Post by John Quincy on Apr 24, 2008 17:35:37 GMT -5
I received this e-mail from Kentucky radio engineer Scott Cason on April 22, 2008:
Hey John. Just a little blurb about WDJX. It signed on in 1962. It's currently Louisville's oldest FM radio station since the Binghams had shut down their FM and donated the equipment to the Free Public Library.
When 99.7 first came on the air, it was directional and repeated the programming of sister station WKLO but on a three hour delay. About 20 years ago, the station that DJX was protecting moved and 99.7 was able to go 25kW non directional. DJX's transmitter is located where the old Channel 21 WKLO-TV transmitter was. In fact, the FM antenna is mounted on the old TV antenna and there are still holes in the floor where the high voltage wiring for the TV transmitter ran in the troughs out to the beam transformers that used to sit where the diesel tank for the generator currently sits.
I replied:
Thanks Scott.
Check out this page: 1080wklo.com/wklo-fm.htm
Wonder why the station did a 3-hour delay of WKLO-AM's programming? Why not a 100% simulcast?
Of course, the station eventually became beautiful music WQSN and then WKJJ.
Scott wrote back:
It just so happened that Pete Boyce and myself were fixing a fence around one of 620's towers when your email came through my Blackberry so I asked him about it. He said the delay was because the FCC restricted AM/FM simulcasting back then in order to stimulate the then new FM band. This was one way around the simulcast.
They had two phone lines going to the 1080 transmitter on Daisy Lane in New Albany. One was a main and one was a backup. When the FM came on the air, it was easier to get a telco loop from Daisy Lane to the 99.7 transmitter just up the road. So one became the AM's main program loop, the other became the program loop that fed 99.7 from the downtown studios. The FM feed was ran from reels out of the production room.
Interesting. So I fired off an e-mail to Allen Bryan who was at WKLO during that time period:
Do you remember anything about a 3-hour delayed WKLO-FM "simulcast" after 1962? See below.
I didn't think the FCC cracked down on true simulcasts until the early 70s.
Allen responded:
I do remember this. My recollection was that it was a much shorter delay, but it may have been three hours. This was in the day when FM was not viewed as a hot property, but they wanted to have a frequency and broadcast something over it. There were very few true FM signals in the market featuring unique programming. I only remember the two Library non-commercial FM stations.
My recollection is that when FM at WKLO first went on the air, there were no separate broadcast studios. These were eventually built after we moved to Walnut Street (Muhammad Ali). There were lots of programming formats tried later on, but it was essentially an effort to create another revenue stream with very little operating expense and investment.
I believe there were times that we did actually simulcast because I recall the produced station IDs. I'm not sure what period that was, but you might be able to research it by listening to some of the airchecks.
It's a shame that some of the reels of tape used for the early 60s three-hours-later "simulcast" aren't still around! Unscoped songs, newscasts, commercials -- the works.
Also, when WKJJ came on the air they made a big deal about the "lateral replay." (If you hear a song you like on WKJJ-FM, tune over to WKJJ-AM a few minutes later and you can hear it again.) Looks like the "lateral replay" on 1080 and 99.7 actually started in 1962 -- only in reverse -- and you had to wait three hours to hear the song again!
Hey John. Just a little blurb about WDJX. It signed on in 1962. It's currently Louisville's oldest FM radio station since the Binghams had shut down their FM and donated the equipment to the Free Public Library.
When 99.7 first came on the air, it was directional and repeated the programming of sister station WKLO but on a three hour delay. About 20 years ago, the station that DJX was protecting moved and 99.7 was able to go 25kW non directional. DJX's transmitter is located where the old Channel 21 WKLO-TV transmitter was. In fact, the FM antenna is mounted on the old TV antenna and there are still holes in the floor where the high voltage wiring for the TV transmitter ran in the troughs out to the beam transformers that used to sit where the diesel tank for the generator currently sits.
I replied:
Thanks Scott.
Check out this page: 1080wklo.com/wklo-fm.htm
Wonder why the station did a 3-hour delay of WKLO-AM's programming? Why not a 100% simulcast?
Of course, the station eventually became beautiful music WQSN and then WKJJ.
Scott wrote back:
It just so happened that Pete Boyce and myself were fixing a fence around one of 620's towers when your email came through my Blackberry so I asked him about it. He said the delay was because the FCC restricted AM/FM simulcasting back then in order to stimulate the then new FM band. This was one way around the simulcast.
They had two phone lines going to the 1080 transmitter on Daisy Lane in New Albany. One was a main and one was a backup. When the FM came on the air, it was easier to get a telco loop from Daisy Lane to the 99.7 transmitter just up the road. So one became the AM's main program loop, the other became the program loop that fed 99.7 from the downtown studios. The FM feed was ran from reels out of the production room.
Interesting. So I fired off an e-mail to Allen Bryan who was at WKLO during that time period:
Do you remember anything about a 3-hour delayed WKLO-FM "simulcast" after 1962? See below.
I didn't think the FCC cracked down on true simulcasts until the early 70s.
Allen responded:
I do remember this. My recollection was that it was a much shorter delay, but it may have been three hours. This was in the day when FM was not viewed as a hot property, but they wanted to have a frequency and broadcast something over it. There were very few true FM signals in the market featuring unique programming. I only remember the two Library non-commercial FM stations.
My recollection is that when FM at WKLO first went on the air, there were no separate broadcast studios. These were eventually built after we moved to Walnut Street (Muhammad Ali). There were lots of programming formats tried later on, but it was essentially an effort to create another revenue stream with very little operating expense and investment.
I believe there were times that we did actually simulcast because I recall the produced station IDs. I'm not sure what period that was, but you might be able to research it by listening to some of the airchecks.
It's a shame that some of the reels of tape used for the early 60s three-hours-later "simulcast" aren't still around! Unscoped songs, newscasts, commercials -- the works.
Also, when WKJJ came on the air they made a big deal about the "lateral replay." (If you hear a song you like on WKJJ-FM, tune over to WKJJ-AM a few minutes later and you can hear it again.) Looks like the "lateral replay" on 1080 and 99.7 actually started in 1962 -- only in reverse -- and you had to wait three hours to hear the song again!