Oldest religious broadcast?

[Dan.Strassberg]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Fybush" <scott@fybush.com>
To: "Doug Drown" <revdoug1@myfairpoint.net>
Cc: "Dan.Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>; "A. Joseph Ross"
<joe@attorneyross.com>; "Donna Halper" <dlh@donnahalper.com>; "boston
Radio Interest Board" <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 9:13 PM
Subject: Re: Oldest religious broadcast?


>
> The NYC stations you're thinking of were WPOW and WEVD (later WNYM)
> on 1330 and WBNX on 1380, which yielded Sundays to WAWZ in Zarephath
> NJ. Both share-times had ended by 1984.

The time-share on 1330 in NYC involved three stations for many years.
The third station wasn't in the New York area, however; it was WHAZ in
Troy NY, which operated only on Monday evenings from 6:00PM onward and
was licensed to operate until 3:00AM Tuesdays. It signed off at Monday
midnight, however. WHAZ was the first of the three 1330 stations to
break free of the time-share. It did so by becoming a daytimer and now
operates full-time as a Class D, which means it has some pathetically
small night power, although now that that the New York station
relocated its transmitter from Staten Island to Hackensack NJ and is
directional to the southeast instead of sending a big signal up the
Hudson Valley, those few watts cover somewhat more territory.

In addition to 1330 and 1380, there was a time-share on 1280 in the
New York area that continued into the '50s and maybe the '60s. What is
now WADO yielded Sundays to WHBI Newark, which eventually moved to FM.

Decades earlier, nearly every AM in the New York/New Jersey metro area
shared time with one or more other AMs. At one time, WNYC (then owned
by the City of New York) shared time with WMCA. This led to some
contentious wrangling in which WNYC at one time refused to sign off
and the case wound up in court. Eventually, the FCC moved WNYC off 570
to 810, which became 830 with the advent of NARBA 68 years ago today.
On 810/830, WNYC had to sign off at Minneapolis sunset. It wasn't
until the 80s, when the FCC broke down the clear channels, that WNYC
became a full-timer on 820. Curiously, this move reunited WNYC with
WMCA, which are now diplexed from WMCA's three-tower site in S Kearney
NJ.
>
> The last AM sharetimes remaining are on 1450 in Cicero (Chicago) IL,
> shared by WCEV and WRLL, and on 1240 in Decorah IA, shared by KDEC
> and KWLC. Another prominent example on 580 in Kansas ended a few
> years back (WIBW Topeka/KKSU Manhattan), and Chicago had a three-way
> split on 1240 well into the nineties.

And don't forget the arrangement between what was once KTW in Seattle
and KWSC in Pullman in eastern WA. Both stations are on 1250 and are
several hundred miles apart, so they could both operate simultaneously
during the day. Until KTW directionalized to protect KWSC at night,
however, the two stations had to share the nighttime hours.