Calls that pay tribute to their City

As mentioned previously calls can be tied to a brand-name for better utility. I have also seen them tied to a city and there the calls become their own brand with a pleasant sense of localism. In this list I tried to exclude univeristy stations whose calls actually correlate to the school name NOT the city.
A lot of radio-men use the term "Heritage calls" It dosent just mean old calls, it means old calls that persist in the market. These calls reappear on numerous sticks in a market each time revisiting the connotation of the branding and aiding market entry. Calls like these are almost always heritage calls.

Boston - WBOS
Los Angeles -KLAX, KALI, KKLA
Philadelphia - WPHI, WPHE, WPHT
New York City -WNYC, WNYE
San Diego - KSDS, KSDO, KLSD, KFSD
Denver - KFDN
Washington D.C. - WASH, WWDC
Baltimore - WBAL, WCBM

As you get into very tertiary non-markets you can see this much more often:
Willimantic, CT - WILI
Manhattan, KS -KMAN-AM
Guymon, OK - KGYN
Arkadelphia, AR - KDEL
Rocky Mount, NC - WRMT-AM
Anaconda, MT - KANA-AM
... The List goes on and on.

the ONLY Hydroelectric Radio Station

This one is a one-of-a-kind. WJFF Radio Catskill 90.5 FM. They play primarily classical, jazz and folk. The only hydroelectrically powered public radio station.
http://www.wjffradio.org/

Malcolm Brown is a former philosophy professor from King's College. It just so happened he was building a house beside Lake Jefferson in Jeffersonville, New York. he couldnt hear any public radio affiliate in his little valley, so he decided to build one. He had already built a small hydroelectric plant above the falls near lake jefferson, so with some modification, he equipped it to power a little public radio station right here in Sullivan County. They went live 12 years ago. It's the world's only hydropowered station. They claim to be the worlds only hydroelectric radio station... and I beleive them. This pic is of Mr. brown himself beside his dam.
They have only two paid employees, the rest is all community volunteers, like it should be. They run a few popular syndicated programs from NPR, PRI and Pacifica.. and a couple unknown ones too. The rest of the week is all locals talking local politics, local news and whatever music they please. They even have an all Australian music program. Beat that!

The Oldest Urban Legend in Radio

It always starts in a different city, and different call letters, but this part is always the same: "...then they attached a cable to the railroad tracks and the station was audible from one end of [insert state] to the other. ...then the FCC shut them down/fined them." It's almost always a college station, and usually in the midwest. I have heard Jersey versions but alas, nothing incriminating yet.

I thought the beleivability was low for years. Then I started meeting engineers that tried similar things. A certain engineer at a certain radio station in New Jersey managed to use the steel frame of the buildings elevator shaft as an arial. It improved their signal tremendously... as long at the elevator was on the ground floor...

The only beleivable claim to this legend was earned by the infamous KDIC in Grinell Iowa. Currently their license is deleted but they were still causing troubel as recently as last year.
The Grinnell College campus is in close proximity to 2 rail lines. I quote: "The college was invited to move to [Josiah Grinell's] newly-founded town, located at the intersection of two major railway lines. Today, one can still experience the effects from this choice of location in the form of a railroad that cuts across the college campus."

The blurb is no longer on their website but of course.. I kept a copy.. this is my favorite part:

"One time, KDIC let some delinquent students convince him to connect his vocal chords to the nearby train tracks, so he could laugh and cry and sing with all his might all across the land. Well, a big mean FCC person from the orphanage heard about this, and the Grinnell students lost their right to play with KDIC for a whole year! KDIC was locked away in the closet and everyone was very sad. They also had to pay a big fine! "Jeepers," exclaimed several of the students, "just who is this big mean FCC person anyways? We just want to rock!" But the big bad FCC person does not rock."

KDIC has been fined a couple times for fairly general naughtiness. I dont have a lot of reason to beleive this one except that they clealy had the opportunity.. and definitely had the inclination.
http://kdic.grinnell.edu/

The Art of Formatlessness

Yes, I know that's not a proper word

So maybe it's not an art. Many radio people would argue that non-commercial stations practice this all the time. I personally would argue that they actually are "block-formatted" most programs in fact have a format. it's somewhat unfortunate that the reggae format the death metal format and the polka format may be in close time proximity.

What I am talking about are the commercial stations that dont really have a format. Some of you are thinking "Jack" right now but that too is a format. For all the hype it's really just deep catalog AC/80s but I digress. I mean actual commercially licensed stations that actually sell ads, that just don't fit conventional format definitions. In previous years the addition of oldies to a standards playlist might have qualified (or vice versa) , like WGUL-AM in Tampa. They ran deep catalog oldies beside overplayed vegas crooners. It had a loyal niche audience, but in that market WRBQ killed them in ratings. I had an inkling that they wouldn't last, and sure enough last month they dropped it for talk. A nice straight standards station might have been able to eek by with the demo in that market.

Anyway I'm on a tangent again. My examples today is New Rochelle 93.5 WRTN. (some of their programming is run on their AM sister station WVOX 1460)

I first heard WRTN over two years ago. They ran a very straight-ahead standards station; lots of Sinatra, a little big band, a lot of Glen Miller As they say "It is what it is." And then they added some reggae programing. It stoof out as kind of random but they blocked it out pretty well with talk programs on each side of the slots.

I am guessing these shows were popular because they added more., lots more. Today the station runs reggaeton, reggae, tropical, dancehall... all sorts of Caribbean music and then few straggling hours of standards. But this new format is a little awkward.

If they played more rap you could call it Hurban. If they homogenized it more they could call it tropical or even Reggae. But they don't. The playlist is all over the place in terms of genre. but in terms of demo it's not. They don't appear on the recent Bridgeport or Stamford Arbs but I dont think they participate to be honest. They've found a community that clearly wants them to be there. And the community has found a station that wants to be there for them. I cant argue with that.

The president of Whitney Radio the parent Co. to both stations, William O'Shaughnessy is a bit of a willful crank who reminds me of other brilliant wilful cranks that ran massive media groups on to great success. men like like Ahmet Ertgun, Ted Turner and the like. His impressive bio is here: http://www.wvox.com/wo/index.htm including where to buy his book.

Nothing explains why he runs WRTN station the way he does. I hope that they keep it up. But like so many eccentric gems out there, I can only beleive that ineviably the big money offer will come and it will be sadly swallowed up by some large multi-national conglomerate.

The Long Road Home

I drove south From Albany yesterday. I bought bags of Jada Red and Ginger Gold Apples, and a bag of Apple Cider Doughnuts and started south on Route 90. It was warm out, but there were big clouds on the horizon and the breeze was cool. I ate warm apples and hung my arm out the window until the sun went down.
http://www.jerzyboyz.com/gingergold.htm
http://www.nyapplecountry.com/redrome.htm

I listened mostly to 90.3 WAMC in the Albany area switching to a couple affiliates as if got weaker. As I got nearer to 287 South, I could hear a fantastic rock program on WVKR 91.3 Poughkeepsie, and I heard the LOST & FOUND OLDIES SHOW with Sam Tallerico. It was outstanding. Tons of Rockabilly and pre-Beatles garage rock/pop. Fantastic. Then Jazz junction on 88.1 WDIY in Allentown, A classic hardcore program on 90.3 WXLV out of Lehigh Carbon Community College.
http://www.wamc.org/
http://www.wvkr.org/
http://www.wdiyfm.org/
http://www.wxlvfm.com/

WFMU was clear through some of this time but that particular program wasn't grabbing me.

Across most of New Jersey I listened to 89.7 WDVR. They play a mix of Americana, Folk, Triple-A and old Country. They never come off slick or trite; always straddling that middle ground of genuine provincial hominess, never parodying themselves. ...And that Jimmie Rodgers-style country yodel station ID is ABSOLUTELY KILLER . Long live the Country Store.
www.wdvrfm.com