Re: WHIL and country

["Dan Strassberg" <Dan.Strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

I sure remember gravel-voiced Babe Rubenstein, but I didn't remember that
the Suffolk Downs Racing program was on WHIL. I guess they never raced at
Suffolk in the dead of winter (race horses slogging through the snow sounds
as if it could get downright ugly--not to mention extremely dangerous--both
to the horses and the jockeys), but if they had, wouldn't the AM's early
signoff (4:15 in December) have caused problems?

Does anyone remember the AM-drive guy in the late 50s and early 60s on WHIL?
His name was Bob Walsh and he was enormously talented. Did all sorts of
voices. He was better at the voices than Jess Cain. I remember that he did
hilarious comedy bits, but I can't remember any of the bits.

Back then, before the days of presunrise authority with a maximum of 500W,
daytimers on Class III channels were allowed to sign on year round with full
power at 4:00 local standard time (5:00 AM local time when daylight savings
was in effect). WHIL signed on with full power (initially 500W; then very
shortly afterward, 1000W; and eventually 5000W) year-round at 5:00 AM. Of
course, that was after WHIL moved from 1540 to 1430. The original CP was for
1540 with 250W-D. The station actually signed on on 1540 (in 1953, I think)
but there were immediate protests of overlap of 25 mV/m contours with WMEX
1510, There is a salt-water path essentially all the way from Squantum to
Wellington Circle, so how the CP was ever granted in the first place remains
a mystery. WHIL in effect threw up its hands and asked the FCC to find it a
new frequency. The result was am almost immediate move to 1430 which was a
better frequency for so many reasons you have to wonder what the original
designers of WHIL were thinking. On 1430, WHIL immediately got to double its
power (500W was the minimum allowed on Class III channels), got the early
sign-on (not allowed on 1540, which was a IB clear channel), and got away
from the wicked daytime skywave from WPTR. There was and is plenty of
daytime skywave on 1430, but it's much worse on 1540.

--

Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
Phone: 1-617-558-4205, eFax: 1-707-215-6367

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@mediaone.net>
To: A. Joseph Ross <lawyer@world.std.com>;
boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
<boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 4:57 AM
Subject: Re: WHIL and country


>
>WHIL AM meanwhile did have one program that was listened by an awful lot of
>people back then, and it was called "Racing from Suffolk Downs". This was
>back in the days before the state lottery and the street number was played
>heavily by blue collar types......... WHIL would broadcast the 7th race
>live, and Babe Rubenstein "the track announcer" would carefully announce
the
>other payoffs of the day.
>