WSL Utica's 1st AM station & Syracuse's 50KW'er

[therealjm12]

In reading the website for Utica AM radio history http://www.uticaamradio.org/index.html Utica’s first radio station WSL is mentioned. I had heard stories about WSL, mostly from an elderly neighbor who played his banjo in the music store for the station. It makes you wonder what would have happened if WSL had stayed on the air. Utica would have had a three letter call sign station. The station could have been grand fathered in by the F. C. C. and probably would have been given significant power increase. Maybe even a clear channel 50,000 watts. WIBX sat on their duff with 250 watts for 20 years without any local competition before moving to 950 kc and 5,000 watts. That was only because WRUN –AM was about to sign on. Maybe with the competition, WIBX might have applied for a power increase years earlier and ended up as a power house. You, also, have to remember Utica-Rome was a much larger market back then.

Many people don’t know how close Syracuse came to a 50,000 watt AM station. WPAW on 1540 was intended to be a 50 KW’er. The engineering (I knew the engineer) study was done and, I believe the application was filed with the F. C. C.
Why it didn’t happen? Don’t know for sure but legend has the the Newhouse family (WSYR) pulled some political strings and stopped it. So 1540 was made a low power daytimer and the famous 1540 was moved to Albany and became WPTR.
Makes you wonder how Central New York radio history would have been altered if these two stations had existed.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

I don't quite follow your logic in stating the "famous 1540 was moved to Albany".

WPTR-Albany signed on in 1948 at 10KW and increased to 50KW within a few years. WPAW-Syracuse didn't sign on until 1965. Maybe Syracuse and Albany filed competing applications with the FCC for a high power station on 1540, and Albany was the winner. But once WPTR went to 50KW, a 1540 transmitter in Syracuse would be relegated to low power daytime status.

 

[therealjm12]

Maybe Syracuse and Albany filed competing applications with the FCC for a high power station on 1540, and Albany was the winner. But once WPTR went to 50KW, a 1540 transmitter in Syracuse would be relegated to low power daytime status.

That's probably right. The engineer that told me all this is long gone. The 1948 time frame seems about right.

 

[AMonFM]

WPTR came about as an effort by Leonard Asch, creator of the Patroon Broadcasting Company in Albany. The FCC approved the application for WPTR in 1945, the station was built and subsequently hit the air in August 1948 at it's original 10kw (and upped to 50kw after Patroon insisted that the local ground conductivity was too poor for a good signal). The reason for the 2 1/2 year build out was the shortage of materials following World War II.

On a side note, WPTR was the sister station of W47A/WBCA Schenectady, the USA's first fully independant FM station which hit the air in 1947. That's right, an early case where the FM existed before the AM.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

On a side note, WPTR was the sister station of W47A/WBCA Schenectady, the USA's first fully independant FM station which hit the air in 1947. That's right, an early case where the FM existed before the AM.

This also was the case at a station I worked at in the early 70's (the paleolithic era.)

WUSJ Lockport, NY, (Niagara County, Western New York State) owned by the Lockport Union Sun & Journal first went on the air in 1948 as WUSJ-FM on 99.3 MHz. In 1949, the company secured an AM license to operate with 250 Watts on 1340. A few years later, the company turned in the FM license to the FCC.

DOH!!! Seems damn crazy when viewed from today's perspective.

Sure, back in the day FM probably stood for "Find Me," but still, you have to wonder about the decision, considering that a 50kW FM in Lockport, NY could have easily reached Buffalo AND Toronto... and possibly even Rochester.

Granted, WUSJ-FM on 99.3 in Lockport wasn't 50kW, but as an early FM, it's likely that it would have been Grandfathered to Class B or maybe even Class C status. An account of that station's history can be found here. Scroll down to the lower portion of the page.

WUSJ-AM in 1975 changed call letters to WLVL. Ironically, the WUSJ call letters are now assigned to an FM in Jackson, Mississippi.

Yeah, hindsight is alway 20-20.

 

[therealjm12]

WRUN-FM (now WFRG) in Utica actually signed on before WRUN AM, at least by a year if not more. WRUN-FM is where Dick Clark started out. He was an announcer there where no one was listening. I don't think his father -Richard Clark Sr. (part owner of the stations)would allow him on the AM once it signed on. Dick Clark says he was most famous at WRUN for working in the mail room and sweeping the floors.

 

[chrish]

In the early eighties I did some consulting work for WCLI AM and FM in Corning, This is another case where the FM came first to the old FM band and then to the new.
In order to keep the FM afloat the FCC gave them WCLI. The FM site on the hill was used for the not so great AM signal and because no one even thought of an AM, the self supporting FM tower had no base insulators and the AM had to be shunt fed

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Talk about six degrees of separation! I live and work in Buffalo, but years ago I worked in Utica as PD of WBVM.

That's one connection with this thread. The WCLI Corning (Elmira-Corning) transmitter site was mentioned and I have a small connection with that.

A few years ago, I joined an expedition "up the mountain" with my good friend Tom Atkins, who is VP Engineering at Backyard Broadcasting, which owns WNKI-FM (formerly WCLI.) I got a birds-eye view of the transmitters in the building, the three-legged self-supported tower and the site itself, with lots of land around the building.

If I have it right, the WCLI-AM was moved to its own short, guyed tower a few hundred yards south of the WNKI-FM self-supporter.

I have to laugh when I think about walking around that transmitter site and hearing a rustling in the woods which made me stop in my tracks and look directly at a medium sized brown bear about 50 feet away. Man, I'm glad he wasn't hungry!

I remember walking very swiftly back to the main transmitter building, where I was greeted with chuckles. My friend Tom said, "I shoulda told you there were bears up here."

Backyard Broadcasting is operated by Barry Drake who was the CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting, which owned WGR-AM when I was PD-OM there from 1995-2000.

While at WGR, I signed "John & Ken" for the night show when they were in syndication. These guys once worked mornings in Elmira before hitting it big at NJ-101 and later KFI in Los Angeles. Sinclair also owned WBEN-AM, WKSE-FM, WTSS-FM, WWWS-AM and WWKB-AM, Buffalo before selling the cluster to Entercom.

Here's another connection. Years ago, WNKI was owned by Victor Michael, with whom I worked when he was Chief Engineer of WGR-AM and WGRQ-FM (97 Rock), Buffalo, when those stations were owned by Taft Communications.

It gets weirder. While I was Production Director at 97 Rock around 1990-95, Paul Lyle did a stint hosting the midday talk show at WGR-AM. He's now the GM of the Route 81 Elmira-Corning cluster.

About a month ago, I was on vacation and Tom invited me to join him for a road trip to Elmira-Corning as he had some equipment to deliver to the WPGI site. Why not, what the hell!

Corning is a cool little city with a couple of great restaurants on Market Street. I can't remember the name of the place, but we always get something to eat at the Italian restaurant on Market Street before heading back to Buffalo.

Small world, isn't it?!