into more of an adult contemporary album station... a subtle difference, but it was a little more 'commercial' sounding music, and a little less 'Grateful Dead' type stuff.

I had come from WKAP, across the street, so I'd been playing the top 40 hits, and it was quite a change to me.

Lots of fun, and a great radio station at the time!

Gene O'Brien

 

[chrish]

I'm surprised no one else caught this, Richard B you obviously have no idea what you are talking about with regard to the WSAN self supporting versus guyed towers.
In general self supporting towers usually have much better bandwidth as do very wide guyed towers such as the 4 sided uniform cross section types which were used in the past. An example of these are the two at the old WJAR (now WHJJ) in Providence.
Any band width problems with stations using any of these towers are usually due to poorly designed ATU's or the early cheapo jeep type phasors. The other electrical difference is the current distribution along the tower.
The only reason self supporting and very wide guyed towers fell out of favor is that the cost of steel became astronomic. I'm sure that WWVA would have rebuilt the 3 that stood for 70 years but the price would have been more than the station is worth.
If you read these boards at all you will hear of many examples of stations having had to replace their self supporters due to age deterioration and after the new guyed towers were installed things were never quite the same. WEEI 590 was one of them also there have been many comments about WMVP 1000 on this board for another. Why do you think self supporters were so popular for years and years when they could have easily put up uniform cross section guyed?