Earliest surviving FM station?

[Martin Waters <martinjwaters@yahoo.com>]

    I'm doing an article for my newspaper, the
Record-Journal in Meriden, Conn., about the FM towers
on Meriden Mt./West Peak. In talking about the
original WDRC-FM that began there using FM in October
1939, I'm trying to nail down the (perhaps
un-nailable) question of whether it -- descended to
today's WHCN -- is the oldest surviving FM station.

    Based on some web research, mainly at Jeff
Miller's site, I tentatively have narrowed down the
competitors to two:

     W3XO/WINX-FM/WTOP-FM/WHUR, Washington, D.C.,
which started September 1939. It's listed this way at
Jeff's http://members.aol.com/jeff560/fmfirst.html,
but the blurb goes on to say that after WWII, WINX-FM
did not claim descent from W3XO, listing a post-war
start date instead.

     W1XOJ/W43B/WGTR, Paxton, Mass., the John Shepard
station. Mr. Miller's site notes that the Boston Radio
Archives carries a statement saying this could be
considered the direct antecedent of today's WBMX. I'm
going to look into that a little more, as I have some
questions about that. Isn't the direct ancestry of
WBMX back to WNAC-FM (if those were the original
calls), which was a separate station established
through a separate application and licensed to Boston
from the start on 98.5? Also, May 1939 is listed as
the start date for this station (W1XOJ). In the
context being used, that should mean the start date
employing FM rather than as an Apex AM station. Is
that correct?

   Thanks for any help anyone can provide. My deadline
was yesterday :))

Marty Waters



   

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com