Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Looks a frequent save chat shout and welcome back to
Alabama's morning news. My name is John Mounts. I'm filling
in hosting the show for JT one more day, and
today is Friday. And Friday is a special day on
the show because we have a segment JT likes to
call Random Fact Friday. It's time and during Random Fact Friday,
JT raids off five random facts. But I'm not JT,
(00:28):
and so my facts are not going to be random.
In fact, my facts are going to be extremely specific,
specific to Birmingham Radio. So here we go. Five facts
about Birmingham Radio. Number one, Alabama's first radio station, was
signed on in nineteen twenty one by the Alabama Power Company.
It was WSY, which stood for We Serve You. The
license was then donated to Auburn, which at the time
(00:48):
was known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, hence WAPI was born.
WAPI started out in Auburn, it moved to Birmingham, where
it resided until the company that owned it signed it
off the air earlier this year. It is there anymore.
Don't go try to listen to it. It's not there.
Keep listening right here. Number two Alabam's oldest surviving radio
station is this radio station, or the AM side of
(01:09):
this radio station. WBrC Radio was signed on one hundred
years ago by the Bell Radio Company, owned by physician
JC Bell. The frequency was originally nine fifty AM, moved
up to nine sixty because they made everybody move up
by ten kilo cycles for whatever reason. In nineteen seventy two,
the Taft Broadcasting company that owned WRC TV and radio
at the time decided they didn't want the radio around anymore,
(01:29):
so they sold off the radio side. We became WERC
because we had to change the calls. We wanted to
be as close as possible, So WERC sounds pretty close
to WBrC when said quickly and sloppily like this WRC
towrc C, you can't tell the difference. WBrC WERC number three.
The letters AM and FM that are affixed to radio
station frequencies have to do with the way the signal
(01:50):
is propagated. FM stands for frequency modulation and AM amplitude modulation.
We are at the station both on AM and FM
at nine sixty AM and one oh five point five FM.
Number four. HD HD Radio was created by Abiquity Digital Corporation.
It allows broadcasters to pack more information into a signal.
That's the reason why many HD stations have an HD one,
HD two, HD three. This station is an HD one station.
(02:14):
Again stands for hybrid digital because the digital signal is
kind of on either side of the band of the
analog signal in the middle, so it's hybrid number five.
Before all the over the air TV stations were required
by the FCC to turn off their analog signal and
move just to an HD or high definition broadcast. All
(02:34):
VHF or very high frequency stations as channels two through
thirteen broadcast their audio and analog on the FM side,
and that included Channel six. And it just so happens
that if you had a Channel six in your city
like we have here, that the audio ends up on
eighty eight point seven FM. That's the reason why up
until a few years ago, you could listen to Channel
six at eighty eight point seven excuse me, eighty seven
(02:57):
point seven on your car radio eighty seven point seven.
But you can't anymore because they had them turn it off.
And I know the TV station was upset. I was upset,
everyone was upset. Can't do anything about it. That's the government.
Them's the brakes. And those are your five random facts
for this Friday in three minutes. Trafficking weather, This is
Alabama's morning News. I'm John mount In for JT.