AM 1480 signed on the air
in 1958. Today, over 50 years later, WIOS AM 1480 is still broadcasting from
studios on Meadow Road in Tawas City, Michigan.
2008 marked the 50th year of operation, and on September 27th, 2008 WIOS
celebrated its Golden Anniversary. Carroll Broadcasting
Incorporated has owned the 1,000 Watt radio station since 1968. Before purchasing WIOS, John Carroll Sr. owned WKMF AM 1470 in Flint, Michigan.
Prior to that he had been Vice President of Knorr Broadcasting and General
Manager of their flagship radio station in Detroit, WKNR (KEENER 13).
John Carroll Sr.
John Carroll Jr., (President & General Manager) came to the Tawases after
graduating from College. At that time WIOS was an AM daytime-only radio
station. Upon his arrival, plans were made to add an FM radio station. An
application was made to the FCC and granted in late 1979. WKJC FM 104.7 went
on the air that year at 50,000 Watts. Over the years the Carrolls have
added WKJZ FM 94.9 (50,000 Watts) in Alpena and
WQLB FM 103.3 (25,000 Watts)
in Tawas City. John's brother, Tim Carroll joined the family business in
1984 after he graduated from college and is now General Sales Manager.
John Carroll Jr.
(President & General Manager) said, “It doesn’t seem like I've been here for
35 years out of the fifty…I guess that dates me….time truly does fly by.
The Tawases are a great place to live and bring up a family…I feel very
fortunate to be able to live In Northern Michigan and to be doing something
I truly enjoy! "
Tim Carroll
(Vice President & Sales Manager) said, "I agree with John, for me it’s been
24 years. It’s great to be a part of the active history of the radio
stations and a second generation business."
Carroll Broadcasting programs what is called
"Nostalgia" or "Adult Standards" on WIOS. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Barry
Manilow etc. are part of the musical fare offered on our station along with
news from ABC, plus big band specials on the weekends and talk radio at
night.
John Carroll Jr. (President & General Manager) said, "Over
the years we have seen many changes in radio. Equipment that was bulky and
all vacuum tubes, turntables, tape recorders, albums, 45’s, 78’s…are a thing
of the past. Now, everything is on computer and digital. All the
music, commercials and everything that would fill two rooms back in 1958 is
sitting on your desk in a computer."
Happy Birthday WIOS! Thanks for 50 years of community service. Thanks
for filling the information and entertainment needs of Northeast Michigan!
East Tawas 1960's from a postcard
photo
Marvin Walther
This newspaper article from the Tawas City
Newspaper shows WIOS is slated to begin daily operations
September 27th, 1958. Click thumbnail for entire
article. Thanks to Neil Thornton for photographing these
historic articles.
photo
Marvin Walther
In this article, WIOS is still
building its 1,000 Watt facilities just off Meadow Road, located outside of the Tawas City
limits, in early 1958.
Here the reader is informed that at least one of the two towers is being set
in place. Today, those towers are still standing after over 50 years at the
same studio location and work is slated, soon, on restoration efforts to
keep the towers in good, broadcast-ready condition for decades to come.
WIOS now operates on pre-sunrise and post-sunset power levels 24 hours a
day. In 1958 a station was only on the air during daylight hours. Click on the
thumbnail to read the entire article. Archive access courtesy of Neil
Thornton.
photo
Marvin Walther
Here is a picture of
R. S. Underhill
(President of WIOS beginning in 1958) with the Chief Engineer, discussing the new
equipment installation for WIOS. With a few more engineers since then,
the current Chief Engineer is Marvin Walther who has an A.E.E. from the now-historic Valparaiso Technical Institute, Valparaiso, IN
. Click on the thumbnail to view the full sized picture.
Archivist Neil Thornton.
photo
Marvin Walther
In this article, WIOS is slated to
broadcast a Whittemore-Prescott versus Oscoda ballgame over the radio for the first time, no more than a
month after the station begins operation in 1958. Note the ballgames
had to be recorded back then, since there was no way to broadcast live, at
least with the equipment they had on hand! Click the thumbnail
to read the article.
Article reprint courtesy of Neil Thornton.
photo
Marvin Walther
Old Silver Valley advertisement
extolling the fun to be had during the Silver Valley Winter Sports Carnival
(1958). Today, there are only hints of all the ski and toboggan
runs that existed at Silver Valley near Silver Creek in the Huron National
Forest northwest of Tawas City between Tawas and Lumberman's Monument.
You can still hike the area near the Corsair ski trails and see the impact
that years of frolicking fun have had on the region. Click on the
thumbnail to see the whole ad. Thanks to Neil Thornton for archive
access.
photo
Marvin Walther
Ron Gamble, WIOS first General
Manager is seen here as the DJ in this historical photo after the station
opened for broadcasting in September of 1958. Click on the thumbnail
to view the larger picture.
Reprint thanks to Neil Thornton, Tawas area Archivist.
photo
Marvin Walther
Here the new WIOS ownership asks
"Will You Listen?" The station began broadcasting at 12 O'Clock (noon)
Saturday, September 27th, 1958. It's interesting to note that on
September 27th, 2008 (50 years later) it was also a Saturday. This
would not have happened if it weren't for the fact that in 2000, we did not
have a leap year due to the millennia rollover. Paper archive-Neil Thornton.
Postcard of Lumberman's Monument from May 25, 1941
photo
Marvin Walther
Remember what was on TV in 1958?
How about "Popeye", "The Price Is Right", or "You Bet Your Life" with Groucho Marx?
How about the Jack Paar Show (the predecessor to Steve Allen and the Tonight
Show, followed by Johnny Carson when TV went to color in the 60's!).
Click on the old TV guide and see what was happening on the Television
airwaves in 1958 when WIOS went on the air! TV Guide-Herald newspaper archive
courtesy of Neil Thornton.
Look
at this Philco Predicta TV from 1958. With an industry-first
printed circuit (PC) board design mixed with vacuum tubes, it made the
Predicta prone to overheating (not so predicta-ble!). Alas the
Predicta was fraught with reliability issues, but non-the-less remains an
iconic TV from 1958! They were so prolific in sales in 1958, that even
to this day they are not a rare find, and are still not too valuable as
collector items, that is unless you love the cool styling of the Predicta!
Click to see a larger Picture!
Visit
Neil Thornton's website and
learn more about the region's history through his books and DVDs. Neil
is the Tawas area's foremost historian and archivist. A reporter and
newspaperman, Neil's historic referential point of view of Iosco County and
surrounding areas breaths life into the historic figures and industries that
have come and gone from our region. Special thanks to Neil for letting
me photograph certain articles from the old News Herald from 1958.
Neil was the head of the Tawas paper for several decades. He's the author of
over 15 books on local history, lore and legend. You can visit
bookshops in downtown East Tawas that carry his historic writings, or to
learn more, just visit
Neil's Website. Thanks Neil for
letting me gather the photos for this historic review of WIOS Radio! -
Marvin Walther
1958 saw the innovation of
stereo phonograph records introduced to the public for the first time.
Columbia Records started as early as 1956, recording symphonies and
classical works in the new stereophonic technology, just so there would be
enough material to release on records come 1958. Pop recordings were
recorded in stereo toward 1957, 58, and 59, during a transition phase and as
custom recording equipment was being hand-built by the recording company's
own engineers and put into service. But, early on, most of the major
labels concentrated on their finer masterpieces comprised of classical
works, often re-recording pieces from the likes of Leonard Bernstein and the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra that had only been recorded a few years prior in
monophonic High Fidelity sound which had been around since 1949.
Special Thanks to the remarkable antique car dioramas
modeled and photographed by
Michael Paul Smith.
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Troubleshooting: AT&T Uverse™
users may not be able to listen to WIOS media stream with the Motorola™
2210-02-1ATT modem due to un-configurable port blocking. There is NO work-around
for this modem. Uverse™ users using a 2Wire 2701HGV-B for their HSI ADSL2/2+
service can use the internal routing settings to permit passthrough for port
1755 to listen to the WIOS media stream. If a Motorola™ Netopia™ modem came with
your Uverse™ setup, configure it like the 2701HGV-B to allow port 1755
passthrough. AT&T™ standard DSL users, Radio Wireless and Cable ISP systems
should work normally with no DMZ or port passthrough needed in the router/modem.
Please consult your ISP if you are have problems listening to WIOS online.
Symantec™ End Point Protection users must disable "Enable Stealth Web Browsing"
under "Network Threat Protection" to listen to WIOS media streaming. Windows
Media Player™ polls the encoder at the server for the the bit rate and version
number, and SEP does not permit the polling to occur if "Stealth Browsing" is
enabled. This is a known issue with SEP and no work-around is available except
to "turn off" the stealth browsing mode. "Stealth Web Browsing" may be featured
in other anti-virus software including Symantec™ products like Norton
Anti-Virus™. Users are advised to check their anti-virus settings that may block
Windows Media™ player. This affects all Windows Media™ players. If Windows Media
Player™ experiences garbled reception make sure that "download codecs
automatically" is selected under Tools/Options/Player tab, choose "Once a Day",
"Once a Week", or "Once a Month", depending on your preference. Other times when
WIOS cannot be heard may be due to unavailable network resources, ISP failure,
or Edcast Media Encoder™ or Icecast Server™ may have crashed on our end due to
overload of the server by exceeding our bandwidth. If you are still having
difficulty receiving the WIOS stream after following these troubleshooting
steps, feel free to contact Carroll Broadcasting at 989-362-3417 to let us know
you are having reception problems so we may make certain the streaming broadcast
is being sent from our studio. We can only give limited advice regarding your
computer or Wi-Fi radio set, we do not provide support for the Microsoft™
streaming client, we only support the server (broadcast) end of the stream but
we will be happy to help whenever we can. If you are still having problems, feel
free to contact your nearest computer expert for assistance.
Streaming Technical: WIOS uses Icecast Server with Edcast Media Broadcaster on
port 1755 and an MP3 Lame codec with a 64Kbps bit rate for the stream. Users
will see a bit rate of up to 64Kbps at 44.1kHz (FM quality) in Windows Media
Player, WinAmp, and other media players. Android and iOS phone users will see
bit rates around the same rate when using the TuneIn Radio app for Android. We
have ceased providing multicasts in different bit rates to prevent router
congestion and streaming lock-ups on our end. The audio stream is broadcast in
mono direct from our AM modulation monitor, you are hearing the same signal that
is broadcast over the air (audio processing included). If you have an
exceptionally good AM receiver with full 10kHz IF bandwidth, you will experience
a hi-fidelity frequency response closely approximating that of the streaming
service. WIOS's music is digitally "cleaned" and equalized to provide removal of
most analog noise, clicks and pops along with crisper highs and deeper lows on
older recordings where that range had been previously restricted.
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other websites may not function properly without them. This site will
function properly without tracking cookies enabled.
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seeing the "Now Playing" data? Make sure your
Java is
updated to the latest version and if that doesn't work, clear your Temporary
Internet Files cache and cookies. Also, newer versions of Internet Explorer block scripts
automatically thus preventing display of our "Now Playing" data. You will
have to go into your IE security settings and make wiosradio.com a safe zone or
enable Java scripting for this zone to get rid of the "nag screens" that come up
in IE when viewing this site.
Emails sent to this site are
subject to use by Carroll Broadcasting for promotional purposes. Your
anonymity is maintained if we decide to use your email to WIOS for publicity.
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AM 1480 signed on the air
in 1958. Today, over 50 years later, WIOS AM 1480 is still broadcasting from
studios on Meadow Road in Tawas City, Michigan.
2008 marked the 50th year of operation, and on September 27th, 2008 WIOS
celebrated its Golden Anniversary. Carroll Broadcasting
