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am 1250 Saginaw

Discussion pertaining to the Tri-Cities, Flint, Mt. Pleasant, and Bad Axe
CK-722
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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 12:26 pm

TomSanders wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:23 am
I was in Flint yesterday and heard sports talk on 1250, too strong to be any out of town station, no breaks / promos / liners. What station could this be?

WGL in Fort Wayne. That's my guess. Or.... WSSP from Milwaukee bounces in here in Flint from time to time. There are a bunch of 5kW stations down south and along the East Coast. May have been WGHB from North Carolina.

What time was it when you were listening?

The other possibility is a pirate or overpowered Part 15 station on AM. But why anyone would program sports-talk on one is a mystery. How was the audio?
I do know that crystal oscillator chips for 1250 kHz are pretty common.
I was going to say WGL Ft. Wayne or WSSP Milwaukee. WPGP Pittsburgh is now owned by Salem and has their Talk format, not sure if it's more secular or more religious, like WIND vs. WYLL.

WGL, WSSP, and WPGP are the three strongest interfering stations in the NIF, and stations most affecting and limiting the WJMK Night facility. See Page 1-6, and Page 7 for the NIF Calculation.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=1

These NIF studies are extremely accurate in predicting Nighttime DX.

Wonder if there is a Critical Hours CHIF Contour Study with a CH skywave model. But it changes every 15 minutes and probably wouldn't account for stations who "forget" to change power and patterns in a timely manner. Especially the new high power Class Ds on Regional Channels, particularly if they also have an FM translator which confuses the board ops about hours of operation.
Last edited by CK-722 on Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 1:20 pm

Jim McCluskey probably thought he could move WJKN to another frequency. Can't believe he didn't know. Sounds like a "McCluskey Legend". They moved KTGG 1540 from Spring Arbor to Okemos to open up WJKN 1510 as I recall. 1520 was/is a possibility, at least with a DA and PSSA.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by Ed Joseph » Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:01 pm

CK, that's the way I heard it, was somehow, he didn't know it was a daytimer. I mean, come on, WLAC blasts into Michigan at night like their nextdoor. I find that hard to swallow myself, but it came from a reasonable source who was much closer to McCluskey's inner circle than I was at the time. Haha, I *knew* I wasn't going to work for him, anywhere. I'd had my fill just from helping him out at WKNX. I reckon it's water long gone under the bridge as far as Jim is concerned.

I recall Jim was going to try to put this big AM up north somewhere on the west shore, I think it was 540 or 550, that had most of it's main lobe shooting to Green Bay over the lake. I would have never bothered with that myself and, as far as I know, it never went anywhere and I don't see anything under 600kHz up north that looks anything like what his pattern did. Odd, though, there are so few stations in Lower MI under 600kHz... 560 WRDT, 580 WTCM/CKWW, 590 WKZO and 600 WSNL are the only bottom-end AM signals in the Lower, and 3 in the UP on 570, 590 and 600. I often wonder why nobody dropped in a lowfer or two somewhere in MI over the years. I'm going to speculate it's because of the Canada border proximity and the large coverage footprint at the low end.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:45 pm

It was 640 in Kingsley. I thought it was David Schaberg, but it might have involved both of them.

I think it was WJIM or WILS that were trying, possibly both competing for it, to move to 550. It's on the History Card. It was before what is now WRDT 560 came on and basically squeezed the 550 possibility out along with WIND 560.

It was WJIM first. I think. Have to look at WILS History Card.

Later, they tried to move to 630. Keep in mind that CFCO was just 1000 watts then, and the pattern didn't favor the direction toward Lansing like it does now. Didn't remember the 630 before scanning the History Card again.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/ ... r_id=61244

It was actually that WILS was going to move from 1430 to 1240 if WJIM moved to 550.

When WBBC signed on in 1947, WILS was on 1430 and WLEW was on 1500. The only considerations for the Day DA were WEXL 1340 with just 250 watts on the tall tower also used by WOMC, and WFIN Findlay. WBBC/WTRX could well have had just a 2 tower cardioid that covered the West part of Flint and SW Genesee County much better, and could easily have gone to 5 kW Day then, without the SLR or reduced input. They had an SLR until the Energy Crisis, when Dave Gale and some other Engineers convinced the FCC that SLRs wasted energy, and that the reduced input power at the nominal power level radiation efficiency should be used. Scores of stations still operate that way, including WEXL, WCUZ, the famous WSBC Shared Time survivor, and many many more. Including the very sensitive KOA 850 situation. There are many others. Just look at the efficiency vs. the tower height and DA efficiency. It won't make sense. Many 5 kW DA-N facilities are actually around 3.8 kW Night with an SLR, so they could use 2, 3, or 4 towers instead of 3, 4, or even more towers. Did you ever see the old 1 kW DA Daytime pattern in the files when you were at WTRX? I'd love to see that.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by Ed Joseph » Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:53 pm

Wow... 640 Kingsley. I was thinking it was lower on the dial, but, to be honest, this was back in like 1978 or maybe 80. I remember some commotion about Kingsley in the early 90's??? I don't recall all that much about it. Did 640 ever actually go on the air up there? Kingsley... did it have anything to do with WJZZ 1210 after KNX bit the dust? LOL "Long Distance Radio" with it's impressive ten mile groundwave reception??? Something about towers on a toxic dumpsite or something? Wasn't that Henderson's baby back in the day? Sorry, but stuff up north happens so fast and frequent since I was working up there, I can't even start to make sense of it. The market of chaos!

I *do* recall Don showing me some old FCC papers from the 1kW days. What they actually said, well, that was 1985. I saw a lot of old paperwork at several stations back then. Wish I could have scraped up those, and all the original WTAC paperwork, but someone beat me to the building and cleared it completely out before I got there. I was the last person to set foot in the Center road building. They actually knocked the rear wass out while I was in the building. It fell as I was leaving the driveway with a small, empty rack and the desk from production.

Don did tell me that the whole North tower thing was actually a boondoggle of sorts and really wasn't needed, but for to have an FM on it later. He said their cardioid pattern could practically run off the short towers with only minor adjustments to the phasing.

I had to run WTRX on 500W omni for a few hours once when the middle tower took a lightning strike. I was standing outside in the driveway about to go home when it happened, and it knocked me right down! I literally wet myself a bit! That was when my already too long day got a *whole* lot longer. On top of that, I also was given weekend overnight duties permanently that night after Ernie Haddaway did a call-in quit. I did over 26 hours on the clock there that day... Came in at 4:30 AM Friday morning and finally left for home at 6:10 AM Saturday morning.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by Ed Joseph » Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:56 pm

Wow... 640 Kingsley. I was thinking it was lower on the dial, but, to be honest, this was back in like 1978 or maybe 80. I remember some commotion about Kingsley in the early 90's??? I don't recall all that much about it. Did 640 ever actually go on the air up there? Kingsley... did it have anything to do with WJZZ 1210 after KNX bit the dust? LOL "Long Distance Radio" with it's impressive ten mile groundwave reception??? Something about towers on a toxic dumpsite or something? Wasn't that Henderson's baby back in the day? Sorry, but stuff up north happens so fast and frequent since I was working up there, I can't even start to make sense of it. The market of chaos!

I *do* recall Don showing me some old FCC papers from the 1kW days. What they actually said, well, that was 1985. I saw a lot of old paperwork at several stations back then. Wish I could have scraped up those, and all the original WTAC paperwork, but someone beat me to the building and cleared it completely out before I got there. I was the last person to set foot in the Center road building. They actually knocked the rear wall out while I was still in the building. It fell as I was leaving the driveway with a small, empty rack and the desk from production.

Don did tell me that the whole North tower thing was actually a boondoggle of sorts and really wasn't needed, but for to have an FM on it later. He said their cardioid pattern could practically run off the short towers with only minor adjustments to the phasor. As Don expressed it, "close enough for Flint, anyway".

I had to run WTRX on 500W omni for a few hours once when the middle tower took a lightning strike. I was standing outside in the driveway about to go home when it happened, and it knocked me right down! I literally wet myself a bit! That was when my already too long day got a *whole* lot longer. On top of that, I also was given weekend overnight duties permanently that night after Ernie Haddaway did a call-in quit. I did over 26 hours on the clock there that day... Came in at 4:30 AM Friday morning and finally left for home at 6:10 AM Saturday morning.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:56 am

I remember when quite a few stations have been on STA nondirectional, including WTRX. In the early days, I didn't know what was going on. The signal was suddenly stronger than ever. I lived in "Eastman's Null" about a block and a half from Bob's house on Greenbrook Lane. I talked to him a few times in front of his house. The accountant for Metrocom lived next door to me and went to Long Island with Don McComb to do the Physical Inventory when Metrocom sold WPAC and WPAC-FM (WBLI) Patchogue, and WHRF 1570 and WHRF-FM, once WAPC, a simulcast with WPAC 1580, in Riverhead. Rick Sklar began his career there. Bob Liggett was PD for Metrocom then, including WGMZ. Don was CE at WGMZ then. Mary the Accountant was always full of interesting radio stories, including what dumps some of the studios were in the Hamptons. When Beck Ross bought WGMZ, Bill Lee wanted out of the FMBassy ASAP. It was probably a better studio than the Long Island stations, but the neighborhood was a little scary. Besides, they'd just built a showplace at G-3338 E. Bristol Rd.

The WTRX STA would sometimes go on for months at a time. It was great at my house. At Buick, and points North, not so much. Also heard it when they were doing proofs when I was at Harrisville State Park. WTAC and WFDF boomed in there, and WFDF still does at 50 kW. I couldn't figure out why WTRX was weaker than I had observed before, then when they knocked off around 5:00 PM, it came back to normal.
Someone beat me to the building and cleared it.
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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by tvbobn » Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:00 pm

Ed Joseph wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:56 pm
Wow... 640 Kingsley. I was thinking it was lower on the dial, but, to be honest, this was back in like 1978 or maybe 80. I remember some commotion about Kingsley in the early 90's??? I don't recall all that much about it. Did 640 ever actually go on the air up there? Kingsley... did it have anything to do with WJZZ 1210 after KNX bit the dust? LOL "Long Distance Radio" with it's impressive ten mile groundwave reception??? Something about towers on a toxic dumpsite or something? Wasn't that Henderson's baby back in the day? Sorry, but stuff up north happens so fast and frequent since I was working up there, I can't even start to make sense of it. The market of chaos!

I *do* recall Don showing me some old FCC papers from the 1kW days. What they actually said, well, that was 1985. I saw a lot of old paperwork at several stations back then. Wish I could have scraped up those, and all the original WTAC paperwork, but someone beat me to the building and cleared it completely out before I got there. I was the last person to set foot in the Center road building. They actually knocked the rear wall out while I was still in the building. It fell as I was leaving the driveway with a small, empty rack and the desk from production.

Don did tell me that the whole North tower thing was actually a boondoggle of sorts and really wasn't needed, but for to have an FM on it later. He said their cardioid pattern could practically run off the short towers with only minor adjustments to the phasor. As Don expressed it, "close enough for Flint, anyway".

I had to run WTRX on 500W omni for a few hours once when the middle tower took a lightning strike. I was standing outside in the driveway about to go home when it happened, and it knocked me right down! I literally wet myself a bit! That was when my already too long day got a *whole* lot longer. On top of that, I also was given weekend overnight duties permanently that night after Ernie Haddaway did a call-in quit. I did over 26 hours on the clock there that day... Came in at 4:30 AM Friday morning and finally left for home at 6:10 AM Saturday morning.
Wow, someone remembers our 640 CP in Kingsley. McCluskey or Schaberg had nothing to do with 640 there. My partner and I had grand plans in those days. We filed for several FM's around the country and AM's in Las Vegas (50kW), Sterling Heights (5kW), Kingsley (10kW). The first two were built and sold.

The story of Kingsley is simple. Harold Munn and I worked on all of our projects. I had the idea and he loved squeezing something new into a new place. It was a challenge for him I guess. 640 fit with 10kW day and 1kW night with three 300+ foot towers on the east side of Kingsley, just north of M-113. Today there is one tower on that site. It was a lot of work to get the CP, but we did it.

Now more back story about WTCM. During this time they had made the switch from 1400 to 580. It was discovered that the M-3 maps were really wrong! They had a pattern and power of 2,500 watts. After it was built and proofed they discovered they would need to double the transmitter power to actually cover that licensed pattern, which they soon did. So now they were 5kW and later years kept increasing their power up to today's power level. This scared us that we would need a much bigger transmitter in Kingsley to actually cover the pattern we had been approved for 10kW.

The other part of the WTCM story was when we listened to them, very few commercials! With no money flowing in on WTCM, why would we want build a new station in Kingsley? They had a H*** FM to support their AM!

About this time, Pervis Spann who then owned 640 in Zeeland wanted to make moves. He really wanted to move 640 Zeeland to Chicago. (Imagine that?) To get this job done, he would need to buy out our 640 CP in Kingsley and another 640 CP in Tomahawk WI. He made a deal to pay us $5,000 dollars to turn in the CP. Similar deal with Tomahawk. As I remember, we were paid $2,500, but never another nickel. Tomahawk never saw a penny! Pervis wasn't the most honest man to deal with. We were busy with our other CP's in the other cities and I never paid much attention to what he did after we returned our 640 Kingsley CP.

Years later when Munn/Reese was working with Bell Broadcasting in Detroit. They were looking to upgrade their Detroit station to 1200 with a lot of power. They needed to move 1210 in Saginaw to make it work. As I remember they bought 1210 and since Munn/Reese knew Kingsley qualified to have it's first station, they moved it to a site SW of Kingsley. I've been told that it was a former dump site of some kind. They built it as a 50kW non-D daytimer. Coverage has always been pitiful, but I think they skipped on the construction and as we know, the M-3 map is wrong in that area, so the station has never covered it's licensed coverage map.

Around that time, WXOX 1250 in Bay City was sitting dark. Again I think, Munn/Reese thought of moving it to the old 1210 site to up grade it and you know the history from there.

Another comment above was about a low frequency AM in Northern Michigan. McCluskey did apply for an AM in Stanwood, just south of Big Rapids. As I remember, it was around 540 or so. It was never granted a CP for some reason.

Remember back in those days, we didn't have internet. We found out things on the phone, magazines or books. it was easy to miss something going on a short distance away and took a lot longer to hear about.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:59 pm

Stanwood was WWTG 1070.

I used to live on a hill overlooking the farms South of Big Rapids. I used to have dreams of being able to see a new AM Array out there, then tuning my radio with a signal strength meter, and having the signal barely moving from the bottom limit of the d'Arsonval range. Jack White was worried when he found out that WDEE 1500 AM was signing on. I told him it would barely reach Big Rapids. I was right. WTCM became the second strongest AM signal in Big Rapids after they moved to 580, replacing WMAQ 670.

It was probably when they did the WTCM DA Proofs for 2500 watts on 580, that they discovered the bad conductivity. So they went to 5000 until they could be 50000. They went to 15000, then 35000, then 50000 watts.

I'd been discovering that for years. I just didn't have an FI meter. I noticed that such stations as WATC 900 1 kW, WHAK 960 5 kW, WBMB 1060 1 kW, WHGR 1290 5 kW, WCCW 1310 5 kW and many others didn't seem to get out well at all compared to similar facilities in SE MI. The 250 watt stations like WTCM 1400 and WCBY 1240 also didn't get out well at all. I began DXing when I was very young. I remember one of my first DX discoveries-WOAP 1080! I was listening to WGN 720 on the tube Delco radio in the 1961 Oldsmobile in Flint in the Daytime. Around that time I discovered a new station next to WGN 720, WVIC 730.

The measured conductivity radials are shown on the WTCM, WCCW, WMKT, WOOD and other applications, are shown on CDBS, and WKZO was an important measured radial factor when WTCM upgraded.

I had a radio with a signal strength meter, and happened to notice that at one location near Onaway, WHAK 960 was the same strength that WWJ 950 was in Flint. Assuming that M-3 was correct for the 8 Mile and Meyers WWJ location to my RL in Flint, near Hemphill and Van Slyke, I figured that the path from Moltke to near Onaway was close to 2 mS/m, using the FCC ground wave curves. I think WWJ did measurements on WHAK to go from 12 kW Day to 50 kW Day from the Berlin Twp. site. That was not linked yet on CDBS. Most radials support my hypothesis, 0.1-2 with an occasional 3-4. They don't go in all directions, but the other directions are bad too, the ones that use the M-3 8 mS/m to predict service.

cckadlec thinks I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old...
Last edited by CK-722 on Wed Jan 09, 2019 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by tvbobn » Wed Jan 09, 2019 2:06 pm

CK-722 wrote:
Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:59 pm
Stanwood was WWTG 1070.

I used to live on a hill overlooking the farms South of Big Rapids. I used to have dreams of being able to see a new AM Array out there, then tuning my radio with a signal strength meter, and having the signal barely moving from the bottom limit of the d'Arsonval range. Jack White was worried when he found out that WDEE 1500 AM was signing on.. I told him it would barely reach Big Rapids. I was right. WTCM became the second strongest AM signal in Big Rapids after they moved to 580, replacing WMAQ 670.

It was probably when they did the WTCM DA Proofs for 2500 watts on 580, that they discovered the bad conductivity. So they went to 5000 until they could be 50000. They went to 15000, then 35000, then 50000 watts.

I'd been discovering that for years. I just didn't have an FI meter. I noticed that such stations as WATC 900 1 kW, WHAK 960 5 kW, WBMB 1060 1 kW, WHGR 1290 5 kW, WCCW 1310 5 kW and many others didn't seem to get out well at all compared to similar facilities in SE MI. The 250 watt stations like WTCM 1400 and WCBY 1240 also didn't get out well at all. I began DXing when I was very young. I remember one of my first DX discoveries-WOAP 1080! I was listening to WGN 720 on the tube Delco radio in the 1961 Oldsmobile in Flint in the Daytime. Around that time I discovered a new station next to WGN 720, WVIC 730.

The measured conductivity radials are shown on the WTCM, WCCW, WMKT, WOOD and other applications, are shown on CDBS, and WKZO was an important measured radial factor when WTCM upgraded.

I had a radio with a signal strength meter, and happened to notice that at one location near Onaway, WHAK 960 was the same strength that WWJ 950 was in Flint. Assuming that M-3 was correct for the 8 Mile and Meyers WWJ location to my RL in Flint, near Hemphill and Van Slyke, I figured that the path from Moltke to near Onaway was close to 2 mS/m, using the FCC ground wave curves. I think WWJ did measurements on WHAK to go from 12 kW Day to 50 kW Day from the Berlin Twp. site. That was not linked yet on CDBS. Most radials support my hypothesis, 0.1-2 with an occasional 3-4. They don't go in all directions, but the other directions are bad too, the ones that use the M-3 8 mS/m to predict service.

cckadlec thinks I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old...
We're all growing old! LOL

You are one hundred percent correct that the M-3 maps in Michigan are wrong, not a little, but a lot wrong.

One station no one has mentioned was 990 in Clare. I looked into purchasing it one time, but decided against it. Almost think they were selling the pair (990 and 95.3) and they wanted more than I thought it was worth. As you said, we're old and it's hard to remember everything from back then.

What do you know about 990?

Didn't Stanwood start out as 540 and when that didn't work, he went to 1070?

Speaking of 1070, what was the AM in West Branch? 1060?


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by CK-722 » Wed Jan 09, 2019 2:39 pm

Before I forget, "Gramps" will post the WVIC History Card. Hey, you kids, GET OFF MY LAWN! :rollin

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/ ... r_id=68387

I think Schaberg wanted to put the 550 on the air somewhere, possibly 540, but 540 still has the 500 watt Night Mexican Treaty limitation. I heard they still wanted to put 550 into Lansing, which I doubt could have been done.

The 990 in Clare was a huqe disappointment to its original owners. (Mr. Hunt I believe, no relation to WJBK-TV's Bwana Don, according to Del.) For one thing, they couldn't go East, because of CBW Winnipeg. Say what? Yes, they couldn't put a 5 uV/m Daytime signal anywhere on the Canadian Border at the time, since 990 was a I-A Clear Channel in Canada. That was eventually changed, but it was too late. To the West, it went nowhere because of the sand. JP used to talk about Clare being the dividing line for AM signals, and he was essentially right. The reason WJR came in well on "Over The Edge", John McMurray's boat/yacht, on Northern Lake Huron, was, well, Lake Huron.

WBMB was 1060. It didn't last long. It didn't get anywhere either, even though it was nondirectional. I think Clare wanted to move to 1060, but the First Local Service factor prevailed for West Branch.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by Ed Joseph » Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:44 pm

Alrighty then.... I'm guessing that what I remember about McCluskey's AM up there was probably correct, it was further down the dial. I'm guessing all the shakeups at WTCM probably trashed what he had planned.

I think the worst performing station up north goes to 1230 WGRY. The absolute weakest signal from 1kW I'd ever encountered. A lot of that, I'm sure, had to do with the frequency change from the high end of the dial to 1230. That, and I could never get that old RCA transmitter to modulate for nothing. I tweaked and tweaked, changed tubes and everything but played Gregorian chants to no avail. Most of that was probably due to the fact they were using a plain old blue Orban peak limiter with no asymmetry. I wasn't there long enough to check the polarity of the audio to it, but that may have been an issue as well, but not so much with completely symmetrical output from the limiter I suppose.

When I got there, half of the gear in the building was broken. I spent 4 weeks just fixing broken cart decks, consoles, messed up mic cords, etc, and dragging nitrogen cylinders up to the FM sites. Once I got nearly everything fixed, Gannon told me I had 2 weeks and I was getting laid off. Why I stayed the 2 weeks and continued to bust my balls, I guess I needed the money. He hired Del as contract engineer after I left. I really couldn't get away from that place fast enough. He evidently lied about wanting a full-time CE on staff and just wanted someone to fix all the broken crap. There was a ton of it.

At any rate, I actually heard Lapeer and several other stations coming in over WGRY while still seeing the tower almost every night in the car. I bet the efficiency of that station is 10% tops. I have no idea if anything on the AM had been replaced since 1996 or not. I sure would hope so.


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by tvbobn » Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:58 pm

WGRY AM now WMQU AM in Grayling is currently licensed for 750 watts. I agree, the coverage area is a few miles, if the wind is blowing hard!


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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by HGR1290 » Wed Jan 09, 2019 4:10 pm

WGRY on 1590 was even worse than the present 1230 facility....

WCRM-990, later WRNN had a two tower DA south of Clare. And yes pulled the east side in to avoid the Canadian border.

I always remember WHGR 1290 running into the noise around Harrison, in those sand hills. As a kid it amazed me that 5kW was so weak so fast. Same thing for the 1370 facility in Cadillac.

Back in the day, Northern Michigan was a great DX spot, because there were so few signals, and the ones that were on did not go very far. (AM of FM)

If anyone does find the old WKNX coverage map, I would love to see that.



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Re: am 1250 Saginaw

Post by MWmetalhead » Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:15 pm

Awesome stories.

I especially love TVBobn's story about the original 640 AM in Zeeland! :)

Now we know one of the reasons - if not the primary reason - the WBMX call sign was used for that station. (WBMX was the call sign formerly used by an Urban Contemporary FM station in Chicago.)

Even though the West Michigan version of WBMX was around until I was 11 or 12 years old, I don't remember it at all. I didn't listen to radio on my own very much at that age. When I did, I listened almost exclusively to 98 WGRD.

Until the Buzzboard, I didn't even realize a station existed on AM 640 in West Michigan prior to its WISZ days. (I want to say WISZ signed on in 1993.) Especially in its first decade back on the air, 640 had one helluva daytime signal. Nighttime signal was respectable, too, for 230 watts. I was sad to see that station's role relegated to non-mainstream programming. Former employee Ryan Maguire is now a big shot in Seattle, if I remember correctly. I want to say he is PD of KIRO AM & FM these days. I loved 640 when it was a Sports station.



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