![]() WMMO, it was claimed, took song requests. The fabricated stories would put today’s fake newsers to shame, and created a small army of fans all out of proportion to the little station’s actual reach. School was awash with rumors about who was running the station and from where, and that the Feds were hot on their tails. If you didn’t know, you pretended to know. Knowing whether or not the station was going be on the air on a given night, and where to find it on the dial, was an indication you were “with it”. Because it was illegal as heck it could only be promoted by word of mouth, but the daring nature of its illegality made WMMO’s popularity spread through Clark like wildfire.įor a while it seemed Clark students talked about little else. WMMO stood for “Whiting’s Most Magnificent Organization”, or “With Music More Often”, depending on who you talked to. ![]() Perhaps inspired by the European wave of pirate radio stations that transmitted from small ships moored at sea, out of reach of government enforcers, or perhaps just by the good, ol’ American spirit of adventure, a small group of radio enthusiasts from Clark High School created “radio station” WMMO. But it didn’t mean your music radio fun had to end. Back then, who knew?Įventually summer had to end, and for most of the beach crowd that meant back to school. Skin cancer in a bottle, tube or convenient spray can. The Big 89, The Rock Of Chicago, The 50,000-Watt Tower of Power, ruled at Wolf Lake Beach, which was a beach in the same, generous sense that the first pocket radios were pocket-size. WLS had been around since 1924, having been founded by Sears, Roebuck & Company, whose slogan, “World’s Largest Store” provided the station’s call letters. AM radio was “where it was at”, and WLS was the king of AM, especially at Wolf Lake. The FM radio band was unhip, fit only for old people and classical music snobs. The transistor radio helped make the ‘60s and ‘70s the Golden Age of AM Music Radio. Most had the same, thin, tinny sound, but they all looked like they came from different planets. Bakelite material enabled almost endless possibilities. ![]() The surest way for companies to sell more radios was not by improving sound quality, battery life or reception, but by creating hip, new space age designs and colors. It came as the result of competition among the many radio manufacturers of the day. One of the cooler things to happen during the heyday of AM music radio had more to do with industrial design than with music, news and weather. ![]()
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