Radio History: November 7

➦In 1922..WNAX 570 AM in Yankton, South Dakota, signed-on.  The station is now owned by Saga Communications and airs News/Talk.

WNAX broadcasts at 5,000 watts around the clock from a tower in eastern Yankton. Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, transmitter power, and South Dakota's flat land (with near-perfect ground conductivity) the station's 5,000-watt signal provides at least secondary coverage during the day to most of the eastern half of South Dakota, much of western Iowa, and most of the densely populated portion of Nebraska. 

WNAX was first licensed on November 7, 1922, to the Dakota Radio Apparatus company, and is the oldest surviving radio station in the state of South Dakota. The call-letters came from a sequentially assigned list, and WNAX was the last station in the state to receive a callsign starting with a W instead of K (other than sister station WNAX-FM), as additional stations in the state were established after the January 1923 shift that moved the K/W call letter boundary from the western border of South Dakota to the Mississippi River.  (H/T David Ocar)

'Buck Rogers'

➦In 1932..."Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" was first broadcast on the CBS Radio Network.

➤In 1935...Broadcasting Magazine Flashback...

➦In 1937…"The Vaseline Program," aka "Dr. Christian's Office" and later simply "Dr. Christian," sbegan a run on CBS Radio. Jean Hersholt played the part of the kindly, elderly Dr. Christian who practiced on the air until 1954. Laureen Tuttle, Kathleen Fitz, Helen Kleeb and Rosemary De Camp played his nurse, Judy.  Sponsors of the show included Vaseline (petroleum jelly, hair tonic and lip ice).

➦In 1938...Radio station "W9XZY" broadcasted a facsimile of the St Louis Post-Dispatch by radio.

➦In 1938...the first broadcast of “This Day is Ours” was heard on CBS radio. Eleanor McDonald, played by Joan Banks and later by Templeton Fox, had all kinds of problems. Her child was kidnapped, she lost her memory, helped a friend find a killer, etc. The soap opera ran for two years.

➦In 1940..WBZ-FM Boston first signed-on-air.

The first WBZ-FM had its origins in a construction permit held by Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company to operate at 42.6 MHz; this facility signed on as W1XK from the Hull transmitter site of sister station WBZ-AM .  Westinghouse soon sought a commercial FM license, and on February 19, 1941 was granted a construction permit for W67B on 46.7.  W1XK left the air for good on December 28, 1941, and W67B signed on March 29, 1942. The call letters became WBZ-FM on November 2, 1943. Initially, W67B/WBZ-FM was largely separately-programmed, though in later years it became a simulcast of its AM sister station.

After the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moved the FM band to 88–106 MHz (later expanded to 108), WBZ-FM began to operate on 100.7 MHz on January 1, 1946 (while still operating on 46.7 as well).  The frequency again changed to 92.9 MHz on August 10, 1947 (the 100.7 frequency was reoccupied by WCOP-FM, now WZLX, in 1948).

WBZ-FM's transmitter moved to the WBZ-TV (channel 4) tower at the stations' new studios in the Allston-Brighton portion of Boston in 1948, with 92.9 operations from Hull ceasing on July 23, 1948 and the 46.7 operation shutting down on November 21, 1948.  The tower was destroyed by Hurricane Carol on August 31, 1954, after that point, WBZ-FM's operations were discontinued and the license surrendered to the FCC, which deleted it and a Springfield sister station, WBZA-FM (97.1), on November 22, 1954.  (The 92.9 frequency has been occupied by WBOS since 1960.)

After securing a new license for operation on 106.7 MHz, Westinghouse reactivated WBZ-FM on December 15, 1957.  On July 14, 2009, CBS Radio announced that it would re-introduce WBZ-FM as a sports radio station named "98.5 The Sports Hub" effective August 13, 2009.  Today, the station is owned by Beasley Media and airs a sports talk format.

➦In 1967...the non-profit Corporation for Public Broadcasting came into being when President Lyndon Johnson signed the authorizing legislation. It is the agency through which US government funding reaches public TV stations.

➦In 1994...WREK Atlanta, operated by the students of Georgia Tech, became the first radio station anywhere to simulcast their on-air signal on the Internet.

➦In 2005...Howard Stern was suspended for 1 day from his radio show after an altercation with Tom Chiusano, General Manager of WXRK, New York, Stern's flagship station, owned by Infinity. The argument, which took place following Stern's show, apparently centered around Stern talking too much about his forthcoming show on Sirius satellite.

Singer Lorde is 28

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAYS:

• Actor Dakin Matthews (“Gilmore Girls,” “King of Queens”) is 84. 
• Singer Johnny Rivers is 82. 
• Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is 81. 
• Actor Christopher Knight (“The Brady Bunch”) is 67. 
• Guitarist Tommy Thayer of Kiss is 64. 
• Actor Julie Pinson (“As the World Turns,” “Days of Our Lives”) is 57. 
• Guitarist Greg Tribbett of Mudvayne is 56. 
• Actor Michelle Clunie (“Queer as Folk,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show”) is 55. 
• Actor Christopher Daniel Barnes (“The Little Mermaid,” “Malcolm and Eddie”) is 52. 
• Actor Jason London (“The Rage: Carrie Two”) is 52. 
• Actor Jeremy London (“Party of Five”) is 52. 
• Actor Yunjin Kim (“Mistresses,” “Lost”) is 51. 
• Actor Adam DeVine (“Modern Family”) is 41. 
• Guitarist Zach Myers of Shinedown is 41. 
• Actor Lucas Neff (“Raising Hope”) is 39. 
• Rapper Tinie Tempah is 36. Singer Lorde is 28.

✞REMEMBRANCES

• In 1908..Butch Cassidy, American train and bank robber, shot by Bolivian soldiers at 42
• In 1962..Eleanor Roosevelt, American diplomat (UN Commission on Human Rights), activist and First Lady of the United States (1933-45), dies at 78
• In 1980..Steve McQueen, American actor called "The King of Cool" during the 1960s (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape), dies of a heart attack after surgery at 50
• In 1962..Jack Kelly, American actor (Bart-Maverick, Get Christie Love), dies following a stroke at 65
• In 1995..Melvin "Slappy" White, American comedian and actor, dies of a heart attack at 74
• In 2011..Joe Frazier, American boxer (Olympic gold heavyweight 1964; undisputed world heavyweight champion 1970-73), dies of liver cancer at 67
• In 2016..Leonard Cohen, Canadian writer and singer-songwriter ("Hallelujah"; "Death of Ladies Man"; Suzanne"), dies at 82
• In 2020..Norm Crosby, American comedian and "Master of the Malaprop" (Liar's Club), dies of heart failure at 93
• In 2021..Dean Stockwell, American stage and screen actor (The Werewolf of Washington; Blue Velvet; Quantum Leap), dies at 85
• In 2022..Leslie Phillips, British stage, screen, and radio actor (Carry On; Harry Potter films), dies at 98