Jeffhs
01-23-2009, 12:22 PM
I remember as a kid, growing up in suburban Cleveland in the '60s-'70s, hearing on my old tube-type radios all sorts of nice big 50kW stations up and down the East Coast, Great Lakes and even parts of the Midwest and Southwest, when there were still such things as clear channels--and the stations still played music. WJR 760 Detroit, CKLW 800 Windsor/Detroit, WHAS 840 Rochester, a one-time snag of KOA 850 in Denver (when Cleveland's local station on that frequency was off the air on an early Monday morning for transmitter maintenance), 870 WWL New Orleans (after Katrina), 880 WCBS New York, 890 WLS Chicago, 960 WFIR Richmond, Virginia, 980 WRC Washington, 1000 WCFL Chicago, 1020 KDKA-AM Pittsburgh, 1030 WBZ-AM Boston, 1040 WHO Des Moines, Iowa, 1050 WHN New York, 1060 KYW-AM Philadelphia (which also had a short stint in Cleveland in the early 1960s as KYW-1100), 1070 CHOK Toronto (used to be an oldies station, now country), 1100 WTAM Cleveland (used to be top-40 WKYC-1100), 1110 WBT Charlotte, North Carolina...and the list goes on.
Almost all of these stations have since abandoned their music formats for talk, sports or religious programming, moving the music to FM. To make matters worse, the FCC abolished clear channels on AM about 25 years ago, which takes almost all the fun and mystery out of AM DXing unless you try to chase DX on the "graveyard" AM frequencies populated by small, local-service stations running 1kW or less--most of which were formerly daytime-only stations now permitted to operate full time under the FCC's then-new rules. This is often a test of one's patience, as most of the time all one hears on the graveyard channels is a jumble of weak, unintelligible signals. Every once in a while, however, one station will rise above the noise and, if you're lucky, it will be a rare DX catch, such as hearing a 0.5-kW station from, say, Texas, in Ohio.
If it's pure music you're after, it can still be found on local FM or the Internet--and your own music collection, of course, if you get tired of radio. As far as AM music stations go, however, they are rapidly becoming an endangered species. There are a few small music stations in some small towns and suburbs of major cities, but they are low-powered (many of them run under 1 kW) and have directional signal patterns during the day, after local sundown or both, so trying to hear these stations any appreciable distance outside their normal service areas is anywhere from a challenge to downright impossible.
Another thing stations often do, especially nowadays, to the consternation of their long-time listeners, is change formats almost at the drop of a hat--and with little (if any) warning to the listeners ahead of time. One small 0.5-kW station in a Cleveland suburb just east of where I grew up in northeastern Ohio did this a few years ago; it was an oldies station at the time that had in its employ two of the best, and I mean the best, oldies disk jockeys in Cleveland radio (these people had worked for an oldies FM station in the city before being demoted, if you will, to working at a 0.5-kW day/0.042kW night peanut whistle that isn't even heard in eastern Lake County and beyond after sunset). The station, WELW-AM 1330 in the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby, Ohio, had the oldies format for a couple of years, and then.....poof! No more oldies. The station played its last solid-gold song on a Friday afternoon, and probably ran automated programming over the weekend; then, bright and early the following Monday morning, listeners in Lake and eastern Cuyahoga counties tuned in to 1330 only to find their favorite oldies replaced by satellite-delivered talk shows. WELW has had that format ever since; to the best of my knowledge, the station has no intention of changing it any time soon.
A small station about 35 miles east of here did the same thing, switching formats literally overnight. The station was WWOW-AM 1360 in the lakefront city of Conneaut, Ohio; it was an oldies station, programmed mainly by Scott Shannon's satellite-syndicated "True Oldies Channel" oldies show. The management decided about a year ago or thereabouts to drop Shannon's program and switch the station's format to talk, which is what this station carries to this day.
Yet another small station, WATJ 1560, in a rural area some 40 miles from Cleveland, went through four formats (top-40, oldies, talk and sports) since signing on in 1969. It finally went silent about five years ago and hasn't been heard from since. I think the sports format (a satellite-syndicated feed of The Sporting News Radio Network) is what failed and finally killed the station, as it may have been trying to compete against WKNR, a 50kW day/4.7kW night ESPN sports-talk station in Cleveland. The latter, having a much stronger daytime signal than the rural station (50kW vs. 1kW) and the small rural station being daytime only, had a much wider coverage area than did the other station; the 50kW Cleveland station was probably being heard fairly well even in the smaller station's coverage area, because of the much stronger signal.
The small rural station finally threw in the towel and went silent on Memorial Day about five years ago, never to be heard from again. It had a daytime-only license, so when that was turned in to the FCC for cancellation there could be no recovering it--the FCC no longer issues daytime-only commercial radio licenses, and there was no other way the station could get back on the air full-time, on 1560 or anywhere else on the AM radio dial, due to New York's 50kW Radio Disney (WQEW) which was the "senior" station on the frequency at the time. Other 50kW stations that have been on the air since before WWII have priority on other former clear channels such as 650, 660, 670, 680, 780, 880, 890, 1000, 1100 and so forth, so WATJ's moving to any of those frequencies was a foregone conclusion as well.
WATJ was doomed to failure near the end anyway, as I read an article and saw photographs in the Lake County, Ohio News-Herald chronicling the station's last days; it was almost incredible. Towers that were literally sinking into the ground and probably leaning at alarming angles because they were never properly anchored, a transmitter that looked as if it was on its last legs, et al.; it is a miracle, IMHO, that this station hadn't received a bunch of FCC citations and/or a warning their license may be revoked if the problems were not resolved within a certain time frame.
WATJ finally went off the air for the last time at 5 p.m. on Memorial Day, some time in the 21st century--I don't recall the year offhand; maybe someone here more familiar with the station than I will chime in and fill in the gap. The company that owned WATJ claimed it silenced the station so it could concentrate on the operation of an FM station it owns, country WKKY 104.7 in Geneva, Ohio (near Lake Erie), but I think they probably just got tired of constantly trying to maintain the AM station (which I'm sure they wouldn't have had such a problem with had they had the station's towers anchored properly and a transmitter that should have been upgraded decades before, not to mention whatever other problems the station had in the studio--outdated gear, such as turntables rather than CD players, having their jingles, commercial spots, etc. on tape cartridges ["carts" in broadcast terminology] rather than on central computers controlled by touch screens in the studio [as is universal at most large stations these days], and so forth--sheesh, I'm amazed they had an Internet web site!); that or else the company did not have enough money to operate WATJ and WKKY-FM at the same time. I'm sure no one much will ever know the answer to that now.
AM radio is almost dead as a music medium except, as I mentioned, for those few dinky little music stations in suburbs and small towns. Many media groups are beginning to realize this, which is why AM stations are going off the air in many areas, some never to return. FM, the Internet, CDs and mp3 files, after all, are the future of radio and music ("we have seen the future of radio, and it is digital"); today's teens and young adults are carrying mp3 players with them, rather than radios (although some mp3 players have built-in FM radios), wherever they go. Witness what will happen to analog TV in less than a month; all analog stations will be required by FCC edict to shut down on February 19 this year, being replaced by--yup, you guessed it--digital television. At this rate, the US will be a "digital nation" before we know it.
Whether digital radio will eventually follow, however, is anyone's guess. I don't think the so-called "digital revolution" will have much effect (if any) on FM radio (except stations adding hybrid-digital subchannels to their main signals, which most big-city stations operated by Clear Channel, CBS Radio, et al. have done already), as there are far too many analog FM receivers and tuners in use in the US alone.
However, AM radio may well turn to 100-percent digital programming eventually; some stations are already broadcasting in "HD", although I am not sure what that means as far as AM stations are concerned. At least one 50kW station in Cleveland, WTAM 1100, is listed in RadioStationWorld.com as having an "HD" channel in addition to its main signal; it is shown below the station's normal listing. However, there are no details listed on RSW for WTAM's "HD" service, except that the channel carries the same programming as WTAM 1100 itself.
Almost all of these stations have since abandoned their music formats for talk, sports or religious programming, moving the music to FM. To make matters worse, the FCC abolished clear channels on AM about 25 years ago, which takes almost all the fun and mystery out of AM DXing unless you try to chase DX on the "graveyard" AM frequencies populated by small, local-service stations running 1kW or less--most of which were formerly daytime-only stations now permitted to operate full time under the FCC's then-new rules. This is often a test of one's patience, as most of the time all one hears on the graveyard channels is a jumble of weak, unintelligible signals. Every once in a while, however, one station will rise above the noise and, if you're lucky, it will be a rare DX catch, such as hearing a 0.5-kW station from, say, Texas, in Ohio.
If it's pure music you're after, it can still be found on local FM or the Internet--and your own music collection, of course, if you get tired of radio. As far as AM music stations go, however, they are rapidly becoming an endangered species. There are a few small music stations in some small towns and suburbs of major cities, but they are low-powered (many of them run under 1 kW) and have directional signal patterns during the day, after local sundown or both, so trying to hear these stations any appreciable distance outside their normal service areas is anywhere from a challenge to downright impossible.
Another thing stations often do, especially nowadays, to the consternation of their long-time listeners, is change formats almost at the drop of a hat--and with little (if any) warning to the listeners ahead of time. One small 0.5-kW station in a Cleveland suburb just east of where I grew up in northeastern Ohio did this a few years ago; it was an oldies station at the time that had in its employ two of the best, and I mean the best, oldies disk jockeys in Cleveland radio (these people had worked for an oldies FM station in the city before being demoted, if you will, to working at a 0.5-kW day/0.042kW night peanut whistle that isn't even heard in eastern Lake County and beyond after sunset). The station, WELW-AM 1330 in the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby, Ohio, had the oldies format for a couple of years, and then.....poof! No more oldies. The station played its last solid-gold song on a Friday afternoon, and probably ran automated programming over the weekend; then, bright and early the following Monday morning, listeners in Lake and eastern Cuyahoga counties tuned in to 1330 only to find their favorite oldies replaced by satellite-delivered talk shows. WELW has had that format ever since; to the best of my knowledge, the station has no intention of changing it any time soon.
A small station about 35 miles east of here did the same thing, switching formats literally overnight. The station was WWOW-AM 1360 in the lakefront city of Conneaut, Ohio; it was an oldies station, programmed mainly by Scott Shannon's satellite-syndicated "True Oldies Channel" oldies show. The management decided about a year ago or thereabouts to drop Shannon's program and switch the station's format to talk, which is what this station carries to this day.
Yet another small station, WATJ 1560, in a rural area some 40 miles from Cleveland, went through four formats (top-40, oldies, talk and sports) since signing on in 1969. It finally went silent about five years ago and hasn't been heard from since. I think the sports format (a satellite-syndicated feed of The Sporting News Radio Network) is what failed and finally killed the station, as it may have been trying to compete against WKNR, a 50kW day/4.7kW night ESPN sports-talk station in Cleveland. The latter, having a much stronger daytime signal than the rural station (50kW vs. 1kW) and the small rural station being daytime only, had a much wider coverage area than did the other station; the 50kW Cleveland station was probably being heard fairly well even in the smaller station's coverage area, because of the much stronger signal.
The small rural station finally threw in the towel and went silent on Memorial Day about five years ago, never to be heard from again. It had a daytime-only license, so when that was turned in to the FCC for cancellation there could be no recovering it--the FCC no longer issues daytime-only commercial radio licenses, and there was no other way the station could get back on the air full-time, on 1560 or anywhere else on the AM radio dial, due to New York's 50kW Radio Disney (WQEW) which was the "senior" station on the frequency at the time. Other 50kW stations that have been on the air since before WWII have priority on other former clear channels such as 650, 660, 670, 680, 780, 880, 890, 1000, 1100 and so forth, so WATJ's moving to any of those frequencies was a foregone conclusion as well.
WATJ was doomed to failure near the end anyway, as I read an article and saw photographs in the Lake County, Ohio News-Herald chronicling the station's last days; it was almost incredible. Towers that were literally sinking into the ground and probably leaning at alarming angles because they were never properly anchored, a transmitter that looked as if it was on its last legs, et al.; it is a miracle, IMHO, that this station hadn't received a bunch of FCC citations and/or a warning their license may be revoked if the problems were not resolved within a certain time frame.
WATJ finally went off the air for the last time at 5 p.m. on Memorial Day, some time in the 21st century--I don't recall the year offhand; maybe someone here more familiar with the station than I will chime in and fill in the gap. The company that owned WATJ claimed it silenced the station so it could concentrate on the operation of an FM station it owns, country WKKY 104.7 in Geneva, Ohio (near Lake Erie), but I think they probably just got tired of constantly trying to maintain the AM station (which I'm sure they wouldn't have had such a problem with had they had the station's towers anchored properly and a transmitter that should have been upgraded decades before, not to mention whatever other problems the station had in the studio--outdated gear, such as turntables rather than CD players, having their jingles, commercial spots, etc. on tape cartridges ["carts" in broadcast terminology] rather than on central computers controlled by touch screens in the studio [as is universal at most large stations these days], and so forth--sheesh, I'm amazed they had an Internet web site!); that or else the company did not have enough money to operate WATJ and WKKY-FM at the same time. I'm sure no one much will ever know the answer to that now.
AM radio is almost dead as a music medium except, as I mentioned, for those few dinky little music stations in suburbs and small towns. Many media groups are beginning to realize this, which is why AM stations are going off the air in many areas, some never to return. FM, the Internet, CDs and mp3 files, after all, are the future of radio and music ("we have seen the future of radio, and it is digital"); today's teens and young adults are carrying mp3 players with them, rather than radios (although some mp3 players have built-in FM radios), wherever they go. Witness what will happen to analog TV in less than a month; all analog stations will be required by FCC edict to shut down on February 19 this year, being replaced by--yup, you guessed it--digital television. At this rate, the US will be a "digital nation" before we know it.
Whether digital radio will eventually follow, however, is anyone's guess. I don't think the so-called "digital revolution" will have much effect (if any) on FM radio (except stations adding hybrid-digital subchannels to their main signals, which most big-city stations operated by Clear Channel, CBS Radio, et al. have done already), as there are far too many analog FM receivers and tuners in use in the US alone.
However, AM radio may well turn to 100-percent digital programming eventually; some stations are already broadcasting in "HD", although I am not sure what that means as far as AM stations are concerned. At least one 50kW station in Cleveland, WTAM 1100, is listed in RadioStationWorld.com as having an "HD" channel in addition to its main signal; it is shown below the station's normal listing. However, there are no details listed on RSW for WTAM's "HD" service, except that the channel carries the same programming as WTAM 1100 itself.