WOWO | The SWLing Post

Photo source: historyofwowo.com

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Snyder, who shares the following in reply to our previous post about a chunk of the WOWO fire escape in lucite:

Thomas,

Have you ever visited “www.historyofwowo.com“–?

This site was put together by Randy Meyer and has hundreds of photos from 95+ years of broadcasting. Many pictures are from me as I worked there from 1969 to 1982. The link below is to the promotional items page where there is another picture of the “World Famous WOWO Fire Escape” chunk of steel cast in lucite.

These were made in 1978 after the station moved from the Gaskins Building to the Central Building. (By the way, the Central building is no longer there.)

The Gaskins Building was a dismal place with no windows. The air and news people had to open the door to the fire escape to see if was sunny or raining. That is why the local temperature was from the World Famous Fire Escape. My piece of fire escape is in a box in the basement.

http://www.historyofwowo.com/the_rest.html

Many thanks for sharing this, Dave! WOWO is such an iconic AM station with such a deep history–I’m grateful all of these photos and history are being archived and shared online.

Click here to view HistoryofWOWO.com.

Spread the radio love

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Robert Yowell, who writes:

I walked into an awesome store today in Manhattan which specializes in vintage radios and ephemera. He had these two small lucite paperweights which I bought – one from KDKA the other from WOWO – two historic AM stations. The WOWO one contains a piece of the “world famous fire escape” [see above] which was from the original studio building on Washington Blvd in Ft Wayne Indiana.

The other lucite is a mystery that I hope your readers might help with. It was issued in 1995 for the 75th anniversary of KDKA. It appears to be a silver disc sandwiched with something orange colored in the center. Could it be from the transmitter site? I have attached photos here.

Thanks so much for maintaining such a great Blog site for SWL and other radio listeners ! I hope someone out there can help with my question – thank you!

A few hours later, Robert wrote this follow-up message:

Thomas – I just found the answer to my question. I now own a piece of the original KDKA transmitter tower!

http://www.antiqueradio.com/KDKA_3-96.html

What a great piece of history you have there, Robert. Both WOWO and KDKA are legendary! Thanks for sharing!

Spread the radio love