Assorted Wednesday Stuff

With the snow melting, we're gonna get this out of the way, head outside and pretend it's early April again.

We may have missed some stuff...but you get the Primary Editorial Voice(tm) output you pay for...

AND THE CLASS B WINNER IS: In an item just below this, we noted an online notice from a station broker offering up a class B Cleveland AM signal for sale, complete with a "new transmitter".

We then went through a list of Cleveland-based AM class Bs, and picked 'em off pretty much one by one, and then brought up advice from long-time friend and colleague Scott Fybush (NorthEast Radio Watch)...that station brokers often list stations under wide metropolitan definitions - basically, it would appear, the TV market ADI ("Area of Dominant Influence").

Simply put, a "Cleveland" AM signal could be anywhere from Sandusky to Ashtabula, or from Mansfield to Alliance. and still count by that definition.

How about Painesville?

A couple of OMW readers with a handle on such things believe that the station in question is WABQ/1460 Painesville, the Radio Advantage One/D&E Communications-owned gospel outlet.

D&E's Dale Edwards moved the WABQ calls and gospel format from Cleveland-licensed 1540 to the Painesville facility after Good Karma Broadcasting bought what's now sports WWGK "KNR2", companion to big brother station WKNR/850 "ESPN 850".

Of course, when Good Karma's Craig Karmazin bought then-WABQ, he had not yet purchased WKNR. Plug "WABQ" into our search box up at the top left for that long-running story, chronicled in painstaking detail right here on your Mighty Blog of Fun(tm).

1460 is not a bad facility at all for Lake County. But we suspect if Dale Edwards was hoping to use it as a replacement for 1540 in Cleveland's near-eastern areas, he quickly became disappointed.

You can pick up 1460 on the radio at the 1540 site at 80th and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, but have to endure a lot of static. The signal isn't much better as close in as the suburb of Euclid, but obviously gets better as you head east on I-90 or Ohio 2.

Of course, 1460 has one advantage over 1540 - you can't hear Cleveland's 1540 anywhere at night.

We have not confirmed that WABQ is the station in the listing we offered earlier, but it sounds like a likely candidate...

ONE TANK BLOG MEMORIES: Retired WJW/8 "Fox 8" veteran Neil Zurcher has continued to chronicle his famous "One Tank Trips" online, but now he's added another very interesting new blog to his collection.

"Northeast Ohio TV Memories" started last month, and is already full of pictures from Zurcher's days at South Marginal (and before) - a span that kept him busy for over 40 years, and turned "One Tank Trips" into a local institution - and prompted three popular books.

Neil writes about his new online presence:

-----

This site is dedicated to memories of Northeast Ohio Television.

It is mostly photos and memories of the people who were on both sides of the camera and the television set. We invite old friends and colleagues to submit pictures and other ephemera from the start in 1947 all the way up until today.

My name is Neil Zurcher, I spent 42 years associated with WJW-TV and some of our opening batch of photos are from my personal collection. I hope that my friends from Fox 8, the other stations in town, WEWS, WKYC, WOIO, WVIZ, WUAB, WAKR and any others I may have forgotten will also help build this site by submitting their personal photos as well as memories.

-----

By the way, we almost feel like putting an asterisk next to "Fox 8", both in our own writing and in Neil's opening. The vast majority of the time Mr. Zurcher spent at South Marginal (and the downtown building which preceded it), WJW was Cleveland's CBS affiliate.

On your way to check out "Northeast Ohio TV Memories", check in with our blogging colleague Tim Lones at "Cleveland Classic Media"...Tim has checked in today with his own item about Neil Zurcher's new blog.

And as such, though we've known about this since the weekend, we apologize for waiting to shed light on "Northeast Ohio TV Memories". As Tim wrote, we're also thrilled that such a respected veteran of local TV has embarked on a project to share more of the history of the medium in this region.

And like Tim, we'll add a link to the blog on our list as well...

SONIC BOOM: And like a similar item a few months ago, this one is only for the stomach.

OMW reader and WNIR listener "Wayne in Akron" reminds us that an eating place known for attracting local radio and TV types has opened up a second Northeast Ohio location.

Since we provided a mini play-by-play of the first week of the new Sonic Drive-In location in Streetsboro a ways back, it's only fair that we note the second location...which opened up a month or two ago in Stark County's Jackson Township.

It's at the corner of Fulton Drive and Wales Avenue NW, which admittedly is a bit of a drive from the I-77 interchange at Belden Village Mall.

But if you find yourself hankering for a chili cheese foot long hot dog, tater tots, limeade or any of the chain's once-exotic-to-Northeast Ohio treats, and you're south instead of north of Akron, you'll probably find your way there instead of Streetsboro.

Hmm. We gotta go...