WWHY-1470 1963 music surveys

[Jeff Miller]

This page is under construction, but it has three music surveys from 1963, provided by Paul Urbahns.

Your web browser may shrink the image to fit your screen, so you would need to click on the image or whatever....

http://members.aol.com/jeff560/wplh.html

[Big Media]

Cool find.

[Hoosier Daddy]

They had a jock called "Nino Nano"?

Cool!

[fmksey]

Does anyone know how long WWHY was top 40? I can remember them
doing about everything else. And did they ever take listeners away from WKEE or WCMI when they were rock? I have a friend who told me he was hired in the early 60s to do afternoons at WWHY. When he arrived in Huntington the GM had forgotten about hired him - and had hired someone else. He said the operation was really run down and they had an entire floor of a downtown hotel. But, they sounded pretty pretty good.

[genlock]

WWHY was top-40 in the early 60's.
With a good radio you could hear them in Logan.
Johnny "T" and Don Rees worked there.
Their studio was in the Hotel Frederick.
Bob Nixon was CE.
A guy named Matt Botta was PD.
Dick Husted was the owner and GM.
This was about the time Husted started the cable company, Husco.

[fmksey]

Thanks Genlock!

Do you recall how WWHY sounded? My friend, who was at WCEF in Parkersburg who they hired -- and didn't hire ---- said the jocks were
the best in the market but WKEE and WCMI more polished. He said WWHY had no standard stop sets, were using MORish jingles and no kind of music rotation. A guy named Bobby Wayne who was there is the 60s went on to WMGM in NYC.

[genlock]

WKEE was more polished. Could not hear WCMI in Logan.
Long time ago.

[oldtvman2]

their rent was paid by saying "wwhy broadcasting from the penthouse of the hotel fredrick" i worked there parttime in 1958-1960. Bob Nixon was to heavy to climb the tower and read the base current meter so i did. Dave Collins also worked there. along with Odie Crabtree.then Lou Rowan also worked there as chief engineer before Bob another announcer was Frank Bruce. i also transported tape for the SAM and DENSIL show from wchs in charleston.

[genlock]

I do remember Odie and Dave Collins.
WWHY did not have all night authority
in those days and signed off at sunset.
Just like WKEE. So the night time top-40
was left to WCMI. I could not hear WSAZ radio in logan.
WCHS came in clear tho.

[fmksey]

Thanks Oldtvman!

Did they really have an entire floor of the hotel for studio/offices? Why would they ever need that much space? I was told that it looked like they just moved the beds out and equipment in --- no sound proofing, full baths in every room. Another wacho thing ---- why did WWHY move from fulltime 1450 to 1470 only to be a daytimer? I can understand the problem of 250w on a graveyard frequency ---- but I'd rather deal with that than being daytimer, even at 5K

[genlock]

WWHY had a grand piano and stuff for studio performances.
Radio was different in the 1950's.
The walls were painted an awful light blue and the air conditioning
did not work well.

[genlock]

I think the WPLH transmitter was up on 8th st hill.
IIRC, it was in the place now occupied by a water tank.

[Hoosier Daddy]

WPLH (Work, Play, and Live in Huntington) started on 1450 and gave up the nighttime signal to have 5000 watts of daytime RF power. Back in the day, the BMOCs got to boast about having the most power. Nighttime service in smaller cities was usually limited to one or two stations and wasn't as important or seen as a bragging right. Moving to 1470 allowed WPLH (WWHY) to say they were as powerful as WKEE, WSAZ, and WTCR, never mind that high dial position. A different time, I guess.

In Huntington, 24 hour service came from 930 WSAZ (WGNT). Ashland's WCMI ran 24 hours at 1340 kc. And Ironton had 1230 WIRO, which, at least in the 70s and 80s, signed off at midnight every night.

WPLH-FM was at 102.5, but I don't know if/when they were on the air. I know the frequency is no longer allocated to Huntington. 102.3 is in Grayson Kentucky, and 102.7 is in Charleston.

[genlock]

I have no memory of WPLH-FM as I did not have an fm radio till 1970 or so.
In Huntington, I suppose most adult radios were tuned to WSAZ radio, as
the REDS played there.

[fmksey]

Jeff Miller's research indicates WPLH FM was on the air - at least with all
the paper work filed with the Commission. The guy who was engineer at WPAR in Parkersburg told me FM was off more than it was on and the
Commission really didn't monitor what the fms were doing. Many of the early FM xmitters were really unstable and hard to keep on - even if you cared. At WPAR, nobody gave a damn and it was a pain the butt for the
engineers. After a few years of tinkering with FM - WPAR returned the
license to the commission. An interesting note - WPAR did experiment with separate programming for a short time in about 1955 and even
changed the calls to WAAM FM. Everything came from the same control room - one operater and 7 inch reals of tape for FM played back on
maggies -- no automation.

[oldtvman2]

first wwhy had only a part of that floor. they were in fact in what was the supply closet for all the sheets and bedding supplies..
second as well as i can remember Lew Rowan told me that the tower was in Flim Evan's back yard on 8th st hill and the transmitter was in Flim's basement.
wplh studios were located upstairs on 3rd ave about 12 st. Dave Collins worked over there. I remember the station manager hiring a man as pd. when i ask him why hire someone that had not held a job for longer than a few weeks at many stations. he said " look at all the experince he has" as you can tell i am not a good speller. learned to fix tv and radio equipment not spell.

[TallPaulInKy]

oldtvman2 wrote: first wwhy had only a part of that floor. they were in fact in what was the supply closet for all the sheets and bedding supplies..

Cute joke, I realize this was after you had left the station but they in fact did have the whole penthouse of the Frederick Hotel. I had been there numerous times and had friends that worked there. If you look at an old postcard of the hotel on ebay, you will notice there are four main floors of rooms (in the red brick area). The 5th floor is only visible on the two street sides and sticks out from the roof. That is the Penthouse. It is not as big as a full motel floor but it is all one residence area and the elevator did go to the top floor. WWHY moved there about 1962 and stayed there throughout the 60s.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1908-NEW-FREDERICK- ... dZViewItem


But it was a cheap operation near the end of the 60s. I remember hearinmg the morning news being introduced as "When you open this mornings Hearld Dispatch these are trhe top stories..." I heard others in the business to say that to save on having a teletype news wire Hustead traded out that announcement for a free subscription. Truth or not, I don't know.


Paul Urbahns
Radcliff, Ky

[oldtvman2]

i rember they were broadcasting the band festival and had no one to run the board. dick called me and asked if I would do it. my boss at the TV station said it was ok. we strung mike lines out of the windows and lowered them to the street. Odie was on the roof of the entrance and dick was at the street level. they got it on the air ok. i remember the off the air alarm was a 6tube acdc ratio set up to scream when the transmitter went off the air. the air cond. in the controol room was very loud. when dick first went on the air he was a pretty good guy. when he started talk back. after a while he would take the other side of anyone that called in so he could start a fight which he always did.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Hustead musings ...

I can remember, when I was a kid, listening to the first talk radio shows I ever heard. My dad and i would listen to a fellow by the name of Dick Hustead on WWHY radio in Huntington, West Virginia--1470 on your dial. He ranted and raved about everything and took calls from listeners. He was forever getting into knock-down and drag-out arguments with the people in radioland. I always wondered why people bothered to call in if they hated his views so much. It always seemed to me that if a fellow on the radio was espousing some view point that I did not agree with, I would just turn the dial to some rock station.

Well, WWHY is long gone and so is old Dick. Today, but talk radio still thrives. There are a certain group of people who love arguing on the radio. They love hearing their own voices and they love setting other people straight.

taken from the River Valley News blog

I can still hear Hustead saying "This is Talkback. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of yours truly or WWHY Radio ... Call me up ... Our phone lines are open ... In Huntington, dial JAckson 3-3421, 3-3422 or 23 ..."

Taking a tip from Joe Nuxhall, all those words could become slurred as the 90 minute broadcast rounded third and headed for home.

[Arnie]

I remember when WWHY was top 40 in the early-mid 60's. I was in Jr High and we listen to them more that the others. Cool DJ names like Johnny Huntington. They even had a glass studio up on a billboard in the east end. Then one day, with no notice, they were suddenly not top 40. I heard from an old radio hand that the Jocks wanted more money and Husted just fired them all and changed formats. Don't know it that is true, but it sure happened suddenly. Arnie