Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Attack of the Killer B94s

WONB is a CHR station owned by Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio.

WBZZ - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This sticker is from when they were a CHR station before flipping to "K-Rock" and adding Howard Stern. They then switched briefly to Talk as WTZN "The Zone" before coming full circle as B94 again with WBZW as their calls.

KBZT - San Diego, California. This is from their short-lived "All 80s" format circa 2001.

CHBW is a Hot AC station licensed to Rocky Mountain House, Alberta.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

KHMO


1070 AM KHMO is a News/Talk station licensed to Hannibal, Missouri. They began broadcasting in 1941.

Monday, February 9, 2009

KAMA

750 AM KAMA is a Regional Mexican station licensed to El Paso, Texas.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Mystery Sticker #4 SOLVED!

This looks to be from the mid-80s because of the obvious Eddie Van Halen-ish guitar and the Walkman headphones. No coupons or advertising on the back. Any idea where this goofy sticker is from?

UPDATE: This sticker is from WFYV (now known as "Rock 104.5") in Jacksonville, Florida and licensed to Atlantic Beach, FL. Thanks for the info Kevin!

WFSO


WFSO (W Five Seven O) started up in 1966 as an MOR station before giving way to Rock by the 1970s. In 1978 the station was sold and switched to Talk as WPLP. WFSO was licensed to Pinellas Park, Florida.

Sunday Sticker - WFSH


WFSH "104.7 The Fish" transmits from the tallest radio tower in Georgia. This allows them to better reach Atlanta from it's city of license in Athens which is about 60 miles away.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Swiss Radio International

SRI is the international arm of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. They started broadcasting via shortwave in 1935 but stopped in 2004 to focus exclusively on their multimedia platform at swissinfo.org, which is available in 9 languages.
Did you know that Switzerland didn't join the United Nations until 2002?!

Friday, February 6, 2009

CFNR



CFNR (Canada's First Nations Radio) is a Classic Rock station from Terrace, British Columbia. The CFNR Network distributes their programming in central and northern BC by way of more than 50 repeater stations. The sticker design reflects the highly stylized art form indigenous to that area of North America.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

WGBM

WGBM was a Classic Country station in Green Bay, Wisconsin. After the station was sold in 2000, the new owners did something that never, ever always happens and switched formats. Catalog album sales by classic country artists such as Ferlin Husky, Marty Robbins and Conway Twitty dropped precipitously in the immediate Green Bay area and nobody with a tattered cowboy hat toured there anymore. A guy from Oconto Falls called to complain but couldn't be heard over the din of Godsmack, Korn and System of a Down that was majestically blasting from the studios of "Razor 94.7" WZOR. WGBM was licensed to Mishicot, Wisconsin.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Market #1s - Atlanta - WVEE


WVEE has been an Urban Contemporary station in Atlanta since 1976 (including a Disco format at the end of the 70s.) In 2000, V-103 added rap music full time to their playlist in order to compete with younger skewing competitors WHTA and WALR. They've consistently been first or second in the overall ratings for years, often swapping back and forth with News/Talker WSB.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

WENS

My wife does the crossword puzzle from the newspaper every day. Because of this, she is an unbeatable Scrabble player and knows a lot of useless, semi-obscure words like plinth (a block on which a statue is placed), rasher (a thin slice of bacon) and wen. A wen is defined as "a cyst of the skin filled with fatty matter that has been secreted by a sebaceous gland that has been blocked." The first time I wore my WENS t-shirt she let me know what a wen was and I'm grossed out to this day.



WSVL was a Country music station which was bought in 1979 by what would become Emmis Broadcasting. In 1981 the call letters were changed to WENS and they switched to an Adult Contemporary format. This lasted until 2005 when they flipped back to Country as Hank FM. WENS was licensed to Shelbyville, Indiana near Indianapolis.

Monday, February 2, 2009

WHOG

Happy Groundhog Day.

Happy Groundhog Day.

Happy Groundhog Day.

WHOG is a Classic Rock station licensed to Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

WGNS





Murfreesboro, Tennessee's 1450 AM WGNS (W Good Neighbor Station) began broadcasting in 1947. Today it's a typical News/Talker but they played popular music up until the early 1990s. They are one of the very few stations that is allowed to simulcast their primary AM signal onto an FM translator of which they have two--at 100.5 and 101.9 FM.

Amusing Call Letters #1 - WSUC

WSUC is a college station from the State University of New York at Cortland. In 1976 they were making the switch from an AM carrier-current station to FM and had to submit 5 sets of call letters to the FCC. Their choices were WCSU, WMLF, WCJL WRTC and, as a joke, WSUC. Thank you FCC. You chose wisely.

Sunday Sticker - KHCB




105.7 KHCB is the flagship of the 21-station KHCB Network located mostly in Texas but also with stations in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. The 100.9 sticker is from K265DH, one of their 6 translator stations in Texas.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Mystery Sticker #3 SOLVED!

Identifying this sticker has been a fruitless challenge. There are clues but so far Google hasn't been able to work her magic on this one. The backing of the sticker is brown and the full AM frequency isn't given so I'll take a wild guess and say it's from the mid 1970s. Here's what we know so far....
--The current KKEA is in Honolulu, Hawaii at 1420 AM.
--There is a WKEA at 98.3 in Scottsboro, Alabama owned by KEA Radio. There happens to be a station at 1330 AM also licensed to Scottsboro--WZCT--but I can't find a previous ownership connection between the two. The only former call letters I could find for WZCT were WSGG.
--Maybe it's a television station...Channel 13...doubtful.
Help!

UPDATE:  A reader confirmed that there was a WKEA in Scottsboro, Alabama circa 1981.  Thank You person-who-I-didn't-ask-permission-to-use-her-name-but-it-rhymes-with-Maureen!

WBVP


1230 AM WBVP went on the air in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in May, 1948.  They air a News/Talk format and are one of 51 stations in the Pittsburgh Steelers Radio Network.  WBVP is licensed to (W) BeaVer Falls, PA.

Friday, January 30, 2009

KCEL

KCEL broadcast a variety of musical genres including Rock, Country, Jazz, Oldies and other specialty shows before being sold and flipped to a Regional Mexican format in 2004.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Mystery Sticker #2 SOLVED!!


The typeface and overall groovy design of this sticker, along with the brown backing, suggests that this is from the 1970s. Someone wrote the call letters on the back but to me it looks like "YBTM-FM." A KBTM currently exists but it's an AM station in Arkansas. WBTM is a station at 1330 AM in Virginia. Not much to Google on here. Any ideas?
UPDATE: It is indeed KBTM - Jonesboro, Arkansas circa 1979-1982. Thanks for your help everybody! I'm pretty stoopid.

WUFM


WUFM is the home of the Radio U network of Alternative Christian stations based in Columbus, Ohio. Radio U has four translators in Ohio as well as two outlets in California. You have to listen pretty closely to the lyrics to even realize they're playing Christian rock....the song I'm listening to right now is a dead-on impersonation of the Killers. Specialty shows also delve into rap, electronica and hardcore/metal.