WOW...Great information. Let's see if I can remember things from WKAL in Rome and provide some additional information. I remember bothering people at WKAL from age 7. With the big 55 fast approaching, that was a long time ago. Here we go with what I know from the time I can remember.
WKAL was only an AM on 1450 early on then in 1964, added an FM at 95.9 with 3000 watts of power and a mono signal. The signal was never good because they mounted the 3-bay FM antenna on the side of the AM tower which was 268 feet high, BUT only 105 feet above average terrain. The AM tower collapsed in 1968 during a freak storm. I was in the building when it happened at age 14. It was 4:12-PM and Jerry Prouty was reading a tag for Kentucky Fried Chicken when boom. Luckily it fell away from the building. A new tower was put back up and business as usual. KAL always had a decent signal for 1KW during the day and 250 watts at night. But later in the 80's the FCC made one of their normal thoughtless decisions and said that if all I think Class D station would accept each others nighttime interference, they could remain at their daytime power. Sounded good. But it was and to this day is disaster. At 250 watts at night, WKAL got into Utica because there were no other stations in the background. Once everyone went to the same 1,000 watt daytime power, the signal went nowhere. Funny, on 250 watts it went about 12 miles at night. With 1000 watts at night along with every other 1450AM signal at 1000 watts, the signal went about 4 miles. The FM eventually added stereo and moved their frequency to 96.1 when WAQX in Syracuse agreed to move their original frequency. The power was then increased to 25,000 watts where it remains today as WODZ. WKAL is now a religious station on 1450.
So much for the technical stuff. Up until 1972, WKAL was all over the place with the format. In the early and mid 60's, Carmen Paccica did mornings and played big band music, Sintatra, etc. Let me also insert that both WKAL and WKAL FM were simulcast as of 1964 and were owned by Jack and Ruth Maurer, with their son Woody as Sales Manager. After Carmen, Arnie Pugh came on and played country music, then at night, Jerry Prouty took requests and played Top 40. Everything came out of their studios above the Capitol Theatre in downtown Rome.
By the mid to late 60's, Arnie Pugh had left and Jerry Prouty went to days. A number of people then worked nights. I know, because I was this teenager who wanted to be in radio and the night guys let me run the board and play the 45's while they talked from the other side of the control room glass in studio "B". First was George Boyce, then Maurice Burke, then Dick Romano, and finally Dave Eastwood. The first three were all on WTLB at some point. The format and the people listed above would hold true until the end of 1971. Then in 1972, Wood Maurer talked his parents into making on air music changes which obviously did not go well with Carmen and Jerry. So, in the 1972 WKAL did go to a Soft AC with the harder Top 40 edge still at night. Carmen eventually left and Howell Gatchell III was hired ( Mark Howell). He did mornings for awhile which were long 6-hour shifts, Jerry days and I did nights until 11 when we signed off. By 1974 Mark left, Jerry was killed in an auto accident and the music was tweaked again by yours truly. The stations were now Hot AC and were still pretty popular in the area. Let me hurry so I do not bore all of you...by the early 80's, management decided to split up the AM and FM. The AM stuck with the Hot AC while the FM went to a Drake-Chenault Lite format on the SMC automation system. It was called K-Lite 96. If it had more than that 3000 watt signal on the AM tower then went into the trees, it would have done very well. Also in the early 80's, the WKAL-AM went to a Drake-Chenault 60's Gold format. By the mid 80's, the Maurer's sold the station to the Worster Publishing Company and the AM remained Oldies while the FM went to a country format with new call letters...WTCO Top Country. Again, if it had a good signal, it would have done well, but everyone back then was afraid to invest in higher powered FM's. After Worster, Howard Green out of Elmira bought the stations and kept them until Kirby Confer and Don Altfus ended up buying them out in 1988 and turning the FM into the FROG. The old WKAL AM and FM just could not compete with the bigger signals, plus, people were changing and did not care as much about the small, local, community station.
If anyone has any specific questions, let me know. I obviously went too long and I apologize. I hope some of this helps.