"The Big One" and it's 500 KW transmitter

[bruiser]

Crosley was quite the entrepreneur, and found the way to make money.


www.ominous-valve.com/wlw.html

[Travis]

That was an interesting story. I had no idea this ever happened.

[bruiser]

Yes, quite interesting. I guess that's how it came to be known as "The Big One". I bet you could feel your hair stand up walking through all that equipment.

Many years ago, and I am old enough to remember hearing some of this, there was "border radio". These stations were parked right across the border in Mexico. Their calls began with an X. XERF, XERB, etc. They were owned by USA citizens, and the signals were beamed towards the USA. Mexico had no rules/regulations about the wattage radio stations could use. 250,000 watts was just the beginning. It's suspected that at least one of them may have been running 1,000,000 watts. These stations were giant money making machines. They sold everything that could be mailed or trucked. Rev. Ike was on there, and in between preaching, he was selling miracle prayer cloths, a vial of water from the River Jordan, and genuine 8X10 autographed pictures of Jesus. The Carter Family had a show there. What I remember hearing were country music shows. I recall them selling a lot of farm and garden supplies, including baby chicks. Just like WLW, when they fired the transmitters up, and it seems as if they waited until sundown to do it, they just blew every station close to their frequency, off the air. I also remember that the station I heard, think it was XERF, that their mailing address was in Del Rio, TX.

There was at least one border station in Baja California, just across the California border. This is the station where Wolfman Jack became famous. "250,000 watts over Los Angeles", or something like that was the catch phrase. A friend of mine, who was stationed at an Air Force base in CA, said he could listen to that station almost all the way to Evansville when he would come home on leave.

[visitingky]

The station that I remember selling baby chicks was WCKY - 1530-AM in Cincinnati during the night-time country music program, "The Jamboree" in the 1950's up into 1964. They sold all kinds of merchandise including the Wayne Rainey Talking Harmonica. Rainey was a DJ on that show for a time. WCKY's was 50,000 watts and its night-time signal easily reached almost everything from the Atlantic seaboard across to Texas. It could even be heard in Cuba and many parts of the Carribean. In a reception contest in 1964, the winner was an Air Force service man in Japan. The runner-up was a listener in West Berlin.

[bruiser]

Yep, WCKY had that country music show on at night. I remember hearing Wayne Rainey. He was a master of the harmonica, and sold them by the millions. He had a buddy by the name of Lonnie Glosson who would sometimes sit in with Rainey. He was also a harmonica master. Rainey and Glosson were heard on a lot of country recordings, particularly King Records. If there was a harp on a country record in the forties and fifties, it was most likely one of them. Rainey actually had a couple of hit records.

Another evening country music show that could be heard across the county was "Suppertime Frolic", on WJJD out of Chicago. Randy Blake was the salesman, uh, DJ, on that show. From what I've read about radio shows that were more of a marketing show than anything else, Blake was the king. According to an article I read, JJD sent him to the minor league for training. The minor league was Louisville, and the station was WHAS.

[bpflederer]

Bruiser, You mentioned WJJD. WJJD, was once a so-called daytimer. Sign-off was an hour later than normal here in Illinois. This was due to the protection of a station in the western time zone. Would you believe that WJJD was a rocker in the beginning of the top 20 days?

[dudewalker1]

Believe it or not I used to work for Plough radio in Memphis and WJJD in Chicago. JJD was 50,000 watts. It was located ib Des Plaines, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Plough also had a station in Baltimore.
Dude Walker

[bpflederer]

Dude, what format was at WJJD when you was there? They have two separate transmitter sites, with the new one being by Lamont for the nighttime array.

[dudewalker1]

WJJD was country when I was there. It's interesting because I lived up kingery highway from lamont at 91st street. I played golf almost every day at Cog Hill in Lamont. It was about 2 miles from my house. Cog hill had four 18 hole courses. Number 4 was dubs dread where they have the western open. The studio in Des Plaines had a transmitter on the site. It got interesting during a thunderstorm

[visitingky]

Jan 19, 2011 16:10:18 GMT -5 bruiser said:

I guess that's how it came to be known as "The Big One".

Actually, "The Big One" is a term used by more-recent station ownership. Coming from the 500,000 watt transmitter period was the slogan - "The Nation Station" (sometimes also called "The Nation's Station") because WLW could be actually then be heard throughout the United States and in some foreign countries.

[bruiser]

Thanks for the info, visiting.