A history of WMPT Radio South Williamsport Pa, as well as radio in the Williamsport Marketplace. In addition a history of my time behind the microphone.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

WMPT Technical Part 2

Chief Engineer(s) Galen "Dave" Castlebury Jr, Jon Paul (in name only), assisted by Dick Crownover, Kelly Watts & Warren(Lomie)Lomisson)

In the period of 1968 through 1972 some other changes happened at the WMPT FM transmitter site. Three of the TV stations in Harrisburg approaced Dave about using the tower to receive their signals so they could add translators to serve Williamsport. The original plan was to have both the receivers and transmitters in the WMPT FM building, BUT testing found that there was a signal shadow over a part of Williamsport. The TV stations then leased a piece of property further down Skyline Drive and built a small building and tower there. WMPT FM's tower was still used for receiving the signal and boosters to send it through coax to the transmitter building. A benefit,(?)to WMPT was income and we had three TV's in the production studio that covered all three major networks. D.J.'s quickly found out that they could plug in a microphone in the studio and watch TV while they were on the air. A practice that Dave didn't care for, BUT we loved. One bebefit was beign able to catch news bullitens quickly. In addition, several local businesses contracted with Dave to use the tower and building for their two way communication equipment.

In 1968 A.B.C. News changed its format to four different radio networks. This also meant a huge increase in the costs of bringing the signal to WMPT. In those days it was lease telephone lines the cost was offset by royalties paid for carrying programming. With the split of the network so ended the royalties for small markets like Williamsport. Dave felt that we could not afford the costs so a deal was worked out with WHDL Olean, NY to pick up their FM signal, using a receiver at the FM Site, and broadcast the news. The system worked pretty well, except when a DJ was asleep at the switch and you might get some of WHDL's station I.D. on the air. We also taped Paul Harvey from them and broadcast it 15 minutes later. The station eventually built a library of generic Paul Harvey broadcasts in case the D.J. on duty forgot to tape Paul or some failure happened. After a period of time Dave struck a deal with WUDO AM in Lewisburg to share the cost of the leased telephone line to Lewisburg, and pay the full cost from Lewisburg to South Williamsport. The sales staff became very creative and sold sponsorships to other A.B.C. programs like Howard Cosell to help defray the costs. During the negotiations with WUDO was the first time I met Ted Hodge, who I would meet again in 1979 when I went to work for WENY in Elmira, NY.

In June of 1972 the Agnes Flood nearly destroyed WMPT with 8 to 9 feet of water in the building. I lived in Barbours on The Loyalsock Creek at the time and was stranded there till the water went down. Just as well as I spent my time with Plunkett's Creek Fire Company where I was also a member. It was about June 24th or 25th when we finally were able to get into the building and found MUD everywhere. Before the flood waters came through the door Jon Paul, Bill Byham and Caesar Mattioli did what they could to save equipment by putting it up on counters. The popular rumor that the WMPT property was dry during the flood of 1936, well it certainly wasn't in 1972. I said to Dave that if cows had actually stood on the knoll where the station was, "They were damn tall cows." It was amazing to see all the efforts to get the station back on the air, engineers from WRAK, WWPA, AND WLYC all came over to help as they could along with Warren Lommison, the owner of Lommison Sound Systems. We tore out all the equipment and took it to the parking lot where liberal applications of water and Dow bathroom cleaner removed the mud. After it dried out we plugged it in, the old Dualux console actually worked on one channel and after some coaxing the C.C.A. transmitter came back to life, at very low power, after isolating the modulation transformer be setting it on some damaged 33 RPM records. repair parts for everything that didn't come back to life were ordered and we went back on the air with a limited schedule. To that point WMPT had been 24 hours, six days a week, but we had no production facilities so production was done after sign off at midnight sometimes lasting all night. To the credit of all concerned it was the absolute BEST EFFORT I have ever seen by a group of people to try and operate as normally as possible. I think it was about day four after we went back on the air we actually did a remote from the Lycoming County Fair. No small feat since we had temporary audio lines running across the floor no office equipment, very few dry chairs and worst of all NO COCA COLA MACHINE!

The causalities of the flood the old Gates Transmitter, the home brew production console and all the masters for client jingles, not to mention a large part of the record library.

I left not long after the flood as did Caesar and a couple of other employees as frustration set in. I wound up at WLYC/WILQ, and Caesar at WMMR IN Philadelphia. The Gates board and turn tables eventually were sold to the upstart Mifflinburg radio station WJJR FM, built and managed by Ron Shobert.

POST SCRIPT:

As I have said many times in this BLOG, I am always afraid that I will forget someone. Steve Helms, (air name Steve Hurr) dropeed me a note to tell me he has been reading the BLOGS and reminded me that a bunch of us piled in Dave's old Bronco and went over to Steve's parents house for a BBQ as a break from the post flood clean-up. Steve, sorry I forgoten about that, heck it was only 38 years ago! Anyway, Steve and I worked together at WMPT and WLYC and shared duties doing the Monday Night radio tests on the West Branch Fireman's Radio for several years.

Friday, May 07, 2010

WMPT Equipment Part 1

WMPT AM 1966:
(Chief Engineer Alan Preuss)

Of all the engineers I worked with in 45 years Alan was probably the best! He designed and built equipment for the station and kept the place running pretty well. When I started at WMPT they had just purchased a second hand Gates Dualux. I remember when I was still at WLYC, Ron Shobert calling me and asking how certain things worked. Being a studio transmitter location had both advantages and disadvantages. It was great since you didn't need a remote control setup but bad because the RF from the station was a constant problem creating all sorts of noises. Also in the control room were two Gates 16” turn tables that eventually we put new tone arms on and new solid state pre-amps in for better quality. There were two tape recorders a Magnovox PT 6, old by any standards and was probably used when Dave got it. Eventually a consumer grade Wollensack was added to the equipment for recording and back up playback. There were two Spotmaster Cart machines, Alan eventually added the third, and the usual Gates Modulation and Frequency Monitors that caught fire on a regular basis. The control room mic was a EV TV Boom mic, great sound) Oh some place along the way a reverb was added to the control room mic channel using a Fisher “spring” reverb. The transmitter was an old workhorse Gates AM 250-D, which Alan used to laugh was 2 years older then he was. Audio processing was with a tubed Gates Stay Level and Limiter. The tower was right next to the building and 146' tall with a dual obstruction marking light on top. When WMPT went to 1,000 watts in 1968. (We became 1,001 watts, 1,000 from the transmitter and one Kelly Watts). Dave bought a used Raytheon AM 1000, it was a MONSTER. The day it was delivered we had to get a fork lift from Nippon Panel to get it off the truck and slide it in the transmitter room door.

Production was sparse to say the least, there was another Wollensack reel to reel, a Voice Of Music consumer grade turntable (also used at record hops) for mixing a small pa amplifier and a EV 635A mike. That was it! Some amazing stuff came out of that room from the hands of Dick Crownover, Mike Sullivan and others. Eventually Alan built a little six channel stereo board and the production studio was relocated to the former lounge directly in front of the control room. That board stayed in service until the flood of 1972. The former "closet" production room became an announce booth and the home of "the Aging Left-handers" (Bill Byham) typrwriter.

In 1967 it was decided that FM was the coming thing, so Dave applied for a channel allocation for SOUTH Williamsport. In those days the F.C.C. had very few frequency assignments and there were not left in the Williamsport area as both WLYC and WRAK had FM's. Dave was afraid once the allocation was granted that Woody Ott, Majority Owner of WWPA would apply as the channel assignment was fair game once the F.C.C. acted. I can remember Dave telling me that Woody had called him and said that he was not interested in the frequency as FM was not going to amount to anything. Eventually 99.3 was granted for South Williamsport and Dave, and Alan, with some help from me set about the process of putting a new radio station in operation. Dave purchased the former Lycoming TV Cable Company building along with the 90' tower on Bald Eagle Mountain. Because of the formula that the F.C.C. uses (height above average terrain vs power) the 3,000 watts became 105 watts horizontal and vertical. With so few stations on the air in those days WMPT FM had a really good signal except for the person who lived the nearest to the transmitter, Al Ferrari who owned and operated Inn 15 at the Top of Montgomery Pike on Route 15.

Equipment was an interesting mix, a C.C.A. single bay dual polarization antenna was mounted at the top of the tower, with the audio being fed from the studios by equalized leased telephone lines. Originally it had been planned to use a microwave link, but there was no line of sight so it would have involved a repeater in between, at the time that was quite an expensive deal. The transmitter was a used GE 250 watt workhorse. I can remember the day we installed the transmitter Dave telling Alan and me that he was going to install this one "expensive" tube. Well as you might guess Dave accidentally dropped it, something we never let him forget. Once the STEREO exciter and audio processor were installed that part of the transmitter, with the expensive tube, was no longer used. Dave did go top shelf on the audio processor buying a three band Orban, at that time it was the "state of the art."

Early on it was decided that daytime broadcasting would be in monaural (even though the stereo generator was still on) on the FM since it would simulcast the AM and the live on air console was monaural. Nighttime, Dave didn't want the heavier rock and roll at night on the air so Alan set about building various components of a simple automation system. The automation unit consisted of a new Skully 14" reel to reel tape transport, a new S.M.C 24 cart carousel and an new S.M.C. Stereo record/playback single deck unit. The unit had and auto fade so we could carry news and a silence sensor that would start the music reel if a cart misfired and sound a warning alarm to the AM DJ who was also in charge of making sure the automation was loaded with carts and music. The first programming package was from G.M.I. and was elevator music and also part of the music programming package was "middle of the road" music show featuring announcer Don MacMaster.

The quality of the station was excellent and was the first STEREO signal in Williamsport spurring the sale of FM radios for cars and home stereo systems. My old friend Edsel Sanders, who owned the local Lafayette Radio Associate Store, sold a lot of FM converters and car FM radios. We had Plankenhorn Stationary print up a bunch of promotional signs and went around to all the stereo dealers and tuned the station in and put a sign on top of their unit telling people that WMPT FM STEREO was on the air. For allowing us to do that we would give them promotional mentions on the air.

Once the FM was added it gave WMPT the capabilities on broadcasting two sporting events at the same time. That drove the D.J. on duty crazy trying to monitor both events for ending times. I can remember times when there were two live sports events on the air and a third one being taped.

One of the neat things about having the stereo station was that we could produce some local programming as well. Not long after WMPT FM went on the air I sold and produced a local music show sponsored by Fulton Piano & Organ Company called "Hammond, The Sound Of Today." I actually took a reel to reel recorder to the local Fulton Store in The Loyal Plaza and recorded Fulton Organist and Salesman Jim Greg playing. Occasionally he was joined by Joe Kita on guitar and it really was a good show. The disadvantage is that I had to go to the station every Saturday and run it manually as we had no way to put the automation tones on the reel to reel. At the time Booker T & The M.G.'s were on the charts with the song "Hang 'Em High," Jim and Joe surprised me during one of the recording sessions by playing it for the show.

After Alan left engineering responsibilities fell to Dave, Dick Crownover, Harry Seltzer, and once in the while, when all else failed, yours truly.

One of those Pennsylvania thunderstorms put the end to the Raytheon 1,000 watt transmitter as it burned out a lot of critical parts that, because of the age of the unit were not available. Dave surprised us all by ordering a brand new C.C.A. 100/250 watt transmitter. Around the same time he decided to make a major addition to the rear of the building,adding a new transmitter room, new bathrooms, and a second floor office.

Monday, May 03, 2010

The Technical Side of My Early Radio Days Part 1.

I got thinking today, on thing I never have really talked about was some of the equipment I worked with over the years. While this may not be of great interest to a lot of people, I am sure those people I worked with will sometimes fondly remember the trials and tribulations of working with equipment that was just one more fire away from the scrap pile. I will also salute the intrepid engineers who kept it running against all odds.

Our first stop will be WLYC AM & FM, Williamsport, Pa:

(Chief Engineer Jim Hubbard) (later John Ellis)

My first employment in radio was here. For the most part the on air equipment was pretty good. The main control room has a Gates Dulalux console (board) that you can see on my website www.kellywattsclassreunion.com. This was an 8 channel board, capable of airing two separate programs at once, which quite often happened at WLYC and at WMPT. This was a tubed console, and put out a lot of heat, the power supply was remotely mounted in the equipment rack and was prone to tube socked failure, due to heat. The board had a variety of switching combinations for remote starts and inputs as well as an intercom system that you could use to the newsroom, etc if it was set up. This “Talkback” system could be used when you did a remote using a leased dedicated telephone line. All in all it was a pretty well designed console, with the exception of the power supply. Most of the Dulalux Boards were in service for over 20 years untill stereo and lack of tubes made them obsolete. However I did work with one that had limited modifications for Stereo at WZKZ (KZ 106) In Corning in the late 1980's.

Also in WLYC's control room when I started there in 1964 were 2 - 16” 3 speed Gates Turntables with two different tone arms,(one for 33 & 45 RPM records, the other for 78 RPM records.) 3 Ampex 601 reel to reel rack mounted tape recorders (remote start) and one Magnacorder PT 6 to reel, also remote start. Around the time I arrived the station was changing over to broadcast carts and had purchased a dual deck Gates cart machine. The top deck also recorded so it was not uncommon for you to record commercials while you were on the air, using the “B” side of the console. This unit made a VERY loud THUMP when you started it as the pinch roller flew up. After a while you learned to turn off the mic BEFORE you hit start. It was a pretty rugged machine and was still in use in 1972-74 in WLYC's news room and was still there when I left in 1974. In addition there was a super patch panel system with pads and coils for level and matching control of the incoming lines. EBS monitoring was with a Gates EBS monitor, it sounded a LOUD bell when the EBS station cut the carrier for more than 2 seconds, which was procedure in those days. When you left at night you had to remember to cancel the automatic function or the bell would continue to ring when the station you monitored signed off.

Legal monitoring was with a Gates(AM) and RCA(FM) frequency and modulation monitor and a Gates transmitter controller that ran both the remote AM & FM transmitters on top of Bald Eagle Mountain. Interesting to note, in those days you were required to take transmitter reading every 1/2 hour and at sign off and sign on or any changes in operation. Once a week Jim would head to the top of Bald Eagle and we would calibrate the meters as required by the F.C.C.

WLYC AM was a daytimer on 1050 KC with 1,000 watts from a Gates transmitter. WLYC FM was 3,800 watts from a RCA 1,000 watt transmitter and a multiple bay antenna system. Interestingly enough WLYC FM although licensed for full time operation was only on the air from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM. In the summer months when WLYC AM was on the air programming would split at 7:00 PM with a fellow named Nick Green hosting the classical music show on the FM each night from 7:00 to 10:00 PM. Nick would work from the small production studio directly in front of the Main Control Room. BTW, you had to walk thru production to get to the control room. The production studio had an very old, I assume original equipment from sign on, RCA 4 channel board, with two RCA turntables and another Ampex 601, that could also be controlled from the AM control room. Mic's in the station were quite an assortment with a EV general purpose mic on a ridged pipe frame mount in the control room, while the news booth has a EV 664 mic, and two RCA model 44 mics in the “big” studio. One additional piece of equipment that WLYC had was what we called the “jukebox.” This unit, marketed by Gates and built by Seeburg Juke Box Company, held a large number (100) of 45 RPM records and could be programed by a series of switches in the machine to play one or both sides or skip the record completely. I liked this unit especially when you were working a long airshift and had to make a bathroom run. The downside was that records would stick or skip. The unit had a remote start and stop in the control room. During the period from December 1964 to February 1966 that I worked there the unit got very little use. One of my jobs was to change the
45's every month or so and post a list of what record was in what slot.

I don't remember a lot of equipment failures during this period of time, with the exception of the FM frequency monitor who occasionally throw a fit with the deviation meter swinging full scale. In the winter, icing on the FM antenna was a problem so you had to remember to turn on the antenna heaters or you would be off the air due to ice buildup. When the transmitter and antenna system was replaced in 1973, automatic heaters were installed that saved a LOT of headaches.