WHYL
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| City of license | Carlisle, Pennsylvania |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Harrisburg, Pennsylvania |
| Branding | Good Time Oldies 960 |
| Frequency | 960 kHz |
| First air date | 1948 |
| Format | Oldies |
| Power | 1300 watts (day) 22 watts (night) |
| Class | D |
| Facility ID | 74556 |
| Transmitter coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Callsign meaning | Initials |
| Former callsigns | WLXW |
| Owner | Harold Z. Swidler (WHYL, Inc.) |
| Sister stations | WIOO, WCAT-FM |
WHYL (960 AM) is an oldies music formatted radio station licensed to serve Carlisle, Pennsylvania, consisting of a 2 tower array broadcasting on 960 kHz. This site was lost and the station now operates from the site of WCAT-FM with a omnidirectional_antenna at reduced power. See FCC letter cited in Signal coverage and power levels below. WHYL was referred to as "while in Carlisle'. The call letters are the initials of Richard F. Lewis, Jr.'s wife, one of the station's former owners. The call sign was shared with an FM sister station, WHYL-FM, broadcasting on 102.3 MHz from an antenna on the south tower, later moving to Sterret's Gap. On April 26, 2002 the call sign was changed to WRKZ-FM[1] (the call sign was changed again on February 17, 2004 and is currently WCAT-FM).[2] WHYL is an affiliate of Citadel Media.
As of January 1st 2014 the station was off the air and no carrier signal was being broadcast. The station had filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Longtime morning host Ben Barber left the station in late 2013, at which time other programs, including the John Tesh syndicated midday show, were also discontinued. The station broadcasts were fully automated after this, and there were some periods during which a carrier signal was broadcast without any programming. In June of 2014, Harold Z. Swidler purchased the station, and will return it to the air as soon as possible.
Signal coverage and power levels
The directional array that was used forms a dual lobe pattern extending East-West from around Morgantown to around Everett[1]. The current antenna is a single element located on the tower with WCAT-FM Red 102.3. It is a temporary antenna and the station is operating on an FCC Special Temporary Authorization requested December 19,2014 and granted March 10, 2015. This allows operation at the station's daytime nondirectional (omnidirectional_antenna) power of 1.3 kilowatts and a nighttime power of 22 watts - the request was for 27 watts and reduced by the FCC to 22. FCC Letter of 3/10/2015 authorizing return to operation The WCAT-FM tower is located at 40° 17' 23.00" N Latitude 77° 08' 10.00" W Longitude (NAD 27).
As a Class D station, WHYL is required to lower its power at sunset and even lower during the nighttime because of skywave interference to co-channel stations. Between sunrise and sunset [2], the station is permitted to operate at its full 5,000 watt power level. This was retuced to 1.3 kw by the STA mentioned above. During months where sunrise happens later than 6:00am local time, pre-sunrise authorization allows the station the raise its power to 500 Watts beginning at 6:00am. Post-sunset authorization allows the station to broadcast beyond sunset at a reduced power level in steps starting around 100 watts and ending up at night time power of 22.3 watts.
Format
Note that the newspaper article Dated 6 December 1948 Monday refutes the information from Fabulous Fifty web site dated 1967 which is the basis for mos of the other information here. As a side note, I lived in the area from 1943 to 1967 and it conflicts with my recollections of the era. See the clips attached. According to them the station went on the air as WLXW on December 4, 1948 and one of its first broadcasts was Santa coming to Carlisle. The station operated out of the building just south of town along Rt 34. Quoting the article - The owner is Col. Phillip Matthews, State Democratic (sic) chairman, and was placed in operation here Saturday Morning. The 1000-watt station is operating daily from sunrise to sunset on a frequency of 1380 kilocycles. (Note: The term kilocycles is correct for the era. The unit name is now kilo Hertz.) Jerry McDevitt, formerly of Altoona, is the manager of the station. The Rev. Harry Lee, Carlisle and Vincent Shafmeister, Camp Hill, a student at Dickinson College, are full-time announcers. Dave Taylor, also a Dickinson student is a part-time announcer. The station is located on the Mt. Holly Pike, one-fourth mile south of town. It is contained in a one-story structure, which has two studios, control room, newsroom with teletype, a record library and five offices. The 187-foot antenna is on the same plot of ground. End article. A more exact location for the station is on the east side of the Mount Holly Springs Pike about 1/4 mile south of where Interstate 83 crosses PA 34. The station's original frequency and call sign was WLXW/1380 which was moved to WHYL/960 in the early fifties, approximately 1952 or 53. I am currently looking for a cite on this. I can find no evidence other than the Fabulous Fifty that the station ever operated from Camp Hill PA. The original 187 foot tower works well with the frequency 1380 - one quarter wave is 178 feet. The frequency of 960 has a quarter wave of 256 feet. Antenna design Section 2, Omni Antennas(Conversion frequency to Feet) For efficiency quarter wave antennas were common at that time. The Evening News 6/12/1948 The News Chronicle Shippensburg PA 12/3/1948 End Note....
- 1953 Flipped format to Top 40.
- 1966: The current morning show host, Ben Barber, joins the station (pictured in The Channel 96 WHYL Smile Guys, last head shot at the bottom).
- 1980: Format flip to country.
- December 10, 1984: Post-sunset authorization was granted and began.
- 1989: Station is sold to Lincoln Zeve under Zeve Broadcasting, who flips format to adult standards.
- 2002: Citadel Broadcasting purchases the station and flips format to satellite based "Music of Your Life" oldies.
- 2004: Citadel sells the station to start-up company Route 81 Radio.
- March 6, 2004: Route 81 drops oldies format for locally-originated adult standards.[3]
- February 14, 2005: Flipped format to talk format in an effort to compete with long-time talker WHP 580.[4]
- November 24, 2005: Began another format flip, stunting with an all-Christmas music format.[5]
- January 2, 2006: The station assumed the Adult standards format, still on the air today.[6]
- January 15, 2007: Royal Broadcasting, Inc. signs an asset purchase agreement [3] to buy the station and begins to operate it under an LMA.[7]
- January 14, 2008: Royal Broadcasting, Inc. does not renew its LMA because of the untimely processing of the request by the Federal Communications Commission[8] partly due to a petition to deny filed on the license renewal.[9] Ownership defaults back to Route 81 Radio. Petition to deny rejected by FCC and station is LMA'd to Trustworthy Radio LLC on July 15, 2008, with original Route 81 GM Bruce Collier returning as half-owner. Adult Standards format remains along with Ben in the morning.
- March 7, 2015: WHYL returns to the air with an oldies format branded as "Good Time Oldies 960"
References
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- ↑ Call Sign History
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