WJEH

[genlock]

I listened to WJEH for a bit today.
Count Basie and the Mills Brothers.
Real Music.

[Dave Allen]

Is this the former 990 Country in Gallipolis where I once worked?

[genlock]

Yes.

[Dave Allen]

They used to be a daytimer when I was there in the early 90's. Classic Rock 101.5 WGTR on the FM, 990 Country WJEH on the AM. Wagner Broadcasting owned them. Great people.

[RadioCriminal]

I grew up in Gallipolis listening to WJEH iIn the 50's and 60's. Back then it was block programmed with a mix of easy listening, talk, country and top 40. I didn't think too much of the programming but it was a good little local station with an absolutely amazing signal. Excellent coverage and some of the cleanest audio I ever heard on any AM station. CE Eddie Atkins was a stickler for maintenance. He also did a 2 or 3 hour country music show early afternoons that was enormously popular.

Worked for Paul Wagner briefly in the 60's. The FM was still WJEH-FM and program content was from large reels playing on a single tape deck in a little closet. It was easy to get all wrapped up in your duties on the AM side and forget about babysitting the FM. Many hours of dead silence. No complaints from listeners or anybody in management because absolutely nobody was listening. It was still a bit too soon for FM to really take off. God's truth, Paul told me one day putting the FM on the air was the biggest mistake he'd ever made and for $10,000 he'd sell the whole damn thing.

[Force Commander]

Paul told me one day putting the FM on the air was the biggest mistake he'd ever made and for $10,000 he'd sell the whole damn thing.

Many FM owners in the early days felt the same. An engineer from back in the day told me when it first went on the air, WIL-FM St. Louis was once automated by wiring the output of one of those console record players that change their own records. They would put a pile of albums on it, run the audio into a board, pot it down to do a legal ID, turn over the pile when the record player ran through the first side and that's it. I'll bet there are many funny stories from those days.

[Dave Allen]

When I worked there in the early 90's it was the AM that was the forgotten child. We did country, then flipped to news/talk in early '93.

[Force Commander]

Be the time I was there it was the same. In my time it was trying to revive the WRTH Adult Standards format dropped by the former WRTH on 590AM that went sports. How quickly things can change. I don't remember 1430AM being a News/Talk. I am surprised that is not ringing a bell because that is when I received my first PD/OM stripes and flipped my AM to News/Talk. Dim memory or the format made such a poor splash on 1430 I suppose.

[Dave Allen]

When I was at WJEH/WGTR they were 101.5 (WGTR) and 990 AM (WJEH). WJEH was "990 Country" when I first arrived, later becoming news/talk in early 93. WGTR was "Classic Rock 101.5" then "Classic Rock 101 (forget the five...as in Rock 105), then Magic 101.

[RadioCriminal]

WIL-FM St. Louis was once automated by wiring the output of one of those console record players that change their own records... I'll bet there are many funny stories from those days.

Wow, that's one approach I never heard of.
I hope your experiences in Gallipolis were positive. (Yours too Dave).
Ironically despite growing up listening to the station, my gig there was brief and not really much fun. Paul Wagner seemed like a nice man but my immediate boss was a first class jerk. Things were better up the road at WMPO Middleport Pomeroy and that's where I wound up working during most of 67/68.

Cheers, Mike

[Hoosier Daddy]

Things were better up the road at WMPO Middleport Pomeroy ...

There, buddy.

[Dave Allen]

No complaints at all. They were wonderful to work for. Tim Maxwell was the GM for the biggest part of my time there and the PD's were Thom Robinson and Dave Zundel on the FM and Jerry Barkey on the AM. I really liked the area, too.

[Force Commander]

I hope your experiences in Gallipolis were positive. (Yours too Dave).
Ironically despite growing up listening to the station, my gig there was brief and not really much fun. Paul Wagner seemed like a nice man but my immediate boss was a first class jerk. Things were better up the road at WMPO Middleport Pomeroy and that's where I wound up working during most of 67/68.

Cheers, Mike

In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that I have not worked in Gallipolis, or anywhere in Ohio so far. I was at a different station in St. Louis in 1993.

[RadioCriminal]

There, buddy.

Could you possibly be referring to the "Your Buddy" image campaign put together in Athens by a band of merry gentlemen? One of the OU perpetrators whose name I can't recall played me a tape of hilarious stuff long after the deed had been done.

Hard as it might be to believe, the station was relatively professional in the mid to late 60's. I can't say it was truly professional because most of us were still green and making the usual mistakes. Plus, no matter how upscale the MOR format might have been, you just can't do that live spot for yarn just 62 cents a skein over at Miss Kelly's sewing shop, and sound big time. But for several years, WMPO was sort of a farm team for WTVN weekenders. Our PD would go work a couple shifts over the weekend and bring back playlists, liners and other formatics we would try to imitate. Eventually some of the guys got on full time at WTVN. (Larry Anderson, Tom Hill, Jim Loche) So for a while anyway Middleport was not a bad little training ground.

[RadioCriminal]

[In the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that I have not worked in Gallipolis, or anywhere in Ohio so far. I was at a different station in St. Louis in 1993.

Your honesty and integrity are appreciated greatly.