Cub Scout Tour, WLNG Fall 1963

Man, I was in the Cub Scouts, when I was ten, and in the fall of 1963 our den toured WLNG radio station on Redwood Rd. The station had just opened in August 1963 having constructed a small building on the waterfront on Redwood Road in Sag Harbor, and erecting a tower they had moved here from Connecticut. The station was on 1600 AM and broadcast from 6AM to local sunset with 500 watts of power. When were walked into the station it was a reception area with a secretary in the center. On the left was the studio with a glassed enclosed transmitter. On the right was a production room where they taped commercials. Very small, about the size of a large chicken coop. The DJ that November afternoon we were there, was Chris Johnson, and we got to watch as he cued up records and read commercials. The station also broadcast the Mutual News network in those days via leased landline, no satellites were yet available for these purposes. Other DJ's were Joe Ricker, Paul Sidney and Don Cannon who went on to work a 50 KW station in Philly. Probably their biggest show was Shop and Swap. I remember Joe Ricker the newsman telling me he got up and left his house on Jermain Ave. at 3:30 AM each morning and walked down to the station. He called all the local PD's to get news for his newscast on the half hour. About 1970 the station got a license for FM at 92.1 MHZ. and the building was expanded, I remember one night in the winter of 1977-78 a terrific snowstorm hit during the evening. The tide rose to such a level that the fire department had to evacuate the radio station around 11PM. This was all broadcast live until they had to shut off the transmitter for safety purposes do to the water entering the building to a height of about 6 inches. Later the station bought land on Millstone Road and put up a higher tower for better FM transmissions while keeping their original station on Redwood Rd. and linking it to their new transmitter site via microwave. A few years ago the station sold their AM 1600 license for a reported 750K and went silent forever so a New York Station could get better coverage on the 1600 KHZ frequency. WLNG is still around today. Hasn't changed much, and it's oldies format and DJ talk has seem to make the station a continued success.


WLNG station photo from Al Case website, circa 1982