RE: WSRS ( W1XOJ )

["Keith Fornal" <kfornal@cox.net>]

According to the WSRS website history section:

"WSRS was born on June 17, 1940 as W1XTG, an experimental FM Station on
43.3 MHz.

On January 30, 1944 the station switched from experimental to commercial
status and the call letters became WTAG-FM.

WTAG-FM's frequency moved to 102.7 MHz for several years. Then, on
November 11, 1947, the final frequency jump was made to 96.1.

In the fall of 1963, the station was purchased from the Telegram &
Gazette, and on Monday, December 30, 1963 it became Worcester's Stereo
Radio Station or WSRS."

http://www.wsrs.com/wsrs_history.html


Keith Fornal
Dutch Island Lighthouse Society
www.dutchislandlighthouse.org

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
[mailto:owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org] On Behalf Of
dan.strassberg@att.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 3:56 PM
To: Sid Schweiger
Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: WSRS ( W1XOJ )

OK, but when did the calls become WSRS? I don't believe in the 1960s. I
am 
absolutely 100% positive that the original calls were WTAG-FM and I
think they 
remained so for quite a long time. Now if you are saying that the
Telegram and 
Gazette built and operated WTAG-FM for a number of years but Norman
Knight 
bought the frequency and built a new-from-the-ground-up facility in the
same 
general area and named it WSRS (FM), I could believe THAT.

Back in the 40s, there was an FM station in Paxton (owned, I believe, by

General Tire and Rubber) with the calls WGTR. Thus, John Garbedian's
WGTR 1060 
in Natick was not the first WGTR in the area. My understanding is that
the 
first WGTR was part of the network that Major Armstrong and John
Sheppard built 
to link Alpine NJ with Mt Washington via over-the-air station-to-station
relay. 
I believe the signals went from Alpine to the mountain whose name I
forget near 
Meriden CT--south of Hartford, to Paxton, to Mt Washington. I think the 
objective was for Yankee Network stations to pick up the network feeds
from FM, 
thus saving the AT&T line charges--as well as providing improved audio
fidelity.

--
dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205
eFax 707-215-6367
> >>But the fact that the first S stands for "Stereo" tells us that it
hasn't been 
> WSRS for ALL that long. My guess is no more than 25 years.<<
> 
> Guess again.  FM stereo was approved by the FCC in 1961, and WSRS,
which was 
> built from the ground up to be stereo, went stereo on-air sometime
before 1965.  
> I used to work there, and I knew the two men who put the place
together without 
> almost any outside help:  the late Ted Kalin (CE of WEIM, another
Knight station 
> at the time) and Jack Flynn, WSRS's long-time GM.
> 
> >>what is now WSRS was WTAG-FM.<<
> 
> ...and was originally meant to be WTAG-TV, Channel 5.  The First
Report and 
> Order in the FCC's television proceedings in 1947 allocated Channel 5
to 
> Worcester.  That makes TWO media that the Worcester Telegram & Gazette
foolishly 
> abandoned before they made it big.
> 
> I remember cleaning up the engineering room (among my first duties
when I 
> assumed the CE job), and coming across the original blueprints for the
front of 
> the building.  Seeing "WTAG-TV Channel 5" on the drawing was a
shocker, until I 
> learned some of its history.
> 
> Sid
> 
>