WLW and "Morning Edition"

["Smyth, Sean" <ssmyth@suscom.net>]

On this morning's "Morning Edition," Bob Edwards had a 
neat piece on the history of WLW Cincinnati and an album 
put out by a pair of fellas (names escape me at the 
moment) who also host an old-time radio show on an NPR 
affiliate in Cincinnati. The album is narrated by Leonard 
Maltin and focuses on Cincinnati's supposedly major role 
in old-time radio broadcasts, including radio drama. There 
were some old-time radio clips played, including calls of 
former Reds announcer Red Barber (who used to host a 
weekly segment on Morning Edition with "the Colonel" 
before his death). Hopefully this piece can be tracked 
down on npr.org. 

One of the points they made that was interesting was about 
WLW's old 500kW signal. The old-time guys claim that the 
500kWs didn't extend WLW's reach (compared to the current 
50kW) so much as it strengthened the signal in its strong 
areas. Dan and Garrett, I'd be interested in hearing your 
thoughts on this, since in principle that sounds a little 
fishy. I could see maybe not extending the signal *much* 
(given the potential primitive transmitting technology of 
the day) but I would still imagine the extra 450kW did 
something to extend the station's reach. Also, they 
mentioned the reason Crosley built a 500kW transmitter was 
because the radios his company manufactured were really 
weak (and basically cheap) and he needed a stronger signal 
to compensate for it.