Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s

Subject: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 12:33 PM

My employer David Hajdu has posed another question for his book CHILDREN OF DARKNESS, and I'm hoping you folks can help. In the late 1950s, the historic Wheeling, WV radio station WWVA boosted its power late at night, enabling its signal to be received in the North. Does anyone know what time it boosted its power (midnight?), and during this boost, exactly how much wattage was it broadcasting with? I've called the current WWVA staff about this, but nobody seems to know who can answer this question, so I've ended up leaving voice mail messages but not getting any actual responses. If any Mudcats know this info or can steer us to a source for it, David and I would be very grateful! You can contact me directly at [e-mail]. Thanks in advance for your help!

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Pete Peterson
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:04 PM

I remember listening to WWVA in the early 60s and hearing them describe themselves as "clear channel, 50,000 watts." No written source but this is my recollection. Clear channel= no other station in the US or Canada on that frequency. I know that 50,000 was the maximum that any AM radio station was allowed to use; the Mexican radio stations used more (get Jannete Carter to tell stories about living with her mother when the Carter Family was broadcasting of "border radio" XERA and they used 500,000 watts power and sometimes the toaster picked up XERA. . . sorry for the digression

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: BSer
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:14 PM

More irrelevant. On good nights those Mexican stations could be picked up in Seattle (but not WWVA with its excellent live country music). One of them had a recurrent adv. saying roughly 'Hurrah up and send in your dollar, or you'll miss out on this great bargain', then giving the address to send your dollar. You were always too late, and there weren't any left, so you got nothing for your dollar.

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: ddw
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:19 PM

I'm not saying it applies in this case, but I was in radio about that time and most of the switches were made at "sundown" — i.e., about 5 or 6 p.m. in the winter and about 9 p.m. in the summer. My recollection is that different stations chose slightly different times, but the operative word in their licensing was "sundown." Not sure that's too helpful specifically for WWVA.

My recollection of the power agrees with Pete's — 50,000 watts, clear channel. You might contact the Federal Communications Commission; they should have records of that kind of thing, since they were the licensing agency.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:25 PM

WWVA got up to Chicago back then. Probably was my intro to old-timey and bluegrass as well as the other more trad country sounds. The WLS (World's Largest Store--Sears) Barn Dance in Chicago had some of that too but mainly they were more medicine-show-like. Slapstick & comic & urbane. Arkie The Arkansas Woodchopper, Dolph Hewett, Bob Atcher (cowboy) etc. That was before the Opry even...

But I do remember "50,000 watt clear channel station" also---or was that WGN (World's Greatest Newspaper)?

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:43 PM

In the late fifties, I only live about 60 or so air miles from Wheeling and we got great reception all the time. I too recall it as 50,000 along with another pioneering station in Cincy, WLW--one of the first 50,000 watters.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: BSer
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 04:45 PM

I used the term 'country' rather loosely. Art is more precise, and some of it was even folk. 50,000 watts was the legal limit in the U.S. for (AM) radio stations at that time. Wasn't Bradley Kincaid one of those sometimes on WWVA? (I don't have his published book of old songs), it's been so long ago that my memory of it is getting pretty dim. Dick Spottswood of WAMU would know, but he doesn't come here.

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 09:44 PM

Bradley Kincaid was at WLS in Chicago early on. He was from Kentucky but was getting 100,000 fan latters a year the 4 years he was on the National Barn Dance which started on April 19, 1924 (before my time).

In 1928-29 he went to Cincinnati's WLW. Then to KDKA in Pittsburgh. Then WGY in Schenectady, WEAF in New York City----the NBC Red Network. (Has nothing to do with politics.)WBZ in Boston was next and he was ten years in the East. In the mid 30's he joined Joe Troyan and Grandpa Louis Marshall Jones in a trio. Then, again as a solo, he went to WTIC in Hartford, Connecticut----back to WGY in Schenectady, WHAM in Rochester, N.Y. and back to WLW. In 1944 he went to WSM in Nashville, but he had been on the Opry many, many times before that. He stayed at WSM longer than any other station except WLS. I guess he never did get to WWVA.

Doc Hopkins was living in Chicago in the 1970s and he sounded very much like Bradley Kincaid to my ear.

Hope this helps some.

Art

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 26 Nov 99 - 11:37 PM

If it's of any interest, WWVA was audible in NYC in the early '60s. The most distant station I can recall hearing on the radio at that time was KMOX in St. Louis.

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: _gargoyle
Date: 27 Nov 99 - 11:20 PM

50,000 was the maxium...but it was possible to "channel" the signal...ie. on the Eastern Sea Coast it was apparent that you should not waste a signal out over the Atlantic Ocean therefore it could be "channeled" inland.

Also, there are "skips." Atmosphereic conditions vary moment by moment...one of the most powerful influences being "cloud cover." A GREAT reception one evening may be only "static" the next evening....."Skips" can/could produce phenominal results.

A simple 60watt base in northern New Mexico, in the 1960-70's could pick up a "bounce" from a 60watt commercial-band Shrimp-Boat in the Gulf of Mexico . The ideal "conditions" which contributed to the phenomenom where an antenna and a CANYON both pointing towards a location 1,500 miles away....(these stories are found someplace far-off in cyber-space...(yet untapped,but soon to be discovered, as the "google-engine" prowls deeper into the troves of the mellenium-data-base.)

In New Mexico, our only "power-station" was KOMA (Oklahoma City) after 6:00 at night....

On the West Coast the only early years "PowerHouse" was KFI - Earl C. Anthony....50,000 watt clear channel

The history of modern (USA) radio is a fascinating world of fifdoms, and feudalisms, and monarchies.....(Not to mention anti-trust restrictions which are only being removed at this very moment.)

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: kendall
Date: 27 Nov 99 - 11:54 PM

From 1953 to 1957 I was stationed in a Coast Guard weather ship, and, up in the Davis Straits in January, late at night, the only radio station we could get was WWVA. Those city boys were some upset!! Does anyone remember my cousin, Genial Gene Hooper? He was on that station for a few years. by the way, the Davis Straits is located between Labrador and Greenland.

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 99 - 11:59 PM

Well, you can click here for a bit of a history of the station. It changed format to talk radio in October, 1997, and I guess you could call that the end of an era.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: WyoWoman
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 12:09 AM

I lived in Oklahoma City during the 1960s and we used to go to dances sponsored by KOMA. Imagine my surprise upon meeting a man here in Wyoming who grew up on the Montana border up near CANADA (!) and they listened to KOMA all the time, too.

What was that Mexican station that first played Wolfman Jack, before he became a cultural icon? I remember hearing him howl at midnight when I was in high school...

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 07:46 PM

Wow! My friend Dan Goodman was right--you guys really know your stuff! Thanks a million for all your feedback--David Hajdu and I truly appreciate all your help!

Sincerely, Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci Research Assistant to David Hajdu CHILDREN OF DARKNESS

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 09:37 PM

Who is Wolfman Jack?????????

Art

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 10:03 PM

Art, I think I oughta give you a blue clickie to make sure you got your rock 'n' roll right - click here for a bio of Wolfman Jack, 1938-95. He was on XERF-AM, 250,000 watts. But I bet you knew all that and were pulling our leg.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: WyoWoman
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 10:13 PM

Art-- he was a very late-night radio d.j. who broadcast from Ciudad Acuna, just across the border from Del Rio, Texas, during the late 1950s and 1960s. Playing rockabilly music and rock 'n' roll. Also selling prayer cloths you could put over your radio and "soak up those good vibrations from our Lord Jesus Christ" and generally scamming the public. He started his program, which was broadcast at an obscenely high wattage, with this distinctive howl of the wolfman. And for those of us who knew to tune in (and who could somehow stay up that late)it was this clandestine thrill to listen to this funky, weird subterranean culture that was coming from over the Mexican border -- although he always said he was broadcasting from "Del Reee-yo TEXas..."

Well, sometime in the '80s, I guess, some marketing group got wind of this, dug him up and suddenly Wolfman Jack was all over the place -- sort of the same cultural development that had a bunch of animated grapes dancing on tv to the tune of "Heard it on the Grapevine."

Someone else probably can provide better details, but that's what I remember of it.

Subject: RE: Help: WWVA Wattage In The Late 1950s
From: ddw
Date: 28 Nov 99 - 11:17 PM

Just checked the blue clicky that Joe provided and found a couple of things that don't seem right to me. I used to listen to Wolfman when I was stationed in Oklahoma and I would have sworn he was broadcasting on KRIO, Del Rio, which had its transmitter across the border and was all over the right-hand side of the dial with its 250,000 watts.

The other thing the article mentions is that he was born in Brooklyn, but when he died a few years ago all the stories that moved on the wires said he was a native of some small town (I don't remember the name) in eastern North Carolina. It might be one of those things of being born in Brooklyn and moving to NC very shortly afterward, or something like that — I can't say for sure.

david