1550 AM in Soddy Daisy

[b-turner]

Back when I first heard of the station it was WTYR. It was for sale from a broker who sent some information. It seems in the middle 1980s, it was block programmed. Weekdays included 3 hour blocks of The Top 60 Biggest Songs of All Time. They played bluegrass, country, easy listening, adult contemporary (aka oldies) and rock. Judging by the format most all of the Top 60 was played every day.

It seems their commercial package was a number of commercials and a gift the business donated for a drawing the station conducted.

I understood the station was in a 'truck trailer' at the tower site. When I last heard the station price was $50,000 plus the broker wanted $240,000 in commercials spread over 5 years. That sounded crazy to me because it meant somebody was selling what likely would have been my primary accounts at a rate and without the integrity I set.

What I would like to learn is the history of the station. How did the station sound? Did you hear many commercials? Did you work there?

 

[knoxbob]

The station went on the air in 1970, Robert A. Mayer was pres. 1982 Choo Choo broadcasting owned it calls were WCHU, they also owned and built 102.3 FM WCHU (Choo-Choo 102) Charles Dunn Pres. George Hudson was Chief Engineer. I thing he now owns WCPH in Etowah, Tn. You might contact him for more history on the station. It looks like the two stations were sold again in 1984 and split up. Sold again in 1988 to C. Alfred Dick, listed as bluegrass format. He owned the station once before in the mid 70's. All my info comes from Broadcasting Yearbooks.

 

[b-turner]

Thank you. C. Alfred Dick was the 'broker' and likely owner then.

 

[secondchoice]

I actually worked there briefly after getting out of the Air Force. They were Southern Gospel at that time. IIRC Mr. Dick’s brother (I forget his name) was running it day to day. He said at one time the automation (IGM) was at 1450 in Chattanooga which was country before they sold it. The station studios were in a double wide. IIRC the transmitter was back in some swampish land. Sales wise the 1230 station in Soddy Daisy was killing them with the only AM signal early mornings and past sunset in the north end of Hamilton County. Programing wise the Chattanooga AM’s daytime signals (which came in almost as well as 1550’s) had all of the really sellable formats covered. FM was not a factor in the Chattanooga market until Ted Turner’s beautiful music WYNQ 106.5 shook things up in the late 1970’s. For some reason the FCC really jammed up 1550 in this area. There was 1550 in Cookeville TN (which I also worked at) 1550 in Huntsville AL, and 1550 in Smyrna GA (just north of Atlanta). The last two were 50 KW directional daytime and reduced power directional at night. Just to make things more difficult 1550 is a Canadian Clear channel. I never did any kind of Channel search but I was told that if the station moved 1560 in a 4 or 5 tower directional pattern they could have been a “Chattanooga” station much like WFLI in Lookout Mountain was.

 

[b-turner]

Thank you for that information.

I thought 'truck trailer' was rather primitive and always thought it must have been a mobile home.

I figured the station for having a difficult time in sales. Looking at stations I had first hand knowledge of in parts of Texas that seemed to be stations with little chance of success, it seems those stations in Texas opted to not sell locally very much but opt for getting small businesses in neighboring cities to do a small monthly package, sometimes prospected by phone. I knew one guy in a small town halfway between San Antonio and Laredo that billed $5,000 a month in the mid to late 1980s by pitching $50 packages to mom and pops in Laredo and San Antonio. On a good day he could get about 10 sold. I figured the 'prize and spots package' included with the info on (then) WTYR was custom made for the city mom and pop versus the local business. I might be dead wrong on that.

I can only guess that by the time the 'block programming' came about, it was on reel to reel and automated.

In fact, just for grins, the guy halfway between Laredo and San Antonio managed a station in a mobile home in a farmer's field. The set up was $20 Radio Shack microphones, a few double deck cassette decks and a couple of Radio Shack mixers with no processing. Spots were recorded dry on cassette but if there were numerous clients sold the day before, the jock might have a few spots to read live. It was a horrible format of country sectioned off on C-60 cassettes with 25 minutes of music per side. The remaining 5 minutes was for commercials. The music library was from personal libraries where they were loaned records to record. Thus, there was no consistency in their music mix. They did no news and PSAs unless somebody locally sent a PSA in. If the morning guy remembered, he's watch the weather on TV before his shift so he could do a weather forecast in morning drive.