WYSH expands listening area
‘Voice of Clinton’ adds 99.5 AM and 101.1 FM signals
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Ron Meredith, owner of WYSH-AM, laughs as he has a conversation with a caller on Trading Time. WYSH-AM has added a second FM Translator to its broadcast and is now simulcast on 101.1 FM as well as the newly added 99.5 AM frequency. - Tony Cox
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Tower climbers, Terry Creasey (top) and Buck Welch (bottom), scaled the 429-foot southeast WYSH-AM tower on Tuesday morning, August 13. Creasey and Welch’s trip to the top was to install a new FM antenna and transmission line to be used for broad- casting a simulcast of WYSH-AM on 99.5 FM. - Tony Cox
Approaching his 30th anniversary as owner of Clinton radio station WYSH, Ron Meredith is increasing the size of the listening area.
Already airing on the 101.1 FM frequency, WYSH added the 99.5 frequency last week, joining programming also heard on the 1380 AM frequency.
All three stations air identical programming.
“Being able to do this increases the ability of listeners to hear our signal from Roane County well up into Campbell County,” Meredith said Monday afternoon.
“The 101.1 signal is directed more toward the east and south while the 99.5 signal will enable us to be heard better in Oak Ridge and further west. We are literally adding hundreds of additional square miles of coverage.”
In addition to expanded Clinton radio coverage, Meredith now has a transmitter being tested this week in LaFollette airing WQLA-AM 960 while adding WQLA-FM 95.9.
The AM signal has simulcast WYSH programming for several years and the new FM signal will also simulcast when it becomes fully operational – perhaps this week.
“We went up with the 95.9 signal Sunday, but we’re still working some things out,” Meredith said.
Meredith said the new FM frequencies will allow more programming to be heard by a larger potential audience. Due to Federal Communications regulations, WYSH-AM broadcasts a stronger signal daily from sunrise to sundown, before cutting power back at the latter. The nighttime AM signal hardly reaches outside the Clinton city limits.
WYSH, which went on the air in 1960 and will mark its 60th anniversary next year, is best known for airing such programming as “Trading Time.” “Ask Your Neighbor,” Clinton High School football and basketball, NASCAR and Sunday local religious shows. Meredith said all of this will continue with the additional frequencies.
“We could eventually put different programming on the WQLA frequencies, but that is far down the line. “A lot will depend on our evaluations of the signal.”
Meredith also owns radio station MERLE 96.7 FM, which is one the most powerful stations in East Tennessee, broadcasting country music across most of the region.
He also owns PRAISE-FM at 96.3 with studios located along Chapman Highway in South Knox County. PRAISE airs Southern gospel music.
MERLE has been nominated three times as the Station of the Year Award from the Academy of Country Music (ACM). MERLE’s Jack Ryan, who airs daily from 3 until 7 p.m., was named CMA Personality of the Year prior to arriving in Clinton and has been nominated twice for the ACM’s Personality of the Year.
PRAISE-FM has earned the national honor of the Southern Gospel Station of the Year three years running, which is a record. It has been nominated for a fourth straight award, which will be announced later this year.”
Meredith, who grew up in LaFollette and has worked in transactions involving 15 radio and TV transactions, said he is blessed with the broadcasting success he has achieved since he acquired WYSH in 1990.
“It has been a journey of ups and downs, but the good Lord has been good to us,” Meredith said.