Hi Everyone!
I am the person "close to" WRNO....well, I'm not really close as I am now living in Boston. Last year I did a story in Monitoring Times magazine about the new WRNO WW coming back. I am surprised it took so long, but guess their money flows slowly. That is how I got to know Janet Mawire and their transmitter engineer Larry (who is an interesting person to talk with).
Since hearing them a week ago I have not had a chance to listen again. Their antenna is beamed to the northeast and puts a very good signal into NC to NYC area among other places. It was a pretty good signal when I listened.
I remember visiting the new WRNO SW studios off the I-10 and their getting ready to go on the air in the early 80's as I had a friend engineer working for Joe who would tell me scuttlebutt. I was scared they'd overload my SW receiver when they went on the air (which they did not).
The new folk's transmitter is a new Elcor plate modulated rig in the old transmitter building on the same spot on the West Bank. Same antenna (and a nice one).
I enjoyed Joe's experiment (listening to screaming guitars though a selective fade is painful!) and actually wish it was successful, but I guess it was hard for advertizers to determine if their ads were effective. It was weird hearing promos for Zebra concerts while listening in Boston! The new WRNO will be mostly religous programming.
On a side note, I grew up in NOLA and used to work at WTUL (if ya call that work!), WBYU-FM, WLTS, as well as WGNO-TV and WLAE TV stations. Still visit and occasionally and tune the dials. The city's radio market has gone down alot since I lived there. Sad.
Dan Brown
www.danbrown.tv