Find That Zenith

 

I do like it when I find a radio with identifiable presets. It means we get to play a game I call Find That Radio. It also helps that this Zenith is gorgeous, though I think it's been refinished. This looks like someone stripped it and put on a thick coat of modern polyurethane. Looks good though, nice job.  It's a model 5S319 made in 1939. [SOURCE] Zenith made a few Art Deco models mostly in the late 1930s and early 1940s: 5S126, 5S218, 7S323, 7SC33R, 6R631, 6S632 and the 5F233 which this one also resembles. 

The call signs on the 5 preset buttons are WJZ, WORK, WLW, WCAU and WGR.  The WJZ-AM of today is on 1300 in Baltimore as it has been since 2008. But this is definitely the earlier WJZ. The original WJZ was out of Newark from 1921 - 1923 on 833 kHz. Based on the age of the radio, 1940s this is the WJZ in New York City that operated from 1923 - 1953 on 660 kHz. It's a 30-year window of time, but we can narrow that down I think.

1000 WORK-AM was a station in York, PA. They signed on March 17, 1932. After NARBA in 1941 they moved to 1350. They kept the calls until 1973 which narrows our time frame significantly on the bottom end. Despite using the call letters for over 40 years there is very little written about WORK. Most of what you will find focuses on Shorty Fincher and his Prairie Pals. This 1,000 watt station would have been mostly a local or regional station even in 1940. 

Station WLW began as experimental station 8XAA around 1921. That start date is somewhat debated.  More here. Putting that aside, WLW became WLW in March,1922 and operated on 833 kHz. It moved to 970 in 1923, then 710 where it stayed until 1927 when it made the move to 700 kHz where it remains today. This completely envelops the time frame and adds little to the story. Except for adding a pin to the map in Cincinnati, OH. 

This WCAU is not the 98.1 WCAU-FM but the AM station which began broadcasting in 1922. It operated as WCAU from 1922–1990, almost 70 years. The frequency would have been 1170 when this radio was first plugged in. It was probably listened to before and after WCAU both the AM and FM sides were sold to The Philadelphia Record in 1946.  After 1990 it became WOGL, then WGMP and is today WPTS, a news-talker on 1210. 

The last station on the list is 550 WGR-AM in Buffalo, NY today.  There is no debate on the frequency, they have been on 550 since 1928. It's interesting that the frequencies hop back and forth and aren't in any particular order on the presets. This 5,000 watt station would have been audible for hundreds of miles back in 1940, whereas WLW at 50,000 watts would have had it's frequency to itself across the whole east coast and been heard clear across the Mississippi river. 

 

Looking at the pins on a map I think the radio was East of Pittsburgh, PA but north of Baltimore, MD. There are just no local station in these presets except for WORK. If it was in a major city we might see local calls from those cities like WBAL or even WKBO if it was in Harrisburg. This really has to be in some reasonable distance from York, PA probably in a square between York, Hagerstown, Lancaster and Reading. Strangely I found this radio in Georgia. 

Koala vs. KSDT

KSDT is still on air today. But the about section of their website lists only current staff names, no history whatsoever. The 2008 website was the same way. But the station does have history. It goes back decades. The best secondary source on those early years is the UC Guardian. [SOURCE] It describes the earliest set up in 1968, an old military building made out of corrugated steel. They ran carrier current over the university’s electrical system on 540 AM. The Guardian cites the true start in 1967

"According to these accounts, KSDT originated in 1967 in a Pacific Beach garage, from where a group of students broadcasted tunes using a low power signal. With the help of then Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Robert Topolovac, KSDT founders Don Bright and Jon Collins were awarded funding to establish a college radio station on UCSD. "

I am pleased to report we have a print reference at least as early as 1971. The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice describes KSDT as "dynamite like an FM rock station". 

KSDT is unusual in that there is a decent print record of their activity from at least the mid 1980s through today. Typically there are obvious gaps, or newspaper stories about re-starting the station. This one just has a short gap in the early 80s. It's also notable that the call letters never changed. 

In February of 1974, KSDT appears in the "What's Happening" section of Billboard as a College chart reporter. It reads "KSDT-CAFM U. of California, San Diego at La Jolla, Linda Clark."   No frequency is given.  The most evidence we have for continuous operation is in CMJ from the mid 1980s  through the 1990s. There are too many phone numbers. 

In a CMJ chart from April 1984 a very fake sounding MD name Taarson Homard accompanies a top 30 which lists it as CAFM but at 95.7 so they may have moved to a leaky PM operation in that era. 619-452-3673. 

In 1989 A top 30 submitted by Kicky Kia. The book Gigging also includes the station that year, but only with generic contact info still using the 3673 phone number.  

1994 a metal chart issue, Jerry Radcocg phone number is (619) 534-4225. 

1995 a Top 30 with two MDs: Michael Hu/Brent Turne, still 4225

In 1996 the MD is Brent Turner, solo this time, and he cranked out a few Top 30 charts.  

In 1997 KSDT appears again in reporting Loud rock chart and Beatbox but not Top 30. (Beatbox was a predecessor to the RPM chart) The metal director is still Jerry Radcocg. 

In 2002 MD Bryan Brick started reporting a top 30, and a new phone number shows up: 619-534-0479. 

In 2011 KSDT is listed in the CMJ directory

 

The late 1980s look very active. They even appear in Maximum Rock N Roll in 1989. Apparently they were selling a compilation cassette: "I hear College Puke."  It's very rare. [SOURCE] I want this tape so bad. It's actually one of 6 releases recorded at the station, the first and last of which both feature the punk band Sub Society. More here. 

 

In 1990 and 1992 they again in MRNR, plugs for the shows "Hardcore Punk Etc.," "Kids on Coffee" and "Energy Control" in scene reports. It makes the connection that Chris Valle in Sub Society hosted that program.  Also in 1992 they are references in Flipside magazine which is notable because it describes the broadcast situation for them and KSD. It's highly unusual but they may have been available on local CATV off campus. 

"...there [are]  two 24 hour alternative radio stations. KSDT on the campus of UCSD (95.7) and KCR onthe campus of SDSU (sorry, don't know the dial #). Unfortunately, both are on cable radio, so you must have a cable hookup on your stereo to receive these. Cox and Southwestern have recently changed their policy and do not charge any monthly fee to get your cable radio"

The 2000 version of the KSDT website confirms the usual local CATV arrangement. But it also lists both the AM and FM channels. It does appear all four were active at the same time.

• SRTV Triton Channel 18 - SAP channel 
• Cox Southwestern Cable Music Choice Channel 41

Another 1992 highlight for KSDT is their inclusion in the Book Your Own Fucking Life which every band should own. It instructs the band to call Adam Eisemberg. The 2000 edition names Daniel Najera. In 1999 the KSTD call letters appear in an issue of the USCD underground newspaper named Koala and I don't even know what to say about this. It is one of the stranger things I've ever found googling call letters. In 2001 Koala thanks Pete from KSDT. They also appear in the CMJ directory that year. It appears again in 2002 minus the Koala dildo thing. It is not the only time Koala deliberately misspelled the call sign. 

That is not a typo, that's personal - Koala March 2008

Around 2017 They are referred to in a poetry book Voices Bright Flags with the mention of a poetry podcast on KSDT radio. This is a frequent trajectory for carrier current stations. If they last into the 80s they usually attempt an FM conversion. If they survive that we usually see podcasts after 2010.  Jen at Radio Survivor visited the station in 2019. [SOURCE] That article mentions the stations 50+ year history, by my math their 60th anniversary is next year! 

Disambiguation: 

• From 1999 to 2006 there was a 1320 KSDT-AM in Hemet, California. It was owned by Lazer Broadcasting, and the format was "Pure Gold, rock and roll", which seemed tired at the time but I'd take it back today.  
• The call sign KSDT also appears in reports about the Ryukyu Islands. This is always 780 KSDT-AM in Okinawa. This is an interesting station, just not one in La Jolla. 

 

Rev. Jack L. Neville on KVOO

On the inside cover the copyright reads 1934 by Thoro Harris. That name is probably better known than  Rev. Jack L. Neville or W. Fred Henry. But in tiny print at the top it reads "compiled by Thoro Harris" making the connection somewhat more clear.  [SOURCE]  

Harris lived from 1874 to 1955 and has been described as one of the most prolific hymn writers of the early twentieth century. He wrote literally hundreds of hymns. He was born in Washington D.C. and lived most of his adult life in Boston, MA. He was a musician and theologian but not a radioman. His connection to radio was purely through other musicians performing his works, and the one hymnal which gives the impression that he may have had something do to with the publication of a radio hymnal. There may be others, but this is the first I've found.

When Jack L. Neville died in Rancho Cucamonga, CA at the age of 81 in 2005 his obituary said nothing about his time in radio, only that he was a pastor. But we can derive some dates from his birthday. "A Pastor for 50 years, he was born on August 10, 1923 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was a Rancho Cucamonga resident for the past 11 years. He was a Veteran of the United States Army, serving in World War II."   He would have been 11 years old when that hymnal was published. So though it does not mention it, that hymnal documents a child preacher, something which was a novelty and even somewhat trendy in the 1930s. Today it'd be considered child abuse. 

Neville was later known as the "Flying Parson of the Panhandle Church of the Air" and broadcast many of his revivals on his radio program from Station KGRS. A March 1938 issue of Motion Picture Daily tells us that he  just left a news editor role at KVOO and "opened a series of broadcasts over KSO."  Neville was one of numerous preachers to use the nickname "Flying Parson."

What makes it odd is the connection to 1170 KVOO-AM, which is in Tulsa, OK; 1,500 miles away. KVOO was founded by E. H. Rollestone and first signed on the air on June 23, 1926. (Rollestone also founded KFRU in Bristow.) At the time, it operated at 1,000 watts transmitting from Bristow, OK. Rollestone also founded KFRU in Bristow. KVOO didn't move to Tulsa until 1927 following a partial buy out by William G. Skelly, who later bought the station outright. So as you think of 1934, KVOO was relatively new in town at the time and actually younger than Mr. Neville. 

W. Fred Henry at piano with (L-R) Etta, Virginia and Nevin Henry at KVOO

W. Fred Henry is a whole different character. The date on the image above is unknown, but assumed to be 1930s. The IPFHC has multiple images of him. the earliest is assumed to be from the 1920s here. There is another here with the note "a few months before Nevin was killed. The location given is in Florida. There is another image of him here from 1972. Other images are in Minnesota, Arkansas, Michigan, and Idaho. Only one image, from 1963 is in color. Mr. Henry appears to have been a traveling revivalist. He's often pictures with pianos and accordions and usually also a trombone indicating he's a multi instrumentalist. He appears in short references in a few regional periodicals, most referring to Tulsa or KVOO indicating some longer term connection. There are none mentions or images of him with Jack Neville, which indicate their connection was short-lived.

DJ DB Cooper

Valley Times Newspaper 12/24/64

If you spend enough time on radio boards you will encounter quiet questions about Jim Wood, of 870 KIEV-AM. The station was located in the Glenwood Hotel and only moved to 870 from 850 in 1934. Woods wasn't a big name. Really none of those names are. Calcote put out a couple country records. At KIEV the big names were Dick Whittinghill and Don Rickles but that was in the late 1940s. (More here) In their country music era reputedly KIEV shared staff and programming with KWOW in Pomona. References are hard to find. Jim Wood was there in 1964 for certain. Reputedly Jim Woods had two adopted sons, Frank and Michael. His father owned Woods Mortuary. Maybe that's the wrong Woods. There were at least six  identifiable Jim Woods' in radioland in the 1960s, and for the man in question, Jim Wood was only his on-air name. His real name was Ralph James Silkwood. 

He is not the more famous Jim Woods aka "Big" Jim Wood aka  "The Vanilla Gorilla", who's baritone voice hit big at KRLA and KROQ. That Jim Woods also spent time at WSPD, KILT, WIBG and even XPRS. [SOURCE] [SOURCE]. Ditto, this isn't the Jim Woods at KPOL and KZLA who later worked at Fan Club Management Services, nor the one at Midwest Broadcasting (KDMA etc) in 1960. I also doubt that he's the Jim Wood from WJR and WWJ in the late 1950s, nor the Jim Wood from KRAK-AM/FM in Stockton, CA. (That Jim Wood was the alias of Jim Smallwood.) There are actually even more Jim Woods' in the record. For some reason that name is very common in radioland in the late 1950s and it complicates the story.

Our Jim Wood is most notable for being a suspect in the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 on on November 24, 1971 under the name D.B. Cooper. Without that chance intersection he would be far more obscure. It would be prudent to point out now that the FBI eliminated him as a suspect. But they also never caught anyone...

There were literally hundreds of suspects. But only one of them was a DJ: Ralph J. Silkwood. His best known show was on 870 KIEV-AM in Los Angeles. The conspiracy folks often report that he was also a DJ in Portland, OR but the call letters are never mentioned. It turns out he was much more than a DJ and there are several FCC dockets confirming the details. In 1960, Broadcasting magazine reported that Ralph J. Silkwood filed an application to operate on 900 kHz at 1,000 watts as Jefferson Country Broadcasting in Kalamath Falls. That application never went anywhere because of a man named Hansen.

In 1964, Ralph J. Silkwood tried to transfer his ownership share in Medford, Broadcasters, Inc. to W.H. Hansen. At the time Medford Broadcasting owned 1300 KDOV-AM Medford, OR; 570 KCNO-AM Alturas, CA; and a CP on 93.7, also in Medford. But the FCC had a problem with W.H. Hansen, and to a lesser extent his son Robert. For their part the Hansens' had some messy paperwork. It was unclear who owned what. Contracts had not been filed with the FCC and the paperwork they did file was not accurate. They also filed conflicting CPs for KDAD in Weed, CA under the ownership of Shasta Cascade Broadcasting; co-owner of KWSD. W.H. Hansen had not disclosed his ownership of KCNO, leaving Robert in hot water. The FCC did not like this at all. [SOURCE]  While Silkwood was innocent of the airline hijacking, there was something very shady about KDOV.

"The Shasta Petition supported by an affidavit of personal knowledge, alleges misrepresentations, undisclosed ownership, lack of candor and violations of our reporting rules at KDAD, Weed, Calif., by both the permittee of record, Jay C. Lemire, and W. H. Hansen, while he was a proposed assignee. Again, information before the Commission tends to support these allegations, not only against W. H. Hansen-Lemire at KDAD,, but also against W. H. Hansen at Stations KDOV, Medford, Oreg.,. and KCNO, Alturas, Calif."

Silkwood had only bought his 50% share of the station station from K.C. Laurence in 1958. It is not a coincidence that the tower collapsed in September of that year. The problem being that Laurance only owned 62.5 shares Hansen scammed everyone. Laurance only owned an option to buy the other 62.5 shares from Hansen.  In court documents Hansen refers to Silkwood as "Jim Silkwood. The same document discloses that Hansen also owned shares in KDAN and KBOY. Silkwood spent 8 years trying to be rid of the albatross he had only bought with $5,000 Hansen "gave" him. [SOURCE] 

The transfer of KDOV was dismissed as moot in 1972 by the commission indicating that something else had resolved the ownership question. The 1973 issue of the Broadcasting yearbook reveals that the station was deleted.  The KDOV call letters had reappeared on 1350 in Ashland, OR operated by Faith Tabernacle, that station still exists today, albeit from Phoenix, OR as a sports talker. In 1959 The Medford Mail Tribune tells us one more thing about Silkwood and KDOV:

"Buddy Knox, western and rock and roll artist, and the Rhythm Orchids will perform from 9 to 1 o'clock tonight at Dreamland ballroom. Knox, six-foot vocalist who was born in Happy, Texas, and the musical group began their recording career with "Party Doll." Jim Silkwood, of radio station KDOV, is promoting the local dance and program."

(Buddy Knox was a passable Buddy Holly clone. More here.) The Dreamland Ballroom was located on E. Main Street in Medford, upstairs from the Isis movie theater. More here. What's relevant about this is that it indicates KDOV was playing rock n' roll in 1959, and that Silkwood was playing an active part in operating the station, as a DJ and promoter. It also confirms Hansen's contention that Silkwood at least sometimes went by his middle name. But there the trail ends. While Hansen continued to get in legal trouble regularly, Silkwood becomes a ghost.

But there is one more, very strange Robert Silkwood incident to report. Reported in the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal of July 1963 a man by that name, with the alias E. Babeaux. He managed to have a series of fits, each at a bus station, and each time getting first aid, then being rushed to a hospital. He did this twice in San Francisco, and once in Santa Rosa. He may have had Munchausen syndrome, or maybe he just liked ambulance rides.

The Bone Fone

The Bone Fone makes for a cautionary tale in radio marketing. While bone-conduction headphones have a loyal following today, they have a predecessor which didn't catch on as well. William J. Hass patented the original design  (US4070553A) in 1977. Hass wasn't a marketing guy. He was an actual engineer from Illinois-Chicago College of Engineering, through he later pubished a coupel books on finance and private equity.  He had an intermediate design which he filed in December of 1979 (USD261511) Figure one is described as "...a perspective view of my new design" in that patent he also described it as a "ornamental design for a radio receiver." He wasn't patenting the technology, only the product design. 

Hass filed his third patent (USD268675S) for the Bone Fone November of 1980, a year after he began selling it. But I need to point out that the IP stood on shaky ground. Bone conduction was discovered in the 15th century and was written about in detail by physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard in the 1820s. In the 20th century Hugo Gernsback created a type of bone conduction hearing aid called the Osophone (US1521287) which required biting down onto a rubber "stop cushion."  He he later refined this into the Phonosone [SOURCE] which awkwardly clamped to the forehead like someone wearing their headphones defiantly wrong. It's hard to say which, if any of these Hass drew on for the Bone Fone but three patents for bone anchored hearing aids were issued in 1977. [SOURCE] That roughly fits the timeline.

Radio Craft March 1934

So it came in 1979 that JS&A began direct marketing the Bone Fone. Joe Sugarman founded JS&A in 1971. It was a direct marketing business with healthy catalog sales. An October 1980 letter sent to dealers spelled out that the Bone Fone was going to be advertised in People, Time, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Runners World and other national magazines. If you bought $546 of inventory he'd send you $42 of batteries and two "Ask me about my Bone Fone" T-shirts. I have never seen that shirt, and that sounds like a dangerous question to ask a stranger. The Neck Fone was trademarked in 1980.  It's description was short "stereo sound unit for carrying on shoulders with electrical cord for coupling to stereo equipment."  That sounds more like traditional bone conduction headphones. 

I have examined the patents and all too many images of different Bone Fones and only ever seen two models: the BP-1 and the BP-1M. The latter is a AM-only version they marketed as "NUTS". It sold for $39.95 compared to the original AM/FM $69.95 model.  It's kind of an interesting choice to go "AM-only" in 1980 but that was probably the last time anyone decided to do that. According to the ads there is also a "Neck Fone" which was only $34.95 back in 1981. [SOURCE]  I have never found a picture or drawing of that model.  Anyway the AM still had a conduction unit which let you tune the conductor between 5 and 16 kHz. It's tone switch only had a nigh and low setting.

All of these models were primarily sold mail order through print advertising by JS&A Group, Inc, lead by Joe Sugarman. They sold pocket calculators, electronic games, digital watches, sunglasses, and later got into Infomercials and even slots on QVC. JS&A sold over 100,000 Bone Fones. But according to an FTC document, they manufactured 30,000 of the AM model and only initially sold 60. They lowered the price but it appears that they had saturated the market with the stereo model.

The audience for the Bone Fone was finite. By 1982 DAK Industries was offloading the AM Bone Fone for $5 each with the purchase of a few blank 90 minute cassettes. Bone Fones also appear in overstock and liquidation type electronics sales ads as early as January of 1982. It was dead. In 1988 the Neck Phone trademark was cancelled for lack of a USPTO filing. By 1994 the Bone Fone was appearing in Collector's Guides, for novelty radios. They were going for about $35 then. You can pick one up used for about $50 today on eBay. 

 

Bone Fone BP-1M "Nuts" packaging

In the spring of 1979 the FTC began an investigation of JS&A. They had racked up 33 consumer complaints via the BBB. These were about missing products, missing refunds, slow shipments, lost orders. Their catalog was missing some required language about warranties. Honestly it was pretty mundane stuff. Today that might seem like small potatoes, but it was at least notable in the early 1980s. It was enough that they issued a subpoena for the companies records. It was a simpler time, before virtually every transaction was structured to scam the consumer in some manner. Sugarman was both surprised and offended and he decided to fight rather than pay the fine. More here. 

This escalated into a Senate Subcomittee hearing to which [SOURCE] Sugarman or associates close to him coordinated a letter-writing campaign with public advertisements in his defense. The committee even remarks on this in their records "A short time later, after further unsuccessful negotiations, rather than comply with the subpoena, JS&A took its case to the public through full-page newspaper advertisements and publication of a series of battle reports and other documents." He has chutzpah I'll say that. But his interest in concealing the records in and of itself is not an admission of guilt. It sure does look bad though. 

I want one of these.

Instead of compromising JS&A raised the stakes and published a comic book called "The Monster That Eats Business" attacking the FTC. Sugarman was almost Trumpian in his disdain for law and order or government oversight of any kind. He was milking the same anti-government sentiment that Regan had ridden into office after the long recession of the late 1970s. (It's worth mentioning that Sugarman is Ex CIA and that there is a conspiracy theory out there that this was all theater.) By his own accounting Sugarman still ultimately paid 300k in legal fees and was fined 275k. His original suggested fine would only have been 100k. The implication is that raising a ruckus cost him about half a million dollars. More here.

The lawsuit probably had some modest deleterious affect on sales sales of the Bone Fone. While the radio did not figure prominently in the incident JS&A reports their annual sales dropped from 12M to 1.5M between 1979 and 1981. But that was not what killed the Bone Fone. The radio market in the 1970s was very different from that of the 1980s. The Bone Fone could have become the portable radio of choice, but that was not to be. Joseph Sugarman later wrote about it in an marketing text: "It was perfect timing until a product called the Walkman came out and killed our new product. Timing. It can kill a product or make it."  Sony released the Walkman in March of 1979. The Walkman ultimately sold more than 250 million units worldwide.

The Bone Fone Corporation donated many records for the designs, drawings, correspondence etc to Auburn University in Alabama. [SOURCE] William Hass died in 2019. Joe Sugarman died in 2022.