WTIC studios actually move

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

        FYI, and for the record, the last program from WTIC (AM)'s downtown
Hartford studios after operating all of its 74 years from downtown was the
Ray Dunaway show Monday morning. I posted earlier that the station had said
on the air that the changeover was to be at 4 a.m. Monday. Perhaps the
final control point for the output to the transmitter was switched to
Farmington then. Apparently a few people gathered around as Dunaway ended
the show, catching him a bit by surprise. He seemed not prepared to say
anything about it. Later, sportscaster Scott Gray said that he had gone
down there to see the moment.

        The board operator did not play the usual end-of-hour musical bed
coming up to the 10 a.m. news, which seemed to get Dunaway's attention that
something was expected. And Dunaway said on the air, "Oh, this is an
historic moment?" He said something to the effect that it had been great to
originate from that location but that the show would go on tomorrow. He did
the legal ID, usually part of the canned news intro, himself, right on the
famous four-tone hourly time signal, introed the newscaster, and that was
it.

        The afternoon wiseguys, Bruce Stevens and Colin McEnroe, at 3 p.m.
(after Schlesinger and Limbaugh), noted that theirs was the first program
from the new location and proceeded to make fun of being in the swamp, view
of parking lot, walking a mile to the nearest country store, etc., etc.

********************************************************************

Have you patronized the skywave signal of an AM Class A station today?

********************************************************************

------------------------------