[arrl-odv:19889] WKRP Belly Up
I just saw the news. The ever-popular WKRP (in Cincinnati) has gone belly up. The founder and owner is trying to figure a way to sell the station. I mention this only as a bit of TV broadcast nostalgia. "WKRP in Cincinnati," of course, was a very popular TV show about a bottom-feeder AM BC station in Cincinnati. The actual WKRP is a low-powered TV station that operates five digital feeds on Channel 25 (25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4 and 25.5). What next? WLW? On the good side of the ledger, I just ordered a Rohn 45, TH11 and M2 6 M beam to be ready to get back on the air when the monsoon season ends and allows the work to be done. Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040; Tel. 513-459-1661 ARRL, The national association for Amateur Radio
Jim, in the "What's in a name" department as it relates to callsigns and pop culture.... recall the song "WOLD"? It so happens the Rocky Mtn VUAC rep. is W0LD. His mother lives 130 miles east of me and I often QSO him on 2M FM as they travel through. And of course he occasionally gets grief about WOLD. Unlike the WKRP situation, he recently became CEO of Trans World Radio, and while they do more and more online programming they still are very much into ~megawatt HF broadcasting. Keeps him going to a basketful of semi-exotic to rare DX locales.... Back to the Real World of RF radiation --> enjoy the new hardware and have fun with the sunspots. 73 Bruce
WKRP (and especially Jan Smithers) being among my favorite things to watch on television while young, I have been interested in the call letters since then. They have bounced around from time to time, from station to station. It seems to me that the call letters are probably worth more than all of the other assets and the license of a stand-alone AM station combined these days. AMs are virtually unmarketable and have been since the recession started. Essentially, LPTV WLW is probably OK for now. I still have a photo of my mentor, Bob Booth, W3PS, with a huge backpack and whip antenna RPU unit doing a remote interview for WLW, holding a wired mic toward some "talent". Bob always claimed to have developed the first functional RPU for broadcast use but then again, facts got rearranged sometimes to fit Bob's view of how history should have occurred in the World of Bob. 73, Chris W3KD Christopher D. Imlay Booth, Freret, Imlay & Tepper. P.C. 14356 Cape May Road Silver Spring, Maryland 20904-6011 (301) 384-5525 telephone (301) 384-6384 facsimile W3KD@ARRL.ORG -----Original Message----- From: Jim Weaver K8JE <K8JE@ARRL.org> To: 'ODV' <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org> Sent: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 2:28 pm Subject: [arrl-odv:19889] WKRP Belly Up I just saw the news. The ever-popular WKRP (in Cincinnati) has gone belly up. The founder and owner is trying to figure a way to sell the station. I mention this only as a bit of TV broadcast nostalgia. "WKRP in Cincinnati," of course, was a very popular TV show about a bottom-feeder AM BC station in Cincinnati. The actual WKRP is a low-powered TV station that operates five digital feeds on Channel 25 (25.1, 25.2, 25.3, 25.4 and 25.5). What next? WLW? On the good side of the ledger, I just ordered a Rohn 45, TH11 and M2 6 M beam to be ready to get back on the air when the monsoon season ends and allows the work to be done. Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director ARRL Great Lakes Division 5065 Bethany Rd. Mason, OH 45040; Tel. 513-459-1661 ARRL, The national association for Amateur Radio _______________________________________________ rrl-odv mailing list rrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org ttp://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv
One of the creators of the WKRP TV show was the manager for one year of the college radio station I worked for all 4 years of my undergraduate life. He was a paid DJ at one of the stations in Atlanta but as a part-time student he could manage the station at what was then Georgia State College. He broadcast as Bill Dial but I think the real spelling was more like Diehl. When the TV show was on the air I wondered if the guy I had worked with was the same person who was involved in the TV show's creation. Only found out a few years ago from one of the other former station managers that this was true. I loved that TV show. 73 - Kay N3KN
participants (4)
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Bruce Frahm -
Chris Imlay -
Jim Weaver K8JE -
Kay Craigie