...and speaking of anniversaries...

[Dan.Strassberg]

The WXKW calls have been in a lot of places since 1953. They probably
spent the longest stretch on 1470 in Allentown PA. But I think their
appearance in the Capital District on a 500W daytimer on 1600 was the
first encore. Use of 1600 in the Capital District became possible when
the 1600 E Longmeadow MA dropped its DA-D operation. I don't remember
the dates for the second coming of WXKW, but my guess is mid to late
'60s or else late '70s. I recruited at RPI for two employers and WXKW
1600 was on the air during at least one of those periods. I believe
WXKW 1600 was licensed to Troy but the transmitter and probably the
studios were in Watervliet. The people behind it were alumni of the
original WXKW 850. I remember hearing announcer Lyell Boseley on the
air at the 1600 station--I had met him originally when I visited the
WXKW 850 studios in downtown Albany. I may also have heard John
Mountier, a very talented announcer who was an alum of WXKW 850 and
who, after that WXKW went dark, worked in Boston--at WVDA 1260
(successor to WNAC 1260 and predecessor of WEZE 1260--now 590).

On the front of the bank building where the WXKW 850 studios were
located was a large brass plaque bearing the WXKW call letters in a
modernistic art-deco typeface. On the evening of the day when the
station signed off for the last time, a friend of mine, who shall
remain nameless here, drove to Albany and "liberated" the plaque. It
remained in his posession to the day he died, and graced the family
room of his first house and later the entry of the palatial home he
built to replace it. Decades after he acquired the plaque, when he
built his own radio station, he tried to get the WXKW calls for the
new station but they were not available at that time. He had hoped to
put the plaque on the wall at that station.

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@myfairpoint.net>
To: "Dan.Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>; "Dave Doherty"
<dave@skywaves.net>; <linc45r-n@lincster.com>
Cc: <boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: ...and speaking of anniversaries...


> This is fascinating history.  There must have been a subsequent
> resurrection of WXKW sometime in the '60s, as I vaguely remember a
> station with those calls that briefly operated out of Troy  when I
> was a teen, on either 1590 or 1600 kHz.  I listened to it a few
> times when I visited the area.  It actually was a pretty decent
> station, with a Top 40 format, IIRC.    -Doug
>