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WTOC Radio

J

jovialjay

The WTOC call letters are back on the radio...in Newton, New Jersey!

From Tom Taylor's T-R-I this morning:

Scott Shannon can hear his “True Oldies Channel” in northwestern New Jersey, as of next Tuesday’s re-branding of Clear Channel-owned oldies WNNJ, Newton (1360) as “True Oldies” and the pickup of his ABC Radio Networks feed. That’s not a big drive west on I-80 for New York-based Shannon, and the station’s also changing to compatible calls of “WTOC.” If market manager Dick Taylor hears a knock at the back door some Saturday or Sunday…well, that’s probably Scott, offering to cut some more tracks.

I'm not sure that Raycom's permission was needed. The Channel 11 calls have legally been WTOC-TV since the radio/TV split in 1979. Interesting...very interesting.
 
No, not needed at all. The FCC reserves sole authority to issue station call signs, and no individual licensee may claim any proprietary right to any specific call sign.
 
Witchlover said:
No, not needed at all. The FCC reserves sole authority to issue station call signs, and no individual licensee may claim any proprietary right to any specific call sign.
Click to expand...

No, that's not right, and I was wrong with my supposition. According to your friendly, neighborhood FCC, here are the facts:

Call Signs

`If a request is made to use a call sign which has already been assigned, the applicant must first obtain consent for secondary use of the call sign from the primary holder of the call sign.
 
That story was from the Bergen Record, and I don't know why WTOC-TV didn't ask them.

But, that is like that with many other stations around the nation, like WCKY in Cincinnati/Tiffin, OH, and KCBS in San Francisco/Los Angeles.

What type of music did WTOC play when it was on the air?
 
jovialjay said:
Witchlover said:
No, not needed at all. The FCC reserves sole authority to issue station call signs, and no individual licensee may claim any proprietary right to any specific call sign.
Click to expand...

No, that's not right, and I was wrong with my supposition. According to your friendly, neighborhood FCC, here are the facts:

Call Signs

`If a request is made to use a call sign which has already been assigned, the applicant must first obtain consent for secondary use of the call sign from the primary holder of the call sign.
Click to expand...

We are both correct, but I think you are more correct than I am, since Raycom would be the primary holder of the WTOC call sign. I was thinking of a situation where a business entity would try to block assignment of a call sign on trademak grounds, for example. I, too, consulted Uncle Charlie before I posted. I neglected to consider the fact that Raycom might have an interest in the assignment even though the radio station is hundreds of miles away. According to what you've quoted here, this is the case.

As I recall -- I think I actually recall correctly this time! -- WTOC-AM became WWSA and later WTKS (which was held by a Florida station when that shift in call signs occurred). The WTOC call was vacated and perhaps reassigned to another station before the current station applied for it.

I recall WTOC played a mixed bag of contemporary music of the day: some standards, pop, that sort of thing. As WWSA they were the "Voice of Savannah," but I cannot recall the music. Later on, they took on the "Music of Your Life" package, followed by Radio Disney. I seem to recall a short stint as an AM-Stereo Country station as WCHY-AM. (94.1 slugged it out with KIX 96 for years as WCHY-FM).

When CC bought everything in sight, they bought them too. WCHY flipped from Country to become WQBT; WWSA went to news-talk and became WTKS after WBMQ's contracts with Premiere expired. The station became NewsTalk 1290 with Beck, Limbaugh and, for a while anyway, Dr. Laura in the afternoons.

Does anyone broadcast in AM Stereo anymore?
 
Witchlover said:
Does anyone broadcast in AM Stereo anymore?
Click to expand...

WLOU AM1350 in Louisville, KY. When I took over the contract for the station I noticed the Nautel transmitter had a stereo exciter. An afternoon of rewiring the satellite receiver and Simien computer and the addition of a Marti STL 10 pair and the station is now in stereo. The Optimod 9100 was a stereo unit but only using the left side.

The format is black gospel The Light from Sheridan Broadcasting and the music sounds pretty good. I'm probably the only one that can here it in stereo since the radio in my Cherokee has an AM Stereo decoder in it.

On the subject of call signs, the situation up here with WHAS was the only situation I knew of where different entities owned stations with the same call sign. Clear Channel owns WHAS 840 AM and Belo owns WHAS-TV. Now since the precident has been set with Raycom, perhaps I can use the WALB-AM callsign on this station up here.

Also, we look at the example of the AM in Dallas Georgia. In September of 79, they requested the call sign WKRP and were denied by the FCC because the call sign was on hold due to the TV show being on the air. The owners of the Dallas station pointed out to the FCC that MTM Productions was not the licensee of a radio station therefore they could not place a hold on a valid call sign. The FCC agreed and assigned the call sign to the station. Unless the business is a licensee and has a vested interest in the call sign, such as WTOC-TV, they can't block the assignment.
 
The only AM Stereo receiver I ever saw is a SONY portable that I won in an on-air contest from WCHY in 1987, I think. I used it as a companion during physical therapy, my mom & dad used it in their RV, it was our stand-by radio for bad weather times, and today my brother carries it in his tackle box. It is still going strong and sounds quite good, but I cannot recall whether 1290 ever broadcast in stereo. If they did, I never realized it: This particular SONY had circuitry to deal with all of the competing encoders, and I may have never learned how to set it correctly. As I recall, the only way to determine which encoder a particular station was using was to call and ask -- assuming the person answering the telephone understood the question.
 
Witchlover said:
As I recall, the only way to determine which encoder a particular station was using was to call and ask -- assuming the person answering the telephone understood the question.
Click to expand...

The radio station I started my career at in Vienna was built from the ground up for stereo. All you needed to do was install the exciter and you were good to go. The antenna was tuned broad enough to pass the stereo signal, We had Harris Stereo 80 console on the air and Stereo 5 in production (I'd love to find one of these consoles now), and stereo Harris Criterion cart machines. All feeding a Harris MW-1A transmitter. Very nice facility for a 1kW daytimer.
 
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