The Big 89 Returns on Monday!

[Bill, KD0HG]

The 390 will be on the beverage and locked on 890 KC tomorrow night.

On Monday, Memorial Day, WLS will air the BIG 89 REWIND radio special. All day long, WLS goes retroactive, back to the days when it was the nation’s music leader, The Rock of Chicago. From 5 a.m. to midnight, central time, it'll be a historic day in Chicago radio.

They'll even break out the WLS touchtones! When you hear them, call in and win your own Big 89 Rewind t-shirt and a WLS Lost Sixties CD with past WLS hosts like Weber, Roberts and more.

Featured DJs will include Lujack with Lil' Tommy Edwards, Winston, Landecker, Jeff Davis, Chris Shebel and Tom Kent.

Also appearing throughout the day will be WLS news veterans Lyle Dean, Catherine Johns and Gil Gross and sportscaster Les Grobstein, among others.

Helping to prepare and pull off a seamless presentation for "The Big 89 Rewind" is a talented behind-the-scenes staff supporting WLS PD Kipper McGee and the WLS greats that will be on the air that day:

Bill Shannon - Chief Musicologist
Jay Philpott - Rewind Coordinator
Scott Childers - Lead Historical Consultant
Art Vuolo - Videographer
Michael Wolfgang - Producer in Chief
Special Voiceovers: Davis, Winston and Bill Price
Musicradio jingle library courtesy of Jam Productions

The special will also feature the generous contributions of unique WLS airchecks from many fans, collectors and "Uncle Ricky's Top 40 Repository" at www.reelradio.com. You can listen to the live stream of the entire 18-hour broadcast here: 1http://www.wlsam.com/article.asp?id=152352

[WA3VJB]

Can Big 10 'CFL be far behind ?

[Mike/W8BAC]

Growing up here in Detroit The Big 8 CKLW was the place to be. Maybe they will be next. Here is a site for people that remember CKLW in the 60's and 70's http://www.thebig8.net/

[Pete, WA2CWA]

WABC Rewound returns for the 8th straight year on Memorial Day, Monday May 28th. This 12 hour special takes you back to the golden era of Musicradio77,  as we dust off the stacks of wax as well as the old air checks, 6am to 6pm.  You'll hear the original broadcasts from the likes of Cousin Brucie,  Dan Ingram,  Harry Harrison,  Bob Lewis,  and many more.

Today,  WABC is the most listened to newstalk radio station in the nation.  Back in the 60's and 70's,  WABC was the most listened to radio station of all formats.  In fact WABC is the only radio station in America to ever achieve the honor of being the most listened to radio station in the nation in two different formats:  Rock and Talk.

Do you remember these announcers:

Musicradio WABC: Those Great DJ's!

The WABC Disc Jockeys in 1972

[Jim, W5JO]

http://www.440.com/440sat.html

Do you guys know about this site?

[W2VW]

WABC Rewound returns for the 8th straight year on Memorial Day, Monday May 28th. This 12 hour special takes you back to the golden era of Musicradio77,  as we dust off the stacks of wax as well as the old air checks, 6am to 6pm.  You'll hear the original broadcasts from the likes of Cousin Brucie,  Dan Ingram,  Harry Harrison,  Bob Lewis,  and many more.

Today,  WABC is the most listened to newstalk radio station in the nation.  Back in the 60's and 70's,  WABC was the most listened to radio station of all formats.  In fact WABC is the only radio station in America to ever achieve the honor of being the most listened to radio station in the nation in two different formats:  Rock and Talk.

Do you remember these announcers:

Musicradio WABC: Those Great DJ's!

The WABC Disc Jockeys in 1972

Not only that but their staff announcer has posted on THIS site. Same guy was part of the old WABC for a while.

[WU2D]

I made crystal sets, grid leak detectors and regens. out of anything I could find between 1970 and 1974 when I was a bit younger.

WABC was always a given - they would be blasting in at night in Northern NY, on the Canadian border where I grew up.

Mike WU2D

[Bill, KD0HG]

As a young punk, I lived about 2 miles east of the 3-tower directional of 50KW WCFL.
Guess which was the only station that I could get on my early receivers...

[AF9J]

Considering that WLS is only about 80 miles south of me, I'll have to give things a listen.  It's the amateur musicologist in me  (musicians often wind up getting into musicology, even if they are metalheads like me; listening to music with a history to it, is always fascinating).  Thanks for the info Bill.   BTW, what time does it start?  I'm heading out the door shortly to help with cleaning at the animal shelter.  Maybe I can listen on the way to the shelter.

73,
Ellen - AF9J

[k4kyv]

I can recall in the 60's when WLS was the only rock 'n roll station on the dial.  All the kids listened at night as soon as propagation permitted.  Soon to follow, some of the local rundown-at-sundown stations (AM daytimers) adopted a similar top-40 format, making it available round the clock.  You  listened to the local station during the day, and to WLS at night.

I used to get complaints when I worked 160.  In those days, the band in this region of the  country was  limited to 1800-1825 kc/s.  WLS is on 890.  So the image frequency (890 plus twice the 455 kc/s i.f.=910) of 1800 kc/s fell right on top of WLS.  Operating anywhere in the bottom half of the band, 1800-1812.5 kc/s, would put the image within the passband of the little 5-tube, broad-as-a-barn, hyellowy audio ac/dc broadcast radios typically in use in those days, so I got my share of complaints that my 50-watt nighttime legal limit 160m signal was wiping out WLS.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

I can recall in the 60's when WLS was the only rock 'n roll station on the dial.  All the kids listened at night as soon as propagation permitted.  Soon to follow, some of the local rundown-at-sundown stations (AM daytimers) adopted a similar top-40 format, making it available round the clock.  You  listened to the local station during the day, and to WLS at night.

Maybe on your dial, but in the 60's, we had access to WABC, WINS, WMCA and several others in NYC area, WFIL in Philly, WKBW in Buffalo, and a host of others in the Atlantic and Northeast areas. The AM dial use to rock night and day.

[Ed-VA3ES]

Yup. In Montreal, in the '60's, we used to receive all the major stations -  WABC, WCFL, WPTR, WKBW,  etc.   I used to receive them on my HE-30 (actually a Trio 9R59 - same rig), which had the volume control pot tapped for line out audio. Fed that into my hifi amp.  Selective fading gave it that... ummm... psychedic phasing effect! 

[Bill, KD0HG]

With that 3-tower array beaming east, 1000 WCFL probably has about 6 db antenna gain, 200 KW ERP straight east out of Chicago.
Smokin!
They need to protect KOMO in Seattle. Not a bit of their RF here in Colorado. WCFL stood for Chicago Federation of Labor, they started as a union-owned station. Now they're WMVP, yet another talk station.

WLS stands for World's Largest Store, it was owned by Sears a long time ago. Their signal isn't what it was; a lot of suburban development around their 1/2 wave tall stick the last 30 years. Used to be able to hear them from the Canadian Arctic to the west coast. And so-called clear channels aren't so clear any more.

Ed, didn't Canadians pretty much abandon high powered AM broadcasting?
There was a 50 KW station on 540 in Sask that used to lay in a smoking signal here.

[AF9J]

You're right about that Bill.  Their signal must have wimped out in the intervening years.  I heard nada out of WLS today, and I'm only about 80-90 miles north of them.  When I lived in my hometown of Manitowoc (about 85 miles north of Milwaukee), I used to be able to hear WISN (1130 kHz), and WTMJ (640 kHz) out of Milwaukee in broad daylight, with no problems at all.  I usually can hear WGN.  But no WLS.  Bummer.

Ellen - AF9J

[Ed-VA3ES]

Ed, didn't Canadians pretty much abandon high powered AM broadcasting?
There was a 50 KW station on 540 in Sask that used to lay in a smoking signal here.

We still have many 50 KW  stations in Canada.  CJAD 800 in Montreal, CFRA 580, here in Ottawa, Most of the Toronto stations.  Most go to night pattern as they have for decades, in an effort to protect US stations.   CJAD goes to 10 KW at dusk, as does CFRA, and they change their patterns.   CJAD used to identify when they changed to  the night pattern.  "Stand by for night pattern",  the announcer would say.  I used to think that was the upcoming program.   

[WA1GFZ]

Bummer I could have listened to abc at the beach and bring back meomories of WMCA and WABC on my 5 transistor radio.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Thanks for the info, Ed.

Ellen, I had to go to work during the pre-dawn hours yesterday and during my half hour drive, not a trace of WLS on 890 here. Only a weak Mexican on the channel. Maybe ABC has let the WLS ground radial system deteriorate over the years. Or maybe it's the urban construction in the proximity of their tower.

There still are a few clear channel AMs that have righteous signals, WLW Cincinnati, WGN and WBBM Chicago and our Denver 850 KOA all do very well. KOA recently upgraded their ground radial system, trenching in miles of #6 copper and that really made an improvement. They're as reliable as a local at 500 miles out at night.

[WA3VJB]

Time to bring this aircheck clip back around again.

WKBW for a while went back to the format many of us grew up listening to -- it was a predecessor to Top 40 at the time, now it's "Oldies," same music of course.

Our own W2KBW shares the air shift with another KB luminary. Check this audio quality. THAT's what a 50Kw AMer is supposed to sound like.

I was recording this from an old, solid-state, multiband portable. NOT anything exotic, just your basic 1960s germanium radio.

[AF9J]

Hi Bill,

620 WTMJ (I goofed in a previous post and said 640 WTMJ [I don't listen much to WTMJ, if I want talk radio, I'll listen to Mark Belling rant on 1130 WISN on the way home from work]) is on a clear channel, and occasionally at night you'll hear people call in from as far east as Cleveland.

73,
Ellen -AF9J

Thanks for the info, Ed.

There still are a few clear channel AMs that have righteous signals, WLW Cincinnati, WGN and WBBM Chicago and our Denver 850 KOA all do very well. KOA recently upgraded their ground radial system, trenching in miles of #6 copper and that really made an improvement. They're as reliable as a local at 500 miles out at night.

[flintstone mop]

I'm sorry I missed these stations rewinding. Was the orgianl great sound there??? THAT was what made these stations big in their day. The great awsome sound of a plate modulated tranny with the reverb of WABC. WLS and 'KBW and WOWO and CKLW had the great audio too....no reverb though.
Fred