WSLM Salem,IN

[ShockValue]

My type of station come long beautiful spring days with a bottle of Jack next to me... ;D ;D

 

[RDO]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSLM

 

[hipporadio]

OK Bob, so much for the photoshopped pictures, how about the real pictures of the station.

REALITY CHECK... There is NO – NO – NO version of PhotoShop and ANY of its infamous enhancements capable of the shear technical-terror on display in that exposé. This tops even my-own personal observation of the ultimate distressed broadcast station—1330 WEBO Owego – in Tioga County, NY – just west of Binghamton. The rusted tower at this station fell down [really]... Luckily, the only casualty was an unoccupied roadside fruit stand. What followed was a near-endless stream of creatively-renewed STAs and operation into something resembling a 30-degree electrically-long clothesline with 500-watts input from a 50s-vintage Gates 5kw rig. It finally took a new LOCAL owner and about FIVE YEARS to hoist a new tower!

A visit to the 1330 control room revealed a well-worn copy of Wayne Newton’s “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” playing on an ancient RCA 18-inch transcription turntable [complete with its signature teal metal cabinet on wheels] and $10 Olsen phono pre-amp running un-balanced for a good 20-feet into that circa 1975 Ramko console that resembled an elaborate Science Fair kit from Radio Shanty. The audio buzz was such a delightful bonus—courtesy of the horizontally-polarized RF environment! It kept WEBO’s TWO vacuum tube RCA BA-25 AGCs [wired consecutively] and BA-6a 50s-vintage limiter dancing! ‘No chickens in the control room – but a couple cats – and litter-box ingredient that gave graphic testimony to the overall mess that station had become.

Are you receiving my signal here? As bad as WEBO’s digs were, they were nowhere near as “impressive” as those at Tick-Tock Twelve-Twenty! You’ve outdone my farthest-fetched mental picture of an FCC-licensed landfill, Bob! You do indeed merit “a warsher” – I’ll even toss-in a rusted dryer [but it won’t be a matching pair], and you have to keep them on your front porch so the neighbors can share.

Stay-tuned for Hippo’s next installment... When I’ll tell y’all the true story about Jeannine Dean’s patent-pending Reflect-O-Meter at the former 100.1 WIKY in Carrollton, KY

 

[BobOnTheJob]

OK Bob, so much for the photoshopped pictures, how about the real pictures of the station.

Stay-tuned for Hippo’s next installment... When I’ll tell y’all the true story about Jeannine Dean’s patent-pending Reflect-O-Meter at the former 100.1 WIKY in Carrollton, KY

Gotta hear this WIKI story...that transmitter is under my care at it's "new"site...I feel an education/history lesson comin' on!

 

[IndyDan]

Sounds like I missed the deal of the century. On the way home from work tonight as the sun was setting, I had the good fortune of hearing a bit of WSLM's swap-shop show as I made my way around 465. It was difficult to hear at times because of another religious station on 1220, but I managed to catch a woman calling in to sell a 44 piece hand-painted dinnerware set, followed by another woman selling a set of box springs. Both sounded elderly and the audio quality can be best described as very tinny and at times, quite distorted. No Comrex or Gentner boxes here....it HAS to be a twisted pair running directly (i.e. clipleaded)into the mighty Mark 8 console. The show was hosted by none other than Texas Ed, who seemed to know these callers on a first name basis, but I guess that's how life is in Salem. I think a previous poster had the right idea about a bottle of Jack and a nice spring day.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

The show was hosted by none other than Texas Ed, who seemed to know these callers on a first name basis

That reminds me of the Swap Shop caller many years ago who was taken to task by the host as follows : "Hold the phone Uncle Jesse, first I need to know why you weren't at the family reunion this past weekend".

 

[gr8oldies]

Wow! I'd have thought I was looking at pictures from 1972, but these were much more recent. It's amazing anyone still operates that way. (I'll have to call the test board and make sure my network feeds are still there.
When WSLM was on 98.9, it would occasionally make it to west central Indiana, where I was living in the mid 80s, and I remember the down-home sounding guy doing community calendar announcements, referring to "slow time" or "fast time".

WOCH was the first station I ever interviewed at in 1975. I seem to remember a piano in a big studio. If I remember right, the gig was 5 to 11pm, where I'd have spent an hour or so playing country the the rest of the night playing slushy elevator music.

 

[speakerman]

This all reminds me of Martin Williams old station. You had to be really careful to avoid tripping over the wires in the main studio. Sony portable cassette deck carcasses sunk into the sloping counter face. He did his frequency measurement service by counting the back-forth motion of a DC-coupled woofer while watching the clock.

" 95-5 WFMS STERRRREEEEOOOO"

 

[Onesimus]

Good memory gr8oldies! My step-dad did the night shift on WOCH/North Vernon in that late 70's. There was indeed a chapel with a piano just behind the production room. Not to hurt anyone's feelings (and it's just a biased opinion), but I always thought the North Vernon station sounded better than WJCD (at least during the Baker era in Seymour). Blair Trask did a great job raising the bar at that property.

I used to listen to Bob Larsen on WSLM and thought he was great! They also had a local talk show hosted by Jack "Flannelmouth" Fultz in the 80's that was entertaining. I believe Jack was the GM of WIKI before he went to work at 'SLM.

I took a tour of WMPI/Scottsburg in 1991 and was expecting to find a dump. I was blown away by how nice the place actually was. The control room was just as nice as anything you'd find in Indy (at the time).