WIVS in Crystal Lake

[Link]

This station was mentioned in passing in a recent article in the Nytimes.  I've never heard anything about it being anything out of the normal.  I assume this was before the standards format as WAIT.  Can anyone point me to info on the web about this station or describe its early existence?  What kind of station was it?

[b344077]

It had a diversified format very similar to a small town station. It was 500 @ 850 Khz daytime Originally owned by long time DJ Mal Bellairs.

[RayScuba]

850 in Crystal Lake started as WCLR in October 1965. Mal Bellairs
purchased the station sometime after Mal 'retired' from WBBM in 1968 (really because WBBM went all news then) and then renamed WCLR to WIVS since
Mal wanted to reach women during the day with mostly talk, hence the
WIV(e)S cal sign. So Mal is not the original owner of 850 AM.
 
Since WBBM went "all-news" in 1968 - actually WBBM with news as its main
format had music overnight for awhile - it was called Music 'Til Dawn
and it was aired on a small network [which had included WLW, KRLD and WEEI since the 1940's].  Music 'Til Dawn lasted about a year or so after WBBM started the all-news format)

The original studio location for 850 was 145 Virginia St. in Crystal Lake, and
remained so until Next Media bought them (then moved studios first to an
office building at 8600 U.S. Highway 14, and later constructed their own building right next to the transmitter/tower site with the address as 8800 U.S. Highway 14. The transmitter is at the same location as it was when signing on in 1965, NE of the intersection of State Route 176 and U.S. Highway 14 next door to McHenry County College. At times [particuilarly in the winter] 850 has used low power after sunset, something like 10 watts, however that power barely covered the City of License, and it appears the current owners (Chicago Newsweb Corp.) are not using the Post-Sunset power. Don't think any owner
of 850 ever bothered with Pre-Sunrise power as KOA would obliterate 850's signal....

[jeff james]

just a slight change to ray's response - the studios were at virginia road originally but were moved to COMMERCE ROAD along with the fm in the mid 1970's and stayed there till the facility was moved in the summer of 1988 to 8600 us hyw 14

[cyberdad]

I worked there (sales) for a little over a year around 1977.  Mal owned it, while his two sons, Rick and Jerry, basically ran the place.  Good folk all...although its safe to say Mal probably wasn't the world's greatest businessman. (Fortunately, son Jerry ran most of the biz side and had a pretty decent head for it). 

Format was primarily "contemporary MOR" on WIVS during those days....with Mal mostly doing talk in the afternoons, but also mixing in a few tunes (mostly standards and showtunes).  He definitely had fabulous pipes and a following with (mostly older) women. Hence, the WIVS call letters.  Off-air, Mal was easy-going, approachable, pleasant to be around, and a great story-teller.  Listening to his old 'BBM and CBS war stories was always a treat.

Co-Owned 105.5 (WXRD) was essentially AOR.  Rick Bellairs was PD. Studios were in the Old Woodstock courthouse building.  The WXRD stick was one of the WIVS towers adjacent to McHenry County College northwest of Crystal Lake.  The same arrangement exists today for WAIT and WZSR.

[cyberdad]

I worked there (sales) for a little over a year around 1977.  Mal owned it, while his two sons, Rick and Jerry, basically ran the place.  Good folk all...although its safe to say Mal probably wasn't the world's greatest businessman. (Fortunately, son Jerry ran most of the biz side and had a pretty decent head for it). 

Format was primarily "contemporary MOR" on WIVS during those days....with Mal mostly doing talk in the afternoons, but also mixing in a few tunes (mainly standards and showtunes).  He definitely had fabulous pipes and a following with (mostly older) women. Hence, the WIVS call letters.  Off-air, Mal was easy-going, approachable, pleasant to be around, and a great story-teller.  Listening to his old 'BBM and CBS war stories was always a treat.

Co-Owned 105.5 (WXRD) was essentially AOR.  Rick Bellairs was PD. Studios were in the Old Woodstock courthouse building.  The WXRD stick was one of the WIVS towers adjacent to McHenry County College northwest of Crystal Lake.  The same arrangement exists today for WAIT and WZSR.

[monkman]

This is weird..I was just talking with someone about WIVS and wondering what's happened there.
I never worked there, but in my "early years" I had the stones to call up Mal, tell him I was running the controls and mowing the grass at the old WEAW and how do I advance myself in a business which enthralled me from about the time  I was born? Mal  (along with Bob Hale, Clark Weber, Ron Britain, and even Uncle Lar) must have had the intuition that I wasn't a goof,that I was serious, and they were more than generous with their time with me.
I remember Mal had a show on WBBM in the mid 1960s, which I think was aired even after they went all news, on the weekends before Christmas, that featured a variety of ethnic music tied to the holiday,and he provided the narrative. I think he took the concept and his stuff to WIVS but unfortunately, he probably didn't get to syndicate it.
I have a reel to reel tape of me interviewing him in 1972 around Christmas time,when I was doing middays on KDTH in Dubuque, about his music collection and such. I also have an interview I did with Johnny Mathis about holiday music he had recorded. I am working really really hard to get that stuff on a digital platform before the tape falls apart. It's survived about 35 years of moving, marriage, weather extremes,all that stuff.
Last, is the 850 daytime only frequency still operating in Waterloo,Iowa? When I was working at KDTH I got a call from a guy I had worked with in small market radio in Western Illinois who had put a station on the air on the east edge of Waterloo, I think (it's a haze anymore -it may have been located in Cedar Falls. He wanted me to do mornings, but I thought the concept was shaky and politely turned him down. It turned out for the best for me,anyway.

[jh]

850 in Waterloo is still on the air.  You made the right decision, it was shaky over the years... went dark a couple of times.  It's now non-commercial contemporary Christian.  I don't know that much about it, but the organization started with 850, later added an FM in Cedar Rapids, and it seems the CR FM is the main station, with 850 simulecasting.
http://www.891thespirit.com/

[cyberdad]

Monkman....

Great post. Your story of Mal taking the time to counsel you is totally in character for him (as it would have been for Bob Hale and probably the others as well) Mal kept the Christmas show going on 'BBM for a number of years after he left and bought WIVS.  He also kept the show going on WIVS for a number of years after he sold it.  I don't think he ever syndicated it....or even attempted to. 

The broadcast was a true labor of love and they type of unique programming that's sorely missing from the increasingly impersonal and homogonized U.S. airwaves.

[monkman]

Well, the "good old days" probably weren't as great as we remember;I might write a book about my days at WEAW in the Ed Wheeler days, painting the fences and mowing the lawns at the old AM tower array (dodging the horses's apples too) and in my spare time,running the FM  programming on Saturday morning -wow, my mother can hear me at Jewel! Plus, I ran so much ethnic programming on Sunday, I should be fluent in Greek. I also well remember riding in the salesman's car when he went to pick up the audio equipment at the First Holy Church of God in Christ Plus the Holy Ghost when their radio contract ran out.I don't THINK I was riding shotgun-maybe just ready to start the car and floor it to get out. And, of course, all the commercials from Chicagoland Broadcasters, which  brokered the time, not to mention the "Roberts spots".Just a real education for a whitebread suburban boy in the mid 60s.
I do remember, prior to that, when my dad would take me to school in the morning, listening to Dan Sorkin and, later, John Doremus, on WAIT.THAT was one well-run radio station.