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Personal observations about a fine station...
The station produced the national broadcasts of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Magnetic Recorder Reproducting Company made
the recordings. Jim Keeler, produced and hosted the series heard Sunday afternoons. In fact once assistant conductor William
Smith called saying he and Mr ORMANDY were listening to the broadcast in their office and wish the `stay level` monitor on
the broadcast line could be turned off...as it sucked up all the quiet passages, which they found annoying.
In the late 1960's both AM and FM simulcasted and carried programs of NBC Radio. If the NBC program was dropped the commercial
matter had to be recorded and broadcast with in the hour. Frequently a fully sponsored program such as a sporting event was
not aired but resulted in an hour of short musical selections with frequent and many times the same commercials repeated over
and over. Listener reaction was understandably quite negative. There is a website indicating WFLN-AM 900kc went on the air
in the late 1950's. I believe this was a few years later.
DELAWARE VALLEY radio listeners of the 1950's may recall hearing the voice
of AL BARCLAY for many years on WJBR out of Wilmington, Del. As a youngster living in Drexel
Hill, Pa A. Campbell recalls hearing him there then on WFLN where he worked for the rest of his life. He said he used the
name BARCLAY, as his real name, BRESSLER, was too German for post WWII listeners.
Station engineer TOM MOYER was a technical wizard and fanatic about new trends in broadcasting, stereo, microphones and
transmissions. Frequently in the studio there would be a new turntable, stylus, cartridge or technical gizzmo he was testing
for some electronic company.
In the early days you could hear two voices on each shift. Daytime announcer would read news live and record a reel to
reel of commercials, ids and music announcements for use by evening announcer. At night the live announcer woulds read news
and play taped liners of daytime announcer. He would record a liner tape for use the next day by daytime announcer. Thus there
were two distinct WFLN announcer voices on duty all the time.
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