WXKW Albany

[Dan.Strassberg]

Except that Ed Levine, who now owns WTKW, did NOT put the station on
the air. My late friend Frank Toce did. It was Frank who built WTKW,
tried to get the WXKW calls for it, increased its original 3 kW to the
then-new 6-kW Class A FM maximum, and added a translator on 99.1 atop
Craig Fox's WOLF (AM) tower in Syracuse. Not long after WTKW went on
the air, Frank sold WTKW to Levine's group in exchange for a
substantial interest in the station group (now Galaxy Communications).
Frank then continued for quite a few years to consult for Levine,
mostly on technical matters.

For several years before he died, Frank's main avocation was building
a palatial home on the shores of Oneida Lake in Cicero, north of
Syracuse. In the entrance lobby of that house was a brass WXKW sign,
which, on the night after the original WXKW's last day on the air,
Frank had, umm, liberated from the front of the bank building in
downtown Albany where the first WXKW had its studios. It had been
Frank's intention to place that sign over the door of his FM
station--but he was unable to get the call-letter assignment. As I
said in an earlier post, Frank named his dog TK (a really handsome and
smart German Shepard with a wonderful disposition) after the radio
station. TK was a much better name for a dog than XK would have been.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthew Osborne" <mattosborne1976@yahoo.com>
To: "Dave Doherty" <dave@skywaves.net>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: WXKW Albany


> --- On Thu, 8/13/09, Dave Doherty <dave@skywaves.net> wrote,
> regarding the WXKW callsign:
>
>
>> It's a pretty cool call sign, but very unlucky, it would
>> seem...
>>
>
> WXKW also inspired the call letters for another station years later.
> When Ed Levine put his new station at 99.5 FM in Bridgeport
> (Syracuse) NY on the air, he gave it the call letters WTKW, in honor
> of WXKW.  As far as being lucky/unlucky, WTKW does seem to "hold
> their own ground", but they are by no means a ratings powerhouse in
> the market.
>
>                                            Matt Osborne
>                                            Rotterdam, NY
>
>
>
>