WYLL and WIND.

[Prais]

"High Acoustical standards!" HA!

Summer, 1970 -
The Wrigley Building studios where I worked were a well equipped museum. It was poorly lit and always needed a visit from the cleaning lady.

As the elevator opened, go left to the offices, go right down the hall, past the record library (where they used to fling 45's out the window to the Chicago River)... the hall bends to the right and down, past the rack of Ampex tape decks (for news cuts) (to the left there and you were in the newsroom). Bernard Shaw (later of cnn, Walt Hamilton and the "Dicks", Eliott and Brasie. They used Wollensak tape recorders to gather sound on the street.

Follow the hall to the back and to the right and you were in the 24/7 control room. Three Ampex machines on the back wall (used to establish tape delay for the talk shows). Left machine recorded, threaded throug the middle machine to the right machine that played back - on air- with about a 7 second delay.

Do a 180 turn and you were in front of the control table with the rca board, disk cutter, and 3 windows. To the left was the production studio, center air studio, and right, news studio.

The board op sat in front of the rca board (from the early 50's). To his left was the remote transmitter control, to the right of that, 3 itc cart players (not a triple decker). There was a remote start/stop for the ampex machines on the desk.

The production studio was sparsely equipped and about 16 x 20 feet. I recorded 2300 music carts, jingles and ads that eventually replaced the record turners, who got musicians wages to run the tt's.The first song to "test" music on cart was "Games" by the group Redeye.

In the air studio, an odd shaped nearly square room, sat the record turner (Ed Turlikowski was a buddy of mine) in front of 3 rca turntables. Behind him was 2 tall shelving units full of records. In front of him was the odd shaped table where the dj sat. There were 2 rca 44-bx mics there on a single boom. The dj communicated with the board op by intercom.

The news studio was as big as a closet. The newsman sat on a stool in front of a more modern rca mic and the news was on a music stand.

Later wind moved to the 600 block of N Michigan (East Side of the street) to much nicer digs.

What did I forget?









The air studio was an almost square with a table and 2 44-bx microphones. That rooom had 3 turntables (where until I got there) EVERY commercial and every song was on disk, played by a record turner (who got musicians wages for operating the tt's.

I was hired to put 2300 songs on cart. Then, cart all of the commercials, jingles and promos. When I finished, they sstopped the record turners (except 1).

 

[[email protected]]

"High Acoustical standards!" HA!

Maybe what Bill Ryan meant were the digs in the 600 N Michigan facility???? I dunno, it's 2nd hand info.

I was still in school in the 70's...so I never had the opportunity to see it myself. Sounds like radio was still fun back then.

Filpping 45's out the window at the Chicago River....


I recall playing "baseball" with 16" transcriptions from the old WAIT-AM 820 basement, back in the 80's

We'd fling them at the batter and he'd try to whack them or at least get out of their way.

Now a days those transcriptions would bring in a nice buck on E-bay ...who knew?

Young and foolish...those were the days.

 

[Charlie Gee]

"High Acoustical standards!" HA!


What did I forget?

I think you got it all. Sounds just like when I was there in the late 50's. No transmitter remote control then however as the transmitter was manned. Westinghouse was the owner when I was there.

 

[Prais]

Just for the record, I wrote this a few months ago;
WIND first signed on in 1927. It was started by Ralph Atlass, originally as a Gary, Indiana station. Atlass also started WBBM, Chicago.

WIND's coverage map notes a 4 tower directional array located South and East of Chicago along I-80-94 near Cline Ave. The North lobe of their signal went to Milwaukee 24 hours daily. Another lobe of the directional signal extended toward Indianapolis during the day, but was shut off at sunset. At 560 on the dial, with 5000 watts, the signal easily blanketed Chicagoland.

WIND's studios were located on the 3rd floor of the South tower of the Wrigley Building.

According to old Chicago Tribune radio schedules (found on the website JJ's radio logs) in the late 40's WIND was the "hit music" station for Chicago, mostly playing contemporary music. It also featured Cubs and Sox baseball and big band programs, including Lawrence Welk.

WIND's programming has always been music and personality driven. In the 50's, Howard Miller, a Chicago radio personality, started a longtime run as Chicago's top rated morning DJ. For the next 20 years, Miller claimed the top spot in Chicago morning radio ratings, only to be toppled in the 1970s by WGN's Wally Phillips.

Over the years, other WIND personalities included Bernie Allen, Lee Rogers, Dick Williamson, Perry Marshall, Kassidy, Joel Sebastian, Milo Hamilton, Doug Dalghren, Chuck Benson and Kurt Russell, Clark Weber, Jerry G Bishop, Ron Riley, Ron Brittain, Steve King, Bill Jurek, and Connie Szerczen.

Who did I forget?

Overnight programing began with "Night Watch" featuring Bruce Lee, several other hosts, then Larry Johnson, then Chicago Eddie Schwartz (who was also music director for a time).

From the 1940s until the demise of the music format, following the 2:00am newscast, WIND played "The Whiffenpoof Song." The station had a library of over 100 versions of this song.

In 1956, Atlass sold WIND to Westinghouse. Westinghouse expanded the news department, adding such names as Walt Hamilton, Dick Brazie, Dick Elliott and Bernard Shaw (later of CNN). WIND pioneered 5 minute newscasts at the top and bottom of every hour, and a "meteorologist" (for many years, Earl Finkel) doing the weather forecast, hourly.

Westinhouse used an "electronic souner" news intro, much different from the 3 note intro used at other Group W stations. That intro was on a 30 minute cart kept on top of one of the cart machines;

Sound; "Breem, breem breem breem"

(name) with WIND News at 9:30, brought to you by Uptown Federal Savings, 4545 Broadway, C'mon Uptown."

News

By the 1960s, though WIND, along with other Westinghouse stations employed a gentle top 40 music format, WLS did much better in the ratings. Several Westinghouse stations went to an all-news format. Others like WIND evolved into adult contemporary formats by the 1970s. Instead of competing against WLS they opted to compete against WGN and its MOR/talk format.

By 1977 WIND played music during the day along with local news until 10:00 p.m. when they would switch to call-in talk programming featuring Dave Baum (called "Contact"). Similar formats were on Westinghouse sister stations like WBZ in Boston, Massachusetts and KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

During these years, WIND and WGN had similar formats except the latter played less music. By 1978 WIND switched to a (mostly satellite delivered) news/talk format and opted to add local talk shows in the morning.

According to Radio and Records, a radio trade publication, the WIND oldies format was strong until FM station WKFM 103.5 changed call letters to WFYR when it was purchased by RKO for one million dollars (a record price for an fm at the time) and broadcast "Drake-Chenault" automated oldies in stereo.

When WIND evolved into talk, the tape cartridges, which held the 2000+ song music library, were sent to WOWO, Fort Wayne, another Westinghouse station.

In 1981, when WIND added all-news blocks between 6:00-9:00 a.m. and 3:00-7:00 p.m. the station did not perform as well as sister stations. In 1985 Westinghouse sold WIND to Tichenor Radio for $6 million and left the Chicago market. The radio station then moved to the 625 N. Michigan building.

Westinghouse later returned to the area by purchasing WMAQ-AM 670 from NBC in 1987.

In 1985 WIND became a Spanish adult contemporary music station, including Spanish-language news and talk shows. WIND evolved into Spanish news and talk by 1990, but eventually brought back music. In 1998 Tichenor merged with Heftel Broadcasting (which Clear Channel Communications had acquired controlling interest in 1996) to form Hispanic Broadcasting, in which Clear Channel retained a minority stake. Five years later, when Hispanic Broadcasting merged with Univision, Clear Channel relinquished its minority stake in the company, which was renamed Univision Radio.

In 2004 Univision Radio swapped stations with Salem. Univision Radio wanted to move their music format to an FM station, while Salem wanted a major AM station as an outlet for its syndicated talk radio programming. This resulted in Salem owning WIND while Univision Radio got WPPN 106.7. WIND once again became an English-language talk station.

 

[amfmxm]

During AM radio's heyday, 560/WIND was always the station with the huge signal that never quite figured out how to compete with their peers. It was always the station that General Managers & programmers lusted after ("If I could only get my hands on that SOB...")--it was the Dream Girl that you could never have.

Some radio companies can only succeed when they have the dominant signal in a market. Westinghouse--with KDKA, WBZ, WOWO, et al, was one of those. In Chicago, 560 was one of 4 or 5 full-market signals, and the competition was always as good or better than they were. ABC, CBS, NBC, the Trib, and of course The Chicago Federation of Labor!

FWIW, for me WIND's shining moment came somewhere in the seventies (?) when the incomparable Gary Gears graced 560's airwaves during their AC ("Hot AC" in today's parlance) period. One of Top 40's all-time best jocks who died way too young.

 

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In Chicago, 560 was one of 4 or 5 full-market signals, and the competition was always as good or better than they were.

Some things never change!