Silly legal IDs (Was Re: WKLB DXing)

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Shel Swartz wrote:
>At least two stations in my neck of the woods bury their legal IDs. I wish
>the FCC would mandate a specific policy toward that.

        I've always thought it was hilarious, ever since I first heard it
done by WVBF, circa 1971. Now the reincarnated WROR, which is the old WVBF
assignment, does it, and it's always good for a chuckle. True radio
geekdom: The funniest thing on the station is the silly legal ID. WROR
seems to have had several different versions already, but they all amount
to something like the one where a man says WROR, a woman whispers
Framingham, and a 60-member chorus shouts Boston. The original in 1971 was
a great piece of production actually. They used phasing and stereo. The
announcer mumbled Framingham in one channel, sounding like he had 7,000
marbles in his mouth, then boomed out Boston in both channels.
        WKSS, with the strange legal ID of Hartford-Meriden (that's the
old-fashioned legal ID--they must say it that way), seems to get confused
sometimes. I've heard them play a hurriedly whispered tape of the legal
between two spots during a cluster at around 15 before the hour (illegal if
it were the only ID, which sometimes it has been, BTW). But then the jock
goes ahead and gives a live ID at the top of the same hour as if the
station actually has no problem admitting that it's "Hartford-Meriden." Go
figure.

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