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Yikes WKBW-FM ?

Bob1370 said:
There were lots of FMs that popped up quickly and died in the 1940s and 1950s. WLVL-AM 1340 started out in the late 40s as WUSJ-FM, I believe on 99.3. Trouble was, hardly anyone had an FM radio then. So as soon as WEBR bailed out on its class IV signal on 1340 back around 1947-48 and moved to 970, the newspaper swooped 1340 up and got a CP to occupy the channel WEBR vacated. That's when WUSJ, the predecessor of WLVL, really started getting someone to listen to it. They turned in the FM license, and no one else ever picked it up. It freed the whole territory between 99.3 and 99.7 in Western NY for a new station, which eventually allowed WDCX to build its blowtorch on 99.5 years later.
Click to expand...
As a WUSJ-AM alumnus during the Hall Communications era when the entire plant was upgraded (microphone to towers) and power was increased from 250 Watts to 1 kW (DA-D) 250 Watts (Non-DA) nights, I discovered there's more to the story, thanks to present day morning man and historian Paul Oates.

The station's scrapbook, which is a remarkable collection of pictures and documents, includes documentation indicating that the Union Sun & Journal, which put WUSJ on the air first as a 1 kW FM at 99.3 in 1949, around 1956-57, re-applied for a construction permit to (re)build an FM on it's original frequency. The CP was granted, only to have the licensee "turn it in" about a year later. So there's a double "if-only / scratch your head" story.

WUSJ (now WLVL) is just a slice of the fascinating radio history in Western New York and Niagara county in particular, which was home to local owner-operators like the Union Sun & Journal in Lockport and, in Niagara Falls, Earl C. Hull a member of the US Army's prestigious Signal Corps and owner and originator of WHLD AM. Hull, when FM was in it's infancy, had the foresight to build and maintain WHLD-FM "in the center of the FM band" before selling it to Paul Butler.

Also included in Niagara county's radio history, Tom Talbot who owned WJJL and built and maintained what is now Buffalo's WJYE 96.1. The station went on the air using the slogan "Stereo for Moderns" in the early mid-60s. During it's CP phase it held the call letters WDIF, but discarded them in favor of a more fitting WBNY, which now belong to the student run non-com at Buffalo State College.
 
Aww, this is all just so much fun! Let me toss in a few historical notes, Buffalo and Rochester:

For much of the great rock-n-roll war between One Of America's Two Great Radio Stations and Buffalo's Toy Bulldog, WYSL wasn't on the Kensington but on the Larkin warehouse roof near the 190. That tower - which is still there mounted with various cell and aux services antennae - also sported a vertical neon sign which spelled out sequentially, W, Y, S, L, before flashing the whole callsign. It was an impressive sight. I remember seeing it along with flares from the Woodlawn blast furnaces in the distance on a murky February-1967 morning as I rode to the Federal building to take my 3d-phone FCC exam with a buddy.

The WKBW original feed system was the 230-ohm open-wire type, typical of 1940s design. It consisted of 6 bare copper strands mounted through insulators and mounted on poles. That $2400 estimate couldn't have included the Heliax at that price, even in 1976.

Back to Rochester: Scottso Fybush theorizes that perhaps in the late 70s there was a plan to move BBF over to the 50kw FM signal, and as the guy who was there programming the station at the time, I can confirm that was definitely the plan. We had launched 92.5 WNWZ as an all-news operation, proposing a unique all-information format to bolster our arguments for getting rid of classical music (BBF had donated the entire classical music library, some equipment and cash to RAETA for its new 91.5 signal.) Then we had planned to swap the two formats, but fate took a hand as NBC abruptly killed the NIS format before we had a chance to make the flip.
 
Savage said:
Aww, this is all just so much fun! Let me toss in a few historical notes, Buffalo and Rochester:

For much of the great rock-n-roll war between One Of America's Two Great Radio Stations and Buffalo's Toy Bulldog, WYSL wasn't on the Kensington but on the Larkin warehouse roof near the 190. That tower - which is still there mounted with various cell and aux services antennae - also sported a vertical neon sign which spelled out sequentially, W, Y, S, L, before flashing the whole callsign. It was an impressive sight. I remember seeing it along with flares from the Woodlawn blast furnaces in the distance on a murky February-1967 morning as I rode to the Federal building to take my 3d-phone FCC exam with a buddy.

The WKBW original feed system was the 230-ohm open-wire type, typical of 1940s design. It consisted of 6 bare copper strands mounted through insulators and mounted on poles. That $2400 estimate couldn't have included the Heliax at that price, even in 1976.

Back to Rochester: Scottso Fybush theorizes that perhaps in the late 70s there was a plan to move BBF over to the 50kw FM signal, and as the guy who was there programming the station at the time, I can confirm that was definitely the plan. We had launched 92.5 WNWZ as an all-news operation, proposing a unique all-information format to bolster our arguments for getting rid of classical music (BBF had donated the entire classical music library, some equipment and cash to RAETA for its new 91.5 signal.) Then we had planned to swap the two formats, but fate took a hand as NBC abruptly killed the NIS format before we had a chance to make the flip.
Click to expand...

That W-Y-S-L flashing sign on the tower is one of my old memories from the couple years my family lived in Niagara Falls Ontario. You could see it from the 190 heading North toward the Peace Bridge...we went back and forth from the Falls to family in Pittsburgh often during that period. (I know the call sign is now in Rochester)

FWIW...my parents woke up with CJRN which was on 1600 at the time, I also remember WWOL "The Country Giant" in the car and sometimes on the home hi-fi, CHSC-FM. Occasionally they had 'KB on for news...and of course 'KB was what all the cool kids at Princess Margaret Senior Elementary listened to. TV News was always Irv, Tom Jolls and Channel 7.
 
Apropos of changes that happened in the 1970s on 92.5 in Rochester, Bob Savage (who was there) said;

"Back to Rochester: Scottso Fybush theorizes that perhaps in the late 70s there was a plan to move BBF over to the 50kw FM signal, and as the guy who was there programming the station at the time, I can confirm that was definitely the plan. We had launched 92.5 WNWZ as an all-news operation, proposing a unique all-information format to bolster our arguments for getting rid of classical music (BBF had donated the entire classical music library, some equipment and cash to RAETA for its new 91.5 signal.) Then we had planned to swap the two formats, but fate took a hand as NBC abruptly killed the NIS format before we had a chance to make the flip."

Just curious...Was any thought given at the time of NIS going dark, to turning BBF-AM into a news/talker anyway, and going ahead with the FM flip to CHR (which IIRC would have beaten 98PXY to the starting gate)? BBF as I remember it in the 80s, when that switch WAS made, had some success with a lot of local content including Matt Rinaldi and Jeff Howlett in mornings, Toby Gold in middays, and Jack Kinnicutt in afternoons. It did quite well especially given its limited signal--relying on syndication only after dark. Might that move have worked just as well in 1977-78? Was it considered then, or did WAXC's departure from the CHR wars give WBBF-AM a few extra years' lifespan before it turned off the turntables for good?
 
I'm not really sure, but my considered response would be something like "all of the above." Before we could get the AM-FM flip done, NIS abruptly folded - IIRC, with little notice, effective early 1978. This also coincided with my being recruited for the PD post at 13Q Pittsburgh, so my involvement with the two stations was winding up about the same time "what are we gonna do with the FM?" was the dominant issue there.

I do know that Dan Clayton, LIN's Rochester GM at the time, was enamored of a major-market station which had debuted the first iteration of a AAA format. This became WMJQ 92.5, and its initial moniker was the spoken "Magic 92.5." I left within days of the FM format's launch in Spring 1978.

As far as switching to News & Talk for WBBF in 1978, I doubt it. Recall that national syndicated talk was pretty much limited to Larry King on Mutual back then. BBF would have had to do their own news and talk format 24-7, and in that era, the costs would have been prohibitive. Also recall that BBF, even with its awful signal, was still doing fine with music at that juncture so top management would have taken a dim view of killing what was then still a cash cow.
 
Correction - make the folding of NIS and the launch of WMJQ-FM early 1977, not '78.

I concur that the mid-80s WBBF News-Talk 950 was a damn fine radio station, and completely unappreciated by its local management at the time. Our staff included not only Messrs. Gold and Kinnicutt, but a 6-person news department including Bill Brady, Diana Wightman, Brad Cupples and Bob Longo - also Bob Lynch who is today an excellent AM RF engineer with Bill Sitzman's practice in Ithaca. In fact you may recall that my first news-talk gig was AM drive at WBBF, replacing both Howlett and Rinaldi when they exited in 1985. BBF had a dual affiliation with both NBC TalkNet and ABC TalkRadio.
 
6 degrees of Savage..of course his is now WYSL, and Bob Lynch who did news for BBf was my are noon news guy at WTKO..man a lot of awesome jocks went through the IVY Broadcasting building just above the JC Pennysand accross the street from the Chanticleer Lounge in Ithaca. The period I was at IC, the college station WICB-AM was on 610 carrier current to the dorms, and had a great lineup of student jocks and a (then) WNBC format complete with the identical jingle package..their FM, WICB had ten watts in mono, but a great signal with the height that the school enjoyed. Most conventional listeners seemd to like WICB-FM for the absence of commercials. Cornell's WVBR-FM was the clear favorite among most college kids because of the "underground" persona..much like Jim Santella's approach at WPHD in Buffalo. When I worked at WHLD for Mr. Hull, I was treated to a tour of the Staley Road site..and it WAS impressive..it was night time and we drove to the twin 1270 towers on Grand Island..we went in, and there were the transmitters..in the center of the circular transmitter room, there was an all glass FM studio raised about 3 feet from the floor..and a fellow with an amazing voice and great style, was enjoying a pipe in his cardigan sweater and carefully cleaning the classical LPs with that static free cloth...they had an Altec "Bird Cage" mic that I swore was what made him sound so great....it wasn't the mic!
 
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