WHAS-AM

WHAS-AM signed on in 1922.  It was owned by the Bingham family who also owned the Courier-Journal newspaper.  The following is a timeline of events with the radio station.

July 18, 1922     WHAS signs on.  Regular programming on 360 meters,
                  weather and farm programming on 480 meters.  Power 500w.
                  Transmitter and studios @ 3rd and Liberty St.

Dec  5, 1922      Frequency 750 Kc

Dec 16, 1922      Frequency 833.3 Kc

May 12, 1923      Frequency 750 Kc

May 30, 1925      First Derby broadcast

Dec 28, 1926      Affiliated with NBC network

Jun 15, 1927      Frequency 650 Kc, still 500 watts

Nov 16, 1927      Frequency 930 Kc

Nov 11, 1928      Frequency to 820. Power to 5KW. Transmitter moved
                  to Jeffersontown, KY.

Apr  1, 1929      First educational program for University of Kentucky

Oct  1, 1929      Power increased to 10 KW.  Frequency stays @ 930 Kc

Oct  5, 1931      First educational program for University of Louisville

Mar  2, 1932      Changed affiliation from NBC to CBS

Sep 30, 1932      Power increased to 25 KW

Dec  3, 1933      Power increased to 50 KW

        1937      Great flood swept Louisville.  More than 115 thousand
                  messages broadcast.

Mar  2, 1938      Transmitter moved to Eastwood, KY

Mar 29, 1941      Frequency changed to present day 840 Kc

Dec  1, 1942      Began key station operation.  39.6 KW

July22, 1944      FM radio station on air @ 45.5 meg (thru July 1945)
                  This would be one of three attempts at FM that WHAS would
                  make.

Apr 16, 1949      Studios and offices moved to 6th and Broadway.  Present
                  home of Courier-Journal building.

July 4, 1959      Dropped CBS, began independent operation

Mar  4, 1963      Affiliated with ABC Radio

Sep 22, 1964      New GE transmitter on air

Jan 19, 1965      First use of automatic program log for radio

Jan  1, 1968      Dropped ABC radio to re-affiliate with CBS

May 13, 1968      Began operation from new facilities at 6th and Chestnut
                  Present home of WHAS-TV and directly behind CJT building

Mar 30, 1970      Began 24 hour operation

mid 1980's        Bingham assets liquidated.  WHAS/WAMZ sold to Clear
                  Channel Broadcasting.  WHAS-TV sold to
                  Providence-Journal Broadcasting out of Providence, RI.
                  Courier-Journal newspaper sold to Gannett.

Pictures
And now the good stuff.  I have gone through several stacks of pictures and I want to share with you the ones that I have scanned so far.  They are from the mid to late 1930's and were taken at the Eastwood transmitter site after the installation of the new Western Electric (and you thought they only made phones) 50KW transmitter.  It is interesting to note that this transmitter was upgradable to 500KW.  WHAS has filed an application for an increase to 500KW, but the application was never acted on and eventually expired.  To this date, WLW in Cincinnati was the only station to operate with 500KW.  Two other stations in the southeast also filed applications for the superpower.  They were WSB in Atlanta and WSM in Nashville.  Like WHAS' application, they were not acted on and eventually expired.

Click on the links to see the pictures.  When you get through, hit the back button to get here.

This is the Eastwood site shortly after it was built.  Magnificent building.  The right portion of the building is a four car garage.  Off, out of the picture, to the right was the caretaker/chief engineer's cottage.


This is the transmitter.  Or should I say PART of the transmitter. The high voltage rectifiers and PA tubes are located behind the transmitter.  Here's a picture of the PA tubes.  For 500KW TPO, only the tubes had to be replaced with bigger tubes.

This is W9XWT fax transmitter.  The idea was to fax out copies of the Courier-Journal to home subscribers.  I don't know if the idea just didn't catch on, or if the circulation department objected to loudly but the service only lasted a couple of years.

And here is a wide shot of the transmitter room.  On the left is the Western Electric WHAS transmitter.  On the right is the FM transmitter.  I'm trying to find exactly what FM station that was.  I believe it was WCJT that was on 45.5 Mhz.  In the middle is the console for the Western Electric transmitter.  The W9XWT transmitter is behind the FM transmitter, in the corner.  I would LOVE to have that clock hanging in the background!  If you'll also notice, hanging above the WHAS transmitter are the licenses of all the engineers of the station.

This is a photo of a young girl receiving a copy of the Louisville Times via fax from W9XWT.  I would love to have a service like this.  No more walking out to the paper box in the cold rain to get the paper!

Go back to the start or keep going to WHAS-TV
There's also pictures from WHAS/WAMS-FM