Here's five year old WYSL thread to nibble on http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=80284.0 as the late-great Fred Klestine might intone, "from the groove yard."
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WYSL jock photo, 1971
- Thread starter AJF
- Start date
JustPastBuffalo said:
That was an interesting read.
I am from Boston but spent a lot of time in Buffalo in those years ( 18 year old drinking age ;D ) and my first girlfriend lived in Boston, NY and while I wound up working in TV I was always fascinated by radio.
I did visit Jeff Kaye when he moved to WKBW and I remember it was the oddest studio I had ever seen.
I did visit WYSL once overnight and the DJ was probably in his mid 40's and was a bitter, bitter man. I believe his airname was Peter Sinatra ( I am positive of the Sinatra part ) and he hated everything in life. He yelled at me , don't work in radio, get a real job like driving a cab.
For a 1000/250w N station it did very well.
In the early 70's a friend was working at 1400 and as I was driving in on I-90 from Boston I picked up the signal near Batavia and for some reason the turntables were spinning fast (maybe 46-47 rpms ) and I mentioned it to my friend who said the PD wanted that so the records sounded 'faster'.
???
I believe that same PD also was responsible for a complete farce. The station was doing a Top 1400 of all time one holiday weekend around 1971 and the #1 record he picked would not be in anyone's Top 100 let alone #1.
This was the #1 song he chose because it was HIS favorite song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzVdEyHicz8
C
caveman-97
Guest
Danny Sinatra is correct. His real name was Sam Arrigo and he came from WBLK where he used his real name. WBLK was owned by George "Hound Dog" Lorenz. After Arrigo left, I had a brief discussion with Lorenz and asked him why Arrigo had changed his name to Sinatra. Lorenz smiled and proclaimed, "Maybe he doesn't want anyone to know that he's Italian!"
I found some treasures from WYSL while looking for something else at Big Tree Road... licenses and CP's for the move from the Larkin Building to Fillmore, all original copies: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjz4U4j8
I still remember the neon sign on the tower on top of the Larkin... and by the way, the Gates BC-1T is still in service, as the WWWS backup transmitter on Fillmore....just put some new 833's in that beast,
I still remember the neon sign on the tower on top of the Larkin... and by the way, the Gates BC-1T is still in service, as the WWWS backup transmitter on Fillmore....just put some new 833's in that beast,
The guy in the middle is, no doubt Jerry Reo. Yeah his stature is small, but when you realize he's in front of the car, the perspective makes him a lot taller (looking). I believe he WAS Jim Bradley at WYSL at the time.
M
MsMusicRadio
Guest
Being at 1400, how did WYSL ever compete with WKBW with 50,000 watts and WGR with 5,000 watts at 550?
Their main competitor was KB, as GR was Adult Contemporary, while KB was still Top 40 King(I don't remember any kids in high school listening to GR). KB was very personality oriented and allowed the jocks to talk a lot more back then(though Bob Harper tightened things up somewhat when he replaced Jeff Kaye as PD in '73). WYSL countered by doing "more music, less talk" Drake radio(complete with 20/20 news). There were actually 3 AM Top 40s for awhile "back in the day" - KB, WYSL and WNIA(now WECK). In the very early 70s, WGR-FM became Top 40(for a while) as WGRQ/Super Q. Then WBEN-FM went automated Top 40 as "Rock 102." WYSL 1400 somehow survived actually extending well into the 80s.
When did WYSL final give up the ghost? I remember listening to 14-Rock in the early '80's a lot (my parent's cars had AM only).
What was the format after 14-Rock? I remember when it was 14x Rebel Radio for a while in the later '80's playing heavy metal. I recall somewhere in there Art Wander had a talk show/sports talk show on 1400.
What was the format after 14-Rock? I remember when it was 14x Rebel Radio for a while in the later '80's playing heavy metal. I recall somewhere in there Art Wander had a talk show/sports talk show on 1400.
IIRC, they dropped the WYSL calls(don't recall the new calls) in the mid-late 80s when they went to an automated, mostly pre-Beatles oldies format(I think put together by one of the people who owned Whirlin' Sound Mobile DJ Service). That didn't last and they changed to KOOL gold, which I believe was basically a satellite delivered simulcast of KOOL-AM in Phoenix..also heavy on pre- Beatles oldies(but not entirely). Loved that format - lost of Lost Oldies - very unique. I know Art Wander started doing his sports talk show in the late 80s(I remember Art Wander's daily sports talk show coming on when the Bills were taking off as an NFL contender in the late 80s. Art eventually switched over to WGR.
Sometime in the very early 90s they switched over to the 14X heavy metal format previously mentioned(I think that's where Ted Shredd got his start). They finally switched to urban gold when Entercom took over??
cee said:
That was back in my formative youth as an active listener. Back then it was WNIA / WYSL / WKBW as Top 40. KB seemed more about the personalities, WNIA the music, and WYSL in between. WYSL more actively promoted itself than WNIA, from what I remember.
WGR and WBEN (and WEBR) were not stations that high school kids would listened to (or admit to listening to). Mom & Dad would have those stations on for the news, weather, and school closings in the morning. WMMJ (pre-WXRL) was similarly formatted, but more tuned to the eastern burbs and Southtowns. Out in East Aurora WEBR was a tough listen - WBEN, 40 kHz away, and without the null to the east, dominated that part of the dial.
Back then (say, 1965-1970), we listened to FM on the "Hi Fi". FM wasn't aimed to a car radio audience until perhaps the early to mid-70s. I remember adding on an "FM Converter" to my 1969 Impala and its AM radio that tuned FM and broadcast it on an AM frequency - you ran the aerial into the FM Converter and than a second output antenna into the AM radio. I probably used a frequency around 830 kHz because that was an empty spot.
Richard who was listening in East Aurora
To answer spt87, WYSL turned in its call letters on September 10, 1986 and became a full-time simulcast of WPHD-FM as WPHD-AM. On August 15, 1988, the 1400 dial position in Buffalo was taken over by WGKT, an oldies station whose call letters stood for Gold Karat. WGKT played practically everything that charted, with an emphasis on the '50s and early '60s. The only deejay was Chip Douglas (Seth Fenton) in the mornings. On September 1, 1990, WGKT was replaced by WXBX, a heavy metal station calling itself "14X Buffalo's Rebel Radio." Another slogan they used was "Too Loud For FM." WXBX was gone by 1993, replaced by WWWS.
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