Welcome to the discussion forum of History of WOWO.com! This page is open for you to discuss the Golden Age of WOWO, swap stories, ask questions, and perhaps to interact with former WOWO air personalities and staffers! http://www.historyofwowo.com/index.php Sat, 19 May 2012 01:06:37 -0700 Phorum 5.2.15a http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,132#msg-132 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,132#msg-132
Stories about the Little Red Barn were so down to earth at a time when life for me was the same way. No electronics to speak of and we actually played outside as kids instead of tuned in to TV or the yet to be discovered Internet. Life was so simple and serene.

When I decided to go to college in Ada, Ohio at Ohio Northern University, I had some insight into the Midwest thanks to WOWO, but actually asked my father if they had Coke in Ohio as that was important to me. So naïve back then, but in a good way!

I also listened to CKLW out of Detroit, WCAU out of Philly, and KMOX out of St. Louis, WLS in Chicago, and WSM in Nashville, all the way from central NY. My late brother and I jotted down the top 40 songs by listening to Cousin Brucie on ABC AM back in the early 60's. Lots of good memories.]]> JD14 WOWO Memories Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:18:37 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,129,129#msg-129 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,129,129#msg-129 Jude2003 WOWO Memories Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:44:03 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,128#msg-128 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,128#msg-128 CoffeeBuddha WOWO Memories Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:09:06 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,5,127#msg-127 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,5,127#msg-127
does anyone know or remember this on the radio ? i would love to have a tape pf this memory and hear it again. i contacted chris roberts about this a few years back and never did get the tape. if anyone can help with this i would apreciate this.]]> jsemer WOWO Memories Sun, 15 Jan 2012 10:23:27 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,125,126#msg-126 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,125,126#msg-126
- Blaine]]> irw WOWO Memories Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:12:17 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,125,125#msg-125 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,125,125#msg-125
We both remember these two radio personality names - Ron Britain and Barney Pip. Barney would blow on a trumpet - making strange sounds to introduce songs and such.

Were these WOWO personalities or if not, what station were they with??

Thanks so much!!]]> VickiA WOWO Memories Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:47:25 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,123#msg-123 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,123,123#msg-123 oldswab WOWO Memories Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:42:16 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,122#msg-122 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,122#msg-122 wb9tyj The Big 50,000 Watt Voice... Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:40:21 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,121#msg-121 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,121#msg-121
However, I would add, what would be the purpose? In the glory days that we honor on this site, WOWO was live and local 24 hours a day, a unique ambassador for Fort Wayne and the entire state of Indiana.

Today's WOWO is a fine talk station with great ratings. They have been very cooperative with this web site.

But, (with the exception of Komets Hockey) the same nightime programming broadcast on WOWO can be heard on local signals from coast to coast. This is not a slam against WOWO or any other talk station, but merely a reality of the radio industry today. When you scan across the AM band at night, unless you find a Chicago or New York all-news station, how long do you need to listen to even hear the call letters, much less any local content?

I was very much against WOWO's drop in nighttime power at the time that it was approved. But in hindsight, it was not a huge loss--either to WOWO, or to DXers. It reminds me of the old saying "You can't go home again." Times have changed; WOWO has wisely changed with them.

But fortunately, the Internet has allowed us all to share some great memories!]]> HistoryOfWOWO.com The Big 50,000 Watt Voice... Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:05:03 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,120#msg-120 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,120#msg-120
New York's WLIB bought WOWO; not WEVD.

WEVD is on 1050am and is now WEPN.

Nothing can be done to return WOWO to 50k of night power, because when WLIB downgraded WOWO, they changed the power class of the station from Class A to Class B. Once your AM station becomes a Class B, it can't again become a Class A, per FCC rules.

The reason WOWO is still sometimes audible in Florida is because very few radio stations on 1190AM now have significant night power. Across the nation, only KEX (Portland, Oregon) and KFXR (Dallas, Texas) are on at night. KEX is a clear channel station, while KFXR is in WOWO's class B status.

Blaine Thompson
Indiana RadioWatch
irw at well dot com]]> irw The Big 50,000 Watt Voice... Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:19:18 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,119#msg-119 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,119,119#msg-119 scmckinney The Big 50,000 Watt Voice... Sun, 27 Nov 2011 12:41:43 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,5,118#msg-118 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,5,118#msg-118
Later, when I was actually in broadcasting, Flyin' Brian was one that I remember from overnights and Ron had also returned to the station. This would have been somewhere between 86-88.

Rob]]> Spud WOWO Memories Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:16:36 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,116,116#msg-116 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,116,116#msg-116 Ritas4293 WOWO Memories Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:21:31 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,114,115#msg-115 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,114,115#msg-115
"My guess is that the carts went to one of the other Group W music stations at the time like KDKA or WBZ.

WOWO played all records until the late 70's and early 80's when we went with new stereo cart players. Even then, almost all of the oldies were still records and we had to have special phase correctors called "Monster Mats" for stereo cart playback. The use of those correctors continued until the purchase of the ITC machines which tracked phase off of the recording machine.

We were pretty late getting into an all cart mode."

I seem to recall that WOWO's first stereo cart machines were manufactured by BE and they used what was termed a "matrix" system for the stereo separation. Not very good left/right separation, but when you heard it in AM stereo, it still sounded fantastic! We had six machines as you can see here.

BTW, I was one of the guys who ended up carting up much of the music library in stereo (often replacing a mono cart with the stereo version). That was a huge job, as you know from your WIND experience. While WOWO had a huge record library, you often would find that either the 45 in the library was a mono promotional copy or was missing entirely, so then you had to head over to the famous Smoky's Record Shop. In this photo, circa 1982-83, you can see that some carts on the back wall had yellow labels and some had white. The yellow carts had been recarted in stereo; white ones were still in mono.

And as Chris said, many of the oldies continued to be on 45s up until maybe 1985 or so. I can say with certainty that we had nowhere near 2,500 cuts in the normal rotation.

Interesting question that would only pop up here! ;)]]> HistoryOfWOWO.com WOWO Memories Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:15:20 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,114,114#msg-114 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,114,114#msg-114 I'm Tom. My partner Steve and I, owned WFDT, Columbia city, from 73-75. In about 72, I was hired by Bob Moomey at WIND, Chicago, to record 2500 music carts for the "Number One Music" format he ran. A few years later WIND went talk, and shipped all the carts to WOWO for your format. Just wondering what became of those carts?]]> tjthedj WOWO Memories Sun, 05 Jun 2011 09:55:19 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,113#msg-113 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,113#msg-113 last Sunday.......A great experience with a wonderful lady !!

Thank You Randy and WOWO !!!


Richard Guy Harris
San Antonio, Texas]]> RGuyHarris WOWO Memories Sat, 21 May 2011 10:25:13 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,112#msg-112 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,112#msg-112 I guess it confirms that WOWO had the disc cutting equipment necessary.
I don't suppose anyone remembers 'Ted Russell & The Rhythm Rockers', or (real name) Theodore Wayne DeSanto or DeSantos?
best regards, Bob Paxon]]> rjp WOWO Memorabilia Wed, 04 May 2011 21:09:08 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,111#msg-111 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,111#msg-111
I posed this question to an expert, former WOWO Chief Engineer Dave Snyder and here's his response:

Practically every radio station in the country had disk cutting capability in the 1930s. This was replaced by tape recording after WWII. The story of Sgt. Mullins capturing a German audio tape machine from Radio Luxemburg and bringing it back to the US and his involvement with Ampex Corporation and Bing Crosby, etc. etc. is a whole interesting story by itself.

Almost every station had a house band, or several, and recorded their own music for later broadcast. Later it was realized that commercials could be recorded so that the announcer didn't have to read the same copy over and over. Most of these recordings were made at 78 rpm. A 16" disk cut at 33 rpm could hold 30 minutes and two disks could hold an hour. The linear speed traveled by the record/pickup head was over twice as fast in the outer grooves as opposed to the inner grooves on an ET. If the first half of a program was played from outside/in and the second disk (second half of the show) was played from outside/in, the transition from one disk to the other was a very noticeable change in quality (high frequency response). Therefore disk recording machines were capable of recording both outside/in and inside/out. An hour long show on two disks didn't have this change in quality in the middle because the first disk would be recorded outside/in and the second disk recorded inside/out.

Many disk cutting machines could also cut information vertically in the groove (to reduce turntable rumble in some cases). This is why most of the modern (1950s) pickups could be switched to either vertical or lateral modes. Disk cutting was quite an art because the material cut out of the acetate was a long thread that had to be caught. The simplest way of catching the removed material was with a brush mounted on the lathe or cutting head arm. More modern disk cutting machines (1960s) have a vacuum nozzle that sucks up the removed material as it is being cut out of the groove. If this thread of removed acetate got away from the operator and passed through the cutting needle it would ruin the cut and you would have to start over. Many, many disks were multiple attempts because of this.

I'm rambling - what was the original question? Yes, WOWO had disk cutting equipment. Also, Bob Sievers had his own disk lathe at home and could record commercials there. I have his disk lathe in my basement. It did not have a cutting head when he gave it to me, but I do have a Presto 1-C cutting head from another source mounted to it. I have this on a Presto turntable mounted on an RCA 77C turntable cabinet. Bob Sievers was the first one in Ft. Wayne to have a microgroove leadscrew for cutting disks. I don't know what might have happened to WOWO's equipment but tape recording was so much simpler and better and re-usable that most of the old disk recording stuff was just dumped in the trash.

The aluminum disks that were coated with acetate for blank recording disks were highly polished. Obviously this was necessary to have a perfectly smooth base into which to cut a groove. We could take an old disk and bend and drill it for a specific purpose and then put it in a pot of boiling water. The acetate would soften and detach from the aluminum and we would wind up with a metal piece with a mirror finish. Someday my disk lathe will wind up in a museum.]]> historyofwowo WOWO Memorabilia Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:37:54 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,99#msg-99 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,99#msg-99
How are You ??]]> RGuyHarris WOWO Memories Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:26:19 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,98#msg-98 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,28,98#msg-98
Julie]]> nursejulie1949 WOWO Memories Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:32:20 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,3,97#msg-97 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,3,97#msg-97
I rode my bike home as quickly as I could, ran to my bedroom, tuned in to WOWO and heard Bob on the air--he sounded scared! I was on my knees, praying and hoping that we weren't about to be vaporized by an H-bomb when Bob finally announced that the transmission had been a mistake.

I've often told people about that incident--I can't believe you have the actual audio clip! Thanks for the great website.

Warm regards,
KC9JQY]]> KC9JQY WOWO Memories Fri, 08 Apr 2011 19:37:17 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,76#msg-76 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,76#msg-76 I added another post but I must not have completely entered it or it was deleted. It may shed some light for you to know that Ted Russell was originally from Fort Wayne (born Duane Theodore DeSanto) and he had a record issued at approx the same time on the Indiana label Glee Records. Also, the tracks on this acetate are Terock/The Slide, and it was eventually issued on Golden Crest (NYC). I can send a scan of the label if it would help unravel this mystery. Thanks! Bob P]]> rjp WOWO Memorabilia Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:36:31 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,75#msg-75 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?5,75,75#msg-75 rjp WOWO Memorabilia Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:28:54 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,54#msg-54 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,54#msg-54 pinger WOWO Memories Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:37:08 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,53,53#msg-53 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,53,53#msg-53 Fender Strat WOWO Memories Thu, 10 Feb 2011 06:26:27 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,52,52#msg-52 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?3,52,52#msg-52 watts)in the flesh! Though that particular transmitter is no longer in regular use,is the transmitter still at the site? Anyone know? How much power is the current Harris transmitter putting out?]]> KC9SYJ The Big 50,000 Watt Voice... Fri, 04 Feb 2011 09:07:42 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,51,51#msg-51 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,51,51#msg-51
73s all
Dewey
KC9SYJ]]> KC9SYJ WOWO Memories Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:59:08 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?6,50,50#msg-50 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?6,50,50#msg-50 Retro Commercials!

Take a listen when you have a sec! I bet you'll hear at least one jingle (or more) that will make you smile! We'll be adding more over the next few weeks and months.

So which advertising jingle drove you so crazy, you couldn't get it of your head?]]> HistoryOfWOWO.com Retro Commercials Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:15:42 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,49#msg-49 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,49#msg-49
But here is what you will not believe.... I listened EVERY nite to WOWO Fort Wayne, Indiana on my little Transister radio, Late at night, I would tune in and listen to Rock and Roll, something I could not get where I was at. I was in a Very Small Coal Mining town called Big Stone Gap, Virginia...Many, Many Miles away from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The signal came in just right. I did not listen to local stations and besides your signal was way better and you played Wonderful Rock and Roll that I wanted to hear!!!

You saved this Little Hillbilly girl from Country and Gospel! I want to Thank You after All these years and tell you what you meant to me, I can hear the Little Jingle in my head now WO-WO Fort Wayne, Indiana! I had no idea where it was at, but I loved it!!!

Thank You!!!! You were my joy and salvation!!!!]]> MJC WOWO Memories Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:09:07 -0700 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,48#msg-48 http://www.historyofwowo.com/read.php?2,29,48#msg-48 chris WOWO Memories Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:34:32 -0700