• My Account
  • Your Profile
  • Member Archives
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Cart / $0.00

No products in the cart.

Fybush.com
  • Home
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links
No Result
View All Result
Fybush.com
  • Home
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links

No products in the cart.

No Result
View All Result
Fybush.com
No Result
View All Result

Site of the Week 7/23/2021: Some Sites Around Buffalo

Scott Fybush by Scott Fybush
July 23, 2021
in Free Content, New York, Tower Site of the Week
0

Text and photos by SCOTT FYBUSH

Whenever our tower photographing buddy Mike Fitzpatrick of NECRAT.us comes to the area, there’s one destination that’s always on the list for a day trip, because there’s always something interesting to see over in Buffalo.

WNAR-LP
WNAR-LP
WNAR-LP
WNAR-LP
WBBZ-TV
WBBZ-TV

Or, in some cases, on the way to Buffalo – as, for instance, the little religious LPFM that’s been on the air since 2003 in the village of Arcade, 30 miles or so southeast of Buffalo, without us ever driving by for a picture. WNAR-LP (100.3) is chugging along out there in Wyoming County, running 14 watts from its own small tower on a farm south of Arcade, and now we (and you) have seen it.

Another quirky Buffalo-area signal is the lone high-band VHF digital TV broadcaster in town. WBBZ-TV is channel 67, virtually, but operates on RF channel 7 from a former telco microwave site off US 219 north of its city of license, Springville. (The studio for the MeTV affiliate is in the Eastern Hills Mall all the way across town, and we showed that to you in this space back in 2014.)

WBBZ-TV
WBBZ-TV
WBKV 89.9
WBKV 89.9
WBKV 89.9
WBKV 89.9

Next up as we head north toward Buffalo? How about a site that eluded us on previous visits, because it’s oddly hard to access for a tallish tower not far from a big city. When we first tried to get a shot of Buffalo’s 89.9, it was owned by Family Stations and called WFBF, but by the time we figured out how to get to this tower up on Chestnut Ridge in North Boston, the signal had been sold to EMF and had become “K-Love” outlet WBKV.

You really can’t see the WBKV tower or the three-bay antenna from much of anywhere unless you have the code for the gate, which sits almost three-quarters of a mile north of the tower site itself, up at the end of a long driveway that leads past several private properties before it finally gets to this SBA-owned tower site.

WBBZ-TV
WBBZ-TV
Former WBUF 92.9
Former WBUF 92.9

It’s a good thing we saw WBKV when we did, because it’s on the move: EMF holds a construction permit to move the station to a higher and much more accessible site with a very long history.

The ATC-owned tower on Cole Road in Boston, just east of US 219, went into radio use in 1948 for what was then WBNY-FM on 92.9, the FM sister to WBNY(AM) on 1400 and one of the first FM signals to hit the air in Buffalo on the new 88-108 FM dial. The 92.9 signal was sold off away from the AM in 1959, becoming WBUF, a callsign it has retained (with a couple of breaks) for more than half a century. But 92.9 isn’t here anymore – in 2006, it moved into the city of Buffalo to try to improve its urban signal in a market that has lots of in-city FMs that tend to overload radio front ends, making it hard for signals coming from the south hills to break through.

(Irony alert: the tower WBUF 92.9 now uses, behind the WIVB-TV studios on Elmwood Ave. in North Buffalo, is the one NBC built in the 1950s when it was trying to operate its own UHF station in Buffalo, a channel 17 signal then known as…. WBUF.)

Former WBUF 92.9
Former WBUF 92.9
Former WBUF 92.9
Former WBUF 92.9
WECK
WECK

We’ll show you one more Buffalo-area stop in this installment, and it’s a fun one. WECK (1230 Cheektowaga) has transmitted from the same low-slung building on Genesee Street not far west of the airport ever since it signed on in 1956. (Back then, it was WNIA, owned by maverick broadcaster Gordon P. Brown as a sister station to Rochester’s WSAY.)

WECK studio
WECK studio
WECK studio
WECK studio

For the last few years, WECK has been owned by another maverick broadcaster, longtime Buffalo sales maestro (and sometimes on-air talent) Buddy Shula. He’s extensively renovated this old studio/transmitter building, complete with lots of promotional signage and wraps outside and inside what was once a pretty bland facility.

That’s new Axia gear and some nice accent lighting and wall treatments in the main studio, part of a three-studio complex that also includes a production room and a news booth/voicetrack studio.

WECK studio
WECK studio

The transmitter room sits just across the hall from the doorway to the studio, and there’s a lot happening in here, too – two Harris transmitters for WECK, plus a third tucked in back for WUFO (1080), which now diplexes on the WECK tower out back.

WECK transmitter room
WECK transmitter room
WECK studio
WECK studio
WUFO's transmitter
WUFO’s transmitter

Did we mention that Buddy does a lot with promotional wraps on all the surfaces in the building?

Check out the studio doors and the nice lighting – you know you’re in a radio station when you’re in the WECK facility.

That’s the air studio behind the door at the end of the hallway, the newsroom to the left, and the production studio and transmitter room off to the right; behind us is a long corridor full of sales and programming offices, and downstairs there’s a nice conference room and a storage room full of neat historic goodies.

(Among them, oddly, are the very Pacific Recorders consoles your editor used 30 years ago as a tape op at Boston’s WBZ. How did that happen? Because when WBZ was moving studios in Boston in 1996, it was owned by CBS, which had also acquired the American Radio Systems cluster in Buffalo, which back then included WECK. So when WECK needed to build out a new studio in downtown Buffalo, it apparently inherited my old WBZ consoles, which then moved back here to Genesee Street when Buddy bought the station. We live in a small world sometimes!)

WECK/WUFO ATUs
WECK/WUFO ATUs

Out back, we get a quick look at the diplexing setup at the base of the WECK/WUFO tower – and then we’re off to see some of WECK’s FM translator network, which we’ll show you as part of our continued Buffalo look next week.

Thanks to WECK’s Dennis Majewicz for the tours!

SPRING IS HERE…

And if you don’t have your Tower Site Calendar, now’s the time!

If you’ve been waiting for the price to come down, it’s now 30 percent off!

This year’s cover is a beauty — the 100,000-watt transmitter of the Voice Of America in Marathon, right in the heart of the Florida Keys. Both the towers and the landscape are gorgeous.

And did you see? Tower Site of the Week is back, featuring this VOA site as it faces an uncertain future. 

Other months feature some of our favorite images from years past, including some Canadian stations and several stations celebrating their centennials (buy the calendar to find out which ones!).

We still have a few of our own calendars left – as well as a handful of Radio Historian Calendars – and we are still shipping regularly.

The proceeds from the calendar help sustain the reporting that we do on the broadcast industry here at Fybush Media, so your purchases matter a lot to us here – and if that matters to you, now’s the time to show that support with an order of the Tower Site Calendar. (And we have the Broadcast Historian’s Calendar for 2025, too. Why not order both?) 

Visit the Fybush Media Store and place your order now for the new calendar, get a great discount on previous calendars, and check out our selection of books and videos, too! 

 

And don’t miss a big batch of western New York IDs next Wednesday, over at our sister site, TopHour.com!

Next week: More Buffalo

Share this:

  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • More
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
Tags: WBBZWBKVWBUFWECKWUFO
Previous Post

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/19/2021: EMF Adds in the Keystone State

Next Post

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/26/2021: Remembering WCAP’s Cohen

Scott Fybush

Scott Fybush

Editor/Publisher, NorthEast Radio Watch and Tower Site of the Week

Related Posts

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/14/2025: Townsquare Cuts Continue
Free Content

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/14/2025: Townsquare Cuts Continue

In this week’s issue… Budget cuts hit Townsquare markets - WBEN rearranges schedule - WPDH's Taylor steps down - K-Love prepares for PA additions - "Swan" preens in VT

by Scott Fybush
July 14, 2025
NorthEast Radio Watch 7/7/2025: Boston Mourns LB
Free Content

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/7/2025: Boston Mourns LB

In this week’s issue… Remembering Boston's Lyndon Byers - CRTC approves Rogers, Evanov spins - Towers come down in PA, and might go up in NY - More FM moves in Ontario

by Scott Fybush
July 7, 2025
NorthEast Radio Watch 6/23-30/2025: Another Great Day in Alpine
Free Content

NorthEast Radio Watch 6/23-30/2025: Another Great Day in Alpine

In this week’s issue… Honoring radio's greatest inventor - Maine morning vet retiring - Buffalo names new HOF inductees - PA's Loftus retires

by Scott Fybush
June 30, 2025
Top of the Tower Podcast #65: Back and Forth With PA’s Jason Togyer
Free Content

Top of the Tower Podcast #65: Back and Forth With PA’s Jason Togyer

In this week's episode - Top of the Tower is back with a new spring/summer season of conversations with some of the most interesting people in radio! This week, it's another joint episode, a two-way chat with my good friend Jason...

by Scott Fybush
June 22, 2025
Next Post
NorthEast Radio Watch 7/26/2021: Remembering WCAP’s Cohen

NorthEast Radio Watch 7/26/2021: Remembering WCAP's Cohen

Log In

Join Now | Lost Password?

Get Fybush.com Updates

Get Fybush.com updates emailed directly to your inbox!

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
  • My Account
  • Store
    • Cart
    • Checkout
  • About/Contact
    • Scott Fybush
    • Copyright Information
    • Privacy Policy
  • Fybush Media
  • Links

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.