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Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio History

 CUYAHOGA FALLS BROADCAST MEDIA

 OF THE 1950S AND 60S

AM RADIO STATIONS

AKRON                WADC     1350Khz       CBS            became WSLR in 1967

                              WAKR     1590             ABC            Pop music

                              WHKK     640               MBS            became WHLO in 1962

                              WHLO      640                                   “Hello Radio” Pop music

CLEVELAND       KYW         1100             NBC            became WKYC in 1966

                              WABQ      1540

                              WDOK      1260                                  became WIXY in 1967

                              WERE       1300

                               WGAR      1220             CBS

                               WHK         1420             MBS            “Color Radio”

                               WIXY        1260

                               WJMO       1540                               became WABQ in 1964

                               WJW          850               ABC

                               WKYC      1100

CUY.  FALLS        WCUE       1150                               M.O.R. MUSIC

YOUNGSTOWN   WKBN      570           

  Lots of the radios in use during the 50s were beautiful old wooden cased sets, and many people used big consoles from the 30s and 40s equipped with turntables for 78rpm records and shortwave receivers to hear the BBC and other wartime news from abroad.  All of the radios used vacuum tubes that occasionally burned out and had to be replaced.  You could save money by removing the tubes and testing them at the drugstore yourself rather than calling the repairman.

  AM Radio in this time period was still evolving and not yet overcrowded with local stations.  Most stations operating with 1000 watts or less power were limited to daylight hours, leaving the night free for the 5000, 10,000 and 50,000 watt stations.  Several regional powerhouse stations operated on exclusive frequencies and could be widely heard throughout the U.S. and Canada at night.  In addition, the transmitters required periodic replacement and tuning of the final tubes, so testing at stations not normally on the air at night could often be heard, particularly on Sunday nights.  This led to the popular hobby of DXing and kept lots of folks up with the insomniacs, especially in the summer when there was no school.  Many of these regional stations were heard as strongly as the local stations after sunset (with some occasional ionospheric fading), and before the days of “corporate radio” offered unique air personalities and locally popular music.  The list of all of these commonly heard in the Falls would be very long, but some of my favorites were:

CKLW             Windsor, Ontario                Rock music

KDKA             Pittsburgh, PA                     The first commercial station in America

WABC             New York                          Cousin Brucie playing rock n roll

WBZ                Boston, MA                        Bruce Bradley was the night DJ

WCBS             New York                           Long John Nebel and his Way Out World

WCFL             Chicago                               Originator of Chicken Man “He’s Everywhere!”

WCKY            Cincinnati                            Send in for your Big Hank Snow collection                       

WLS                Chicago, IL                         featuring Dick Biondi, the world’s ugliest disc jockey

WLW               Cincinnati                           ran a megawatt during WWII, was heard on stovepipes!

 XERF             Villa Acuna, Mex.              UFOs and other strangeness                                               

  Of course, the local stations also offered some interesting evening fare.  In addition to the Lone Ranger, Amos n Andy and the other traditional shows, there were dance parties and some cool cats like: Casey at the Mike (WJW) with lots of sound bites “that was the sound of a man in pain”, etc., Jay Lawrence aka “The Jay Bird”(KYW) with his shaggy dog stories and Jerry G (Bishop) on KYW reporting the best spots for “counting alligators”.  Daytimes were lightened by Specs (Howard) and Hare (Harry Martin, later Happy Hare) with the world’s corniest jokes on KYW.  I’ve stayed current with Happy Hare and Jerry G, because they both wound up with me in San Diego, and up until August of 2004 they were still telling those bad jokes on KPQP.  Unfortunately, the media moguls here have now replaced the music with Talk Radio, which seems to have become the fate of what was once a lively and entertaining medium.  The early rock era was also filled with another kind of programming- the station jingles.  Rock station WHK, in particular, couldn’t talk about anything without the aid of a snappy little tune in four part harmony:

and always ending with the station logo- on WHK, color channel 14, color radio!

   Frequency Modulation was a brand new medium in the 1960s and the broadcasters weren’t quite sure what to do with it, so it was mostly used by colleges and universities who found it easier to get licensed there -WAPS, later WAUP at Akron University is a good example- and in classical or instrumental music formats.  Some broadcasters simply mirrored their AM programs most of the day (WAKR-FM for example).  Most of the music format stations had few if any commercials and there was little or no noise or interference, so businesses and housewives used it as background “elevator” music.  This lasted only until inexpensive portable radios became available with the FM band, and by the 1970s the rush was on to move all music programs (and the advertising) onto FM.  The FCC then mandated that FM stations be licensed separately and so all of the -FM call letters went away.     - Information  Courtesy of Bruce Semelsberger