WCAP 55th Birthday Party Report__Berkshires

[Dan Strassberg]

Back in the 50s, WSNY was a fabulously successful station focusing entirely
on Schenectady and its nearby suburbs. Had a VERY professional sound and a
spot load of at least 20 minutes per hour all day long. Nearly all of the
spots were locally produced and prerecorded using music and effects from
several suppliers. The transmitter location, southwest of Schenectady, kept
the signal from really penetrating Albany or Troy, but Schenectady was
booming then and WSNY was doing better serving just the one city than most
of the larger stations did trying to serve all of them.

1460 (then WOKO), in particular, had a very down-at-the-heels sound. It was
the plaything of its owner, Col Jim Healy, a local Rush Limbaugh of his day.
He used to broadcast ultra-right-wing commentaries, which he voiced himself,
in tones and cadences not unlike Limbaugh's. Of course, there were no
call-ins, and Healy's commentaries ran only about 15 minutes but I think he
recorded them and rebroadcast at around 6:00 PM the ones that ran live at
noon. Healy certainly LOOKED the part, a distinguished-looking,
silver-haired, significantly overweight, sixty-ish gent who, IIRC, liked
expensive cigars.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Kelly" <rickkelly@gmail.com>
To: "Matthew Osborne" <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com>
Cc: "Stephanie Weil" <stephanie@gordsven.com>; "Dan Strassberg"
<dan.strassberg@att.net>; <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:38 PM
Subject: Re: WCAP 55th Birthday Party Report__Berkshires


> On 6/15/06, Matthew Osborne <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure when it was
> > sold or even who the current owners are, but AM 1240
> > now runs Scott Shannon's Real Oldies satellite format,
>
> Shannon's format is TRUE Oldies, 1240 is not running that format.  To
> me, it sounds like it is locally produced.
>
> > and has a signal that does well in the city of
> > Schenectady itself, but is horrible pretty much
> > everywhere else.
>
> This has always been a problem for the station, going way back to the
> 1960's, when they were WSNY.  It's tough for a small signaled station
> to do well in Albany, with the three cities being rather far away from
> each other.
>
> --
> -Rick Kelly
> www.northeastairchecks.com