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1470 WFNT

Discussion pertaining to the Tri-Cities, Flint, Mt. Pleasant, and Bad Axe
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Ed Joseph
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1470 WFNT

Post by Ed Joseph » Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:40 pm

Just curious how long this station has been sitting on Fox network's CUE channel?? It's been over an hour here now, mostly dead air.


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Colonel Flagg
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by Colonel Flagg » Sat Mar 16, 2019 10:57 pm

Last time I tuned past WFNT, the audio was way too low. 1420 WFLT sounds far better. Airing network spot feeds for hours before someone notices, is an old bit. Here in Detroit, the old Talk Radio 1270 WXYT was famous for that on weekends.


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Ed Joseph
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by Ed Joseph » Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:55 am

WFLT has always been a super-loud station, even when I worked there in the early 90's. All they ran (probably still do) was a DAP 310 with an Innovonics 222 after it. Neither one was running particularly hard either. The DAP was usually around the center or slightly in Expansion, and the 222 was doing like one LED lit and the second blinking a bit. The positives, when I was there, were +115 or so, peaking to 120%. The Gates wouldn't do much more than that because they hated to buy tubes. I think I saw -99% like three times, usually it was under -95%. I wasn't there but maybe a couple months. I quit when they made me run "the Voice of Islam" on my airshift. "Christians", running Jihadist programming. What's not to love about that?

WFNT 1470 now has some sports programming on, at what sounds like 50% modulation. Typical corporate AM radio for ya!

Edit: Dialed down to 1420 and they're twice as loud as WFNT. They may have changed something there, as the signal actually has a bit of bass in it compared to what I recall. Still very bright though. Perhaps they finally replaced the old Gates with the melted tube windows! I would hope, at least, I haven't been in that building since 1992 (1420 that is).


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CK-722
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by CK-722 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:18 am

WAMM/WFLT has always seemed to care about keeping things "up to snuff", as I understand that Gerry Wolpert used to say. When you only have 500 watts to work with, you tend to keep the transmitter working at full power. Also the thing about sounding louder goes way back. I think Chris Peeters told me that they were first to jump on the 125 percent peak positive modulation bandwagon. When WAMM signed off, they used to say, "WAMM operates on an assigned frequency of 1420 kilohertz with a power of 500, count em', 500 watts, of relatively undistorted power". I don't know if they meant the audio, the relatively simple directional pattern, or both, or something else.

They also sometimes used the slang term, we "cook" at an assigned frequency, a vernacular used for operate, popular in the 1960s.


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Ed Joseph
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by Ed Joseph » Sun Mar 17, 2019 3:30 pm

The term "Cook" originated from the heated crystal ovens found in broadcast transmitters.


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CK-722
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by CK-722 » Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:21 pm

You can hear the WAMM sign off from December, 1965 on the unscoped Jim Taylor Hampton (of later WLS fame) tape of his Stevie Wonder interview. And if you listen, yes, it was actually 70 degrees on that December day. The sign off was at 5:00 P.M. Listen to the unscoped interview. It's a classic. From the historical 740 S. Saginaw St. studios built by George Trendle and H. Allen Campbell. Casey Kasem and J.P. McCarthy "missed it by that much", working in the studios at the respective transmitting facilities.


Is THAT where they got the idea for the 486-SX?

Same (x, y, z), different (t)

Your bullet missed my trial balloon.

RTN Price. Not guaranteed. As of 12:30, 157.71 Down 0.22.

Artificial Intelligence is a Child that needs a Parent to guide it through.

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Ed Joseph
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by Ed Joseph » Sun Mar 17, 2019 9:57 pm

I was just over 2 years old then. However, I had figured the radio out by that time, and I remember a lot of things from that age most people wouldn't. I had already learned to use the record player and read record labels by the age of 3. By the time I was six, I had an AM station on the air, with the help of Norm Perry and Ted Johnson, who lived two houses down from me. So, I remember a lot of things about Flint radio in the 60's because Flint radio was *that* awesome back then. It's a sad state of generic now.


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jry
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Re: 1470 WFNT

Post by jry » Fri May 24, 2019 1:47 pm

[quote=CK-722 post_id=567223 time=1552864918 user_id=14859]
You can hear the WAMM sign off from December, 1965 on the unscoped Jim Taylor Hampton (of later WLS fame) tape of his Stevie Wonder interview. And if you listen, yes, it was actually 70 degrees on that December day. The sign off was at 5:00 P.M. Listen to the unscoped interview. It's a classic. From the historical 740 S. Saginaw St. studios built by George Trendle and H. Allen Campbell. Casey Kasem and J.P. McCarthy "missed it by that much", working in the studios at the respective transmitting facilities.
[/quote]

The Historical Studios that burned down.... You know, I still have what looks like a set of blueprints for that building. We found them when we were clearing out the old 600 building on Center Rd. I refused to throw them out.
Casey DID get his start at 1420. Many of his family still live in the area. JP DID get his first post war radio gig at 600.



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