WASH, Washington, DC

1961 photo, station manager Richard Patrick

During the 1940s WASH Owner Ev Dillard also headed the broadcast equipment distribution firm known as The Commercial Radio Equipment Co. He also founded the Washington-based Continental FM Network, a 52-station network. The Continental Network was Dillard’s & Edwin Howard Armstrong's creation to get some content for Armstrong’s Alpine, NJ, station. Dillard's WASH fed a 15 kHz phone line to Alpine. Some of the content was WASH's evening classical record program. The network “connected” Dillard’s WASH-FM to stations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York (as far west as Buffalo), Connecticut, Massachusetts and ending at Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. Many of the stations picked up the broadcast from the station "down the line" and rebroadcast it, thus allowing the next station "up the line" to pick-up the broadcast and forward it along.

Early History

In the early 1960's, during the afternoon and evening hours WASH was linked to WQXR-FM in New York City via off-air or piggy-backed radio signals. WITH-FM in Baltimore had the opportunity to pick up and rebroadcast the signal of WFIL-FM in Philadelphia or WSNJ-FM in Bridgeton, NJ. (In the early days, WSNJ was on the air from 3pm to 9pm (later until midnight) relaying the classical music programs from WQXR in New York via what was known as the "QXR Network".) WITH-FM was picked up off-the-air via tuner by WASH-FM in DC. Listeners heard Jacques Fray followed by Duncan Pirnie, chief announcer of WQXR and his "Cocktail Time" at 5PM-6PM. (Theme song 'Over and Over Again' from Jumbo by Cyril Ornadel orchestra). Local classical music LPs origination from 6PM to 8pm with announcers Alan Campbell or Richard Patrick. At 8pm back to QXR for the evening "Symphony Hall". WASH signed-off at midnight. In Baltimore this "Symphony Hall" program was recorded by their evening host, Bill Rock, and played back at midnight as they had to keep their main carrier on to support their SCA (sub-carrier signal) streaming background music service to restaurants in the area.

audio file:

Wash-fmWashingtonDc1960PromoForBeautifulMusicProgram