Back in the 60's ... "WBZ, Radio 103"
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Also 96 and a half, KAUM (When ABC Radio owned it, originally KXYZ FM but ABC had all their FMs change callsign to make them distinct from the sister AMs!)....KAUM was a great station for the short while it lasted...
Also 92.5 in Dallas went by 92 and a half in its KAFM days...WAY back in the 80s....
97.5 KAYD is not at Devers....and never has been....its tower is south of Winnie (in Stowell)....KHYS was the station to move to Devers 1st....then followed by 93.3 KYKR and then 107.9 KWIC (of course both changed calls and formats)...then 100.7 as well as 99.9 got added to the tower...now, only 93.3, 100.7 and 99.9 remain on the former CC Devers stick (since Liberman moved 98.5 and 107.9 to their own 2000ft tower south of Hwy 90)
I never liked the .5s rounding down. As we all learned in 2nd grade, a .5 rounds up. That being said, in Providence, we have 92PRO-FM, 94HJY, B101 (101.5), Lite Rock 105 & Hot 106. There was WICE Oldies 55, 63WPRO, WEAN Newsradio 79, WNRI 138 (back in the '50s) & a jock on WPEP/1570 called it "Peppy 15" (should've been 16). Out of market, Cool 102 from the Cape tried IDing as "101.9, Cool 102" for awhile. That never took off. WXTK/95.1 is "Newsradio 95". WGAO/88.3-Franklin, Ma. used to ID as "Power 88" (I dunno if they still call themselves that). Jacksonville's NPR outlet used to ID as "Stereo 90". WAAF used to have "107FM" on their bumper stickers before WFHN/107.1 came on (which still IDs as "Fun 107"). Don't forget "Lucky 13" WSTA in the Virgin Islands on 1340. I do like the rounding, especially 107.5-107.9 going to 108. How many stations could call themselves 108? With A.M.s, it's got to be on 870 or below to drop a zero. Otherwise it sounds weird. As for WPRO & the other late '50s-early '60s stations that used "Channel" in their moniker, I get they were competing with T.V., but it sounds really stupid. Channel 63 is on UHF, not A.M.!
For a very short time - as in barely six months (late '83-spring '84) - what was then KBOX 1150 (the former longtime country station KXLR) in North Little Rock, Ark. tried doing CHR, calling itself "AM 12."
Then you would not have liked a station that we had here in Nashville which briefly (VERY briefly!) went by the very stupid name "104 the Core." They were (and still are, for that matter) at 104.5. The "Core" name came as the result of a very stupid "contest" in which they invited listeners to name their "new" station. They played back a call from a listener who (probably jokingly) said, "how about 104 the Core?" They apparently liked the name because it rhymed. They had this stupid name during the 2000-2001 time frame, which was part of the larger 1998-2003 time period when they literally had a different format every year! The "Core" format was very similar to their previous "Arrow" format of the mid-'90s, but I am guessing that by 2001, they no longer had the right to use that name. Just prior to naming themselves "the Core," they were very briefly known as "that '70s station," which was probably actually a better name than "the Core." My idea for a slogan for "the Core" was "you don't get the whole apple, just the core."
I was never a fan of stations above 1000 on AM abbreviating to 3 digits (136 KGB, 124 WSFC, etc). Just use the whole thing. Strangest one I ever heard was 1550 WCTW, NewCastle, IN, late 70s or so. They were "55 CTW". Yes there are 2 5s in 1550 but if those folks tuned to "55" they'd have found WKRC, Cinnncinati
How about a .9 rounding down? What is now 107.9 WOGT East Ridge/Chattanooga signed on as a great sounding CCM formatted station 107.9 WJRX calling themselves RX 107.
And as for Knoxville, who remembers W149?
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It has to do with the way Arbitron did ascription for non-exact dial position mentions in diaries. A station on 105.7 that called itself "Hits 106" would only be attributed to stations that were on 106.1 to 108.9 if the "hits" word was not written in and the diary entry only had "106". But if
they called themselves "Hits 105" a "105" or "105 FM" mentioned would go to possible ascription to that 105.7 station.
In the case of RX107, it was much more simple. It was the only radio station for a first time owner, the wife of a local contractor. She'd promoted Contemporary Christian music concerts in Chattanooga and had hosted a Sunday morning CCM program on the local beautiful music station. When Docket 80-90 came along, she applied and won the CP. When they were staffing for the rollout of the station, I asked why 107 and not 108 during my interview? The owners reply was that she thought RX107 sounded better than RX108.
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I'm ok with the abreviations above 1000 khz. Calgary had AM 106 in the 1980's and it made sense. There was no station on FM in Calgary playing hit music and there were no stations between 105.1 and 107.3. Once in a while if they played something hard, the dj would call the station rock 106.
W149 sounds like an AM station at 1490 kHz, would that be correct? WJRX might have changed their call because it could be pronounced W-jerks... Just the other night I heard an OTR comedy episode set in a fictitious station called KREJ, with the slogan "Remember, KREJ is JERK spelled backwards!" Afterward, I found out KREJ is (now) an actual station, a religious FM in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. The call letters stand for "Keeping Ready, Expecting Jesus." (No further comment...}
Somewhere earlier in this thread, I mentioned "Moo 102" (yes, that was the station's actual name there for a while!) at 102.9. Probably unnecessarily confusing, since they also had (and still have) a sister station at 102.5.
We still have i106 here in Nashville, which is actually located at 106.7. No, I don't understand that one, either.
It was indeed. A progressive rock station on AM targeting students at the University of Tennessee. It transitioned into Top 40 as 15Q in 1976 but couldn't compete with the better signals on format rivals WNOX and WRJZ. A few W149 staffers like Brother Gary Adkins moved on to the original 100.3 WOKI Oak Ridge.
I'd never thought of that. The actual call letter change came in 1993. The owner who launched RX107 had some hard times and sold the radio station. The staff was let go and the station went dark for a time. It returned as WOGT, an Oldies station under the new ownership.
A real shame that the station had failed. RX107 had a great staff and the station sounded as good as any CCM in the nation. A couple of RX staffers, Alan Knowles and Bobby Daniels quickly launched CCM Sunday on Sunny 92.3. That show has lasted for 21 years. Two of the finest people I've met in radio.
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