Untouched Abandoned 90's Country Radio Station - Everything Left Behind (WFMC)
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- Опубліковано 15 лис 2019
- Come along with us today as we venture inside a rural abandoned country radio station left abandoned for over 2 decades (since 1998). This radio station had everything left behind, include all the original equipment and music. There were hundreds of musical CD's, records, tapes, etc left behind. It was hard to tell if this location was damaged by natural causes associated with being abandoned for decades or if previous visitors had done any damage. The location appeared relatively untouched and there was no sign of graffiti. This radio station proved to be a time capsule from the 90's for everything was left as the workers left it decades ago.
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Leaves me feeling sad. So many people, mostly young people, spent important periods of their life in those rooms. Working in those studios. Aspirations, dreams, success and failure all tied to those files, carts, consoles. All the laughter, complaints, insecurity, love lives, 15 day pay periods, remote broadcasts. So many of us trying our hand at the entertainment business only to find out in the end it was only the money business.
Amen to that Chuck. When I tried radio between the ages of 18-24 it wasn't a corporate business. Now everything is automated and owned by corporations. Technology killed the on air personality
B93....
I worked there briefly in 1986 after I left WGBR. WFMC was owned and run by Bob Wooten, who was also a former 'GBR alumnus. The place was a strange mixture of old and cutting edge even then. It started broadcasting in AM Stereo before WGBR did, a point of pride for Wooten, but was also only a daytimer. Ol' Bob tried to do too much; GM, sales, even on-air (he was pretty awful) everything but engineering to cut costs wherever he could.
It's sad to see the old building in such a state now
I hate to see old radio stations go away like this, it's sad. 😔😔😔😔😥😥😥😥
Thank you for your input here. Interesting indeed
That's so cool
7:05 That is a "cart" short for cartridge. They were played on a "cart machine" which was a player. They mostly contained commercials, but also could have music on them. It is NOT and 8 trac.
The location is actually still an active broadcast radio station, WGBR 1150 and WFMC 730 still transmits on the towers, there are several FM Signals there too, 92.3 (Religious) 92.7 (Hip Hop), 98.3 (WGBR) 105.7 (WFMC). The building was abandoned after hurricane Floyd came thru the area in 1999 and flooded the studio building, they moved the transmitters & other required equipment to the shipping container on stilts behind the building. FCC records are not the greatest, most likely the original WGBR site was damaged during the hurricane and they moved to the WFMC site, added a tower and have been broadcasting from there since 2004
The original WGBR tower was blown down by Hurricane Hazel in 1954; the concrete pad and foundations were still there as of 1986 when I worked for them
Wow, takes me back... I'd almost forgotten this photo. We were at our old location on Grantham Street getting ready for the big move so the State could build the new Highway that would become I-795. In fact, I'm sitting in the Northbound Passing Lane in this photo. That's some of the old weather instruments on the console I'm preparing to pack. Note the pic of Ava Gardner on the glass just above the console. I remember that at the time Brent came by to take the picture, I was reflecting on the recent passing or our friend Lewis Howe, the county's horticultural agent and friend. Thanks for a nice memory...
If the lawn's mowed, the towers are HOT.
It appears the station is still on the air and probably operates remotely to the transmitter room on the back. It isn’t all that unusual for old equipment to be left at the transmitter site, with the thought being it could be redeployed in an emergency. But 20 years of exposure to the elements has taken its toll. Looks like they took anything considered of value. BTW those are not 8 Track tapes, those are cartridge tapes used in the broadcast industry, usually 2 or 3 tracks (one track is for cue tones). They’re easy to distinguish from 8 Track tapes as they don’t have a roller pincher built in. Its funny that the white board looks like it was written on just yesterday. Some of those rare CDs and LPs could fetch a good price on eBay or Amazon merchants. Streaming killed the radio star.
hafta admit I have not listened to an FM radio station in years now...
Aren’t those cartridges called for fedeli packs
@@gman83090 that might be the brand but they were called "carts"for short. Though physical carts are no longer used in radio the term cart is still used.
Loved that old Harris console. Worked on the same console, but a larger model back in the mid 80s. I hate seeing stations move their studio to a new building and just abandoning what was there. I love old analog gear like that.
Know WFMC very well, in my home town! Been in that building many times. "Top Gun in Goldsboro, WFMC." Had an FM station in same building WOKN.
7:11 those aren’t eight tracks, though they are similar. Those are carts, self contained continuous loop acetate tape, usually anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes. You recorded your adverts (Spots) or songs (Usually songs were 3 to 3 1/2 minutes) if you didn’t want to have to fool with queuing up a record on the turntable. The station where I worked we had three cart players, three CD players and usually ran the music off the CDs and had the carts queued up for commercial breaks, during which you would reload the CD players. Those CDs weren’t usually albums like you could buy at strawberries or Sam goody, they were made by a company which put all sorts of different music on each CD and supply they randomly generated master list to play the songs from. being a DJ with no engineer was a lot of work back in the early 90s! lol
My girlfriend in college had a show on their station and she had to play PSAs that were all on carts. I always used to choose Chainsaw Safety whenever I'd do the show with her.
@@wes11bravo 😹👍👌 I can imagine.😄
Makes me real sad watching abandoned radio stations.
У нас в России все передающие центры ДВ,СВ, и КВ вещания уже разобраны,и сданы на металл
I think that you will find, if you look closer at them, that the "8 track cassettes" are actually commercial and/or intro cartridges (carts).
so sad seeing all that vinyl going to waste I would of had a field day just looking through the 45s they look like they could still be saved a little cleaning and new jackets
I'm with ya! I believe if at all possible, at least the 45's & CDs would have left with me.. So saddening they're just to sit there & waste away or even possibly get bulldozed!! Wow!!
The area these studios are in flooded after Hurricane Fran in Septembet 1996. The studios were relocated, but the transmitters remain and are fed by an STL link. The studios were relocated after Hurricane Floyd struck in September 1999 and severely flooded the area again.
I received a broadcasting degree in 1995 from my local Community College and learned on most of the equipment we see here. Sad it's left that way.
Wow it's amazing what people always leave behind!!
There didn't seem to be much of value left in that place. 99% of those records and CD's aren't worth $1.00. I didn't see any nice old turntables or reel to reel decks, now those can have value (if they aren't totally trashed)
👍🤚my friend I watch but don’t usually comment but had to one this treasure. Great explore. It is sad they did not move,sell or donate but that is often what you find. So glad you had a mask with all the mold. I enjoyed going back in time with you. Thanks for sharing your friend in Florida take care 💕
Not 8-tracks. Broadcast cartridges or carts. Now computers play digital audio files so carts and reel to reel tape is obsolete.
Also, the Ampex 'cartridge' machine is a model 600 reel to reel. DJ's know this stuff. Frustrating to hear urbex noobs misidentify.
😹👍 I remember when the digital format was just starting to rear its head, 93? 94? I remember they bought some gadget that sat on the table next to the word processor(!) but I never did learn how to use it. Just checked my list, all my CDs and carts, queue everything up and try not to drop any ash from the cigarette hanging out of my lip while I was doing it lol. Good times.
@@pixoariz True, Ampex never made a cart machine they stuck with open reel to the end.
Good vid bro.
I believe the country CDs and whatnot were for WKTC in Goldsboro.......it, WFMC and WGBR operated out of here. WFMC was the gospel/religious station. WGBR was news/talk
A flat roof sure doesn't hold up without maintenance. It's sad to see that station in such a condition.
It is a shame that equipment was left to rot
Sad to see this. I worked there in the mid 80's. It slogan, 73 WFMC, Proud to be Country! The FM was WOKN, a black urban format. I believe the site was flooded during one of NC's many hurricanes.
That’s so cool
Good and interesting find
*”THIS ROOM IS JUST CDS. REMEMBER THOSE?”* 🤦😹
One day we'll say "Smart phones, remember them? Everybody had one!"
CD’s and vinyl records have come back in style. Real audiophiles like having a hardcopy medium for their music collections rather than a download to a hard disk.
the 8 tracks are called carts and they held commercials, psa's etc
Hi, wow there was quite a few things missing in the gap between the 1st and 2nd visit. A cool find though, because the station is still on air in another location you would think they would take all of the paperwork at the very least. Thanks for sharing. x
I know wcon gives away cds and adds mouten lueral fest in Clarksville ga but u have to be up in the morning
Sad why
So cool
Very interesting!
They must take all records, tapes , cds and clean it or sell it to collectors
I still use cd and dvd.
Picking the bones of the dead carcass. They don't even know what they are looking at.
Looks like the feed horn on the dish is gone
Certainly I remember Cd's, LP's and Seven Singles. Do you remember them? I have been around for a while.
WGBR 1150 and WFMC 730 still transmits on the towers, there are several FM Signals there, 92.3 (Religious) 92.7 (Hip Hop), 98.3 (WGBR) 105.7 (WFMC). The building was abandoned after hurricane Floyd came thru the area in 1999 and flooded the studio building, probably not worth saving as it probrably got salt water in everything...they moved the transmitters & other required equipment to the shipping container on stilts behind the building, WGBR moved there in 2004 and added a tower, not sure cuz of the hurricane or because of I-795 which was built around Goldsboro which displaced them.
If they added another tower, it usually meant that they changed their array.
It was common to build a simple (single tower) to serve its area.
If they did well after signing on, they would upgrade the signal, many AM stations needed to add towers, allowing listeners to listen at night.
@@1L6E6VHF Tower arrays make the signal directional. Two or more towers in a straight light make the signal propagate in the direction perpendicular to the array. It's a common thing done with AM radio since transmissions propagates so far at night. It allows for AM radio stations to be positioned closer to each other without interference.
@@bagnome As far as I know, there are a few *12* tower arrays in the USA.
KLIF (still the same call?) had 16 towers. 4 towers between Fort Worth and Dallas, and 12 towers northeast of Dallas.
Detroit suburb Lincoln Park had a 12-tower array in two cities (six towers in Allen Park and six towers in Lincoln Park).
That array is still in use, though it has only nine towers now (three towers on the east were taken down to make way for a very large store).
I’m a music buff yet I didn’t recognise any of the artists I saw! Mad lol. I’m assuming it was mainly country & western and religious? Good explore! Such a shame to see all those records wasted
I knew of Little Texas (Kick A Little)....
I saw a lot of gospel stuff, very little Pop music. Hal Ketchum, Travis Tritt, Little Texas… I guess you have to be old enough to remember when they were popular.😅
@@HM2SGT there was also a Soul/R&B FM station located in the building called WOKN.
those aint eight tracks buddy, those are carts, they use to play those when it was time for your comercial breaks on the radio. i dont know if they still use carts no, but i've talked to people who've worked in the industry and they say that radio stations use3d those for music, ads, and other things such as station identifiers. "w y q g 730 am, rockford illinois!" woulde bge an example, i dont know if yqg exists but still it would be something along those lines. i would love to get a hold of a cart machine and some blank carts though, i'd use it for my ham radio station. one cart would have my id on it and would play every ten minutes, while i used others for like a r newsline, the rain report, the fcc report and the like. it would be cool if someone used a cart player for something like that lol
I used to repair cart machines at WXLV Schnecksville PA. And Russco TT
lol Looks like the good old no tell motel, rooms by the hour upon request.
This is so SAD!
Ask the owners if you can have all the records and cds,before the roof will collapse and nothing will be used...
that is sad😥
The CD's should still be good. Cases can be cleaned, The records that are protected on the shelves should be ok, Some people might be interested in the old sound boards to rebuild. This is Sad.
still transmitting from one of the towers out back.
I wonder if they left the transmitter and satellite equipment.
I would love to know what they were using the C-band for
There used to be a lot of religious audio feeds on C-band.
I am guessing they used it for that
Those aren't 8tracks they're called Carts
Yes, 1/4" tape, three track (left, right and que) tape cartridges.
that type of tape cartridges were used as 4 track music tape, before 8 track. in broadcast there 2 track one track program 1 track cue and stereo 3 track left , right and cue @@videoviewer2004
somebody should renovate that
Usually they just build a box and put a new transmitter up because they are on high hills, or mountains and the personalities like the weather guy or the DJ doesn't want to drive down some winding hillside road for an hour and rather do it 5 minutes from home in the city. They can remotely transmit the station to the site and transmit from there. Our shady television station burned down their old facility because it was run down and needed to be up to code and they placed a shed next to the tower. They located 40 miles away in an abandoned bank building for dirt cheap and even did a 10 part series on spending millions of dollars renovating. A couple years later their old site just mysteriously burnt down and then had engineers setting up a temp shed with power so they can continue to broadcast 2 days later. I remember watching the news one night and then nothing, blank no signal. I re-scanned my tv and the entire channel disappeared and found out from their website there was a fire at their old location and that housed the digital repeater equipment.
Put a scary Halloween mask right at eye level. So when the next trespassers find it they run away
I'm surprise the way they left all the records and cds behind
Where is this Radio Station located at please? The outside appearance is similar to the one where I live but, fortunately, it is still operating. I have always been a fan of Radio.
Hwy 117 in Goldsboro, NC. It was WFMC AM and WOKN FM. WFMC was Country in the daytime, Southern Gospel at night. WOKN was a Soul/R&B station.
Ahh, The Rebels. Was big into those dudes. Too bad they were big into my sister. They did that Lutheran comedy song, I got a haddock , I need a sturgeon.
Good times...
Think the CDs survived much better than the records? Then they could be saved. (no pun)
Those files in that file cabinet are not able to be salvaged.
The rest of the equipment is too far gone to be salvaged, either.
At 5:53 Was there a duck in there? 😂 or some kind of bird making that sound?
Es verdaderamente triste y penoso asistir a sucesos de este carácter que ponen al descubierto la indolencia y falta de respeto a aquellos que con su talento y esfuerzo crearon maravillas de ingeniería para el bien de la humanidad.
That’s in Goldsboro nc
That’s so,sad I would like to know the Story of it and why it ended that way
I know where this is, pass it just about every morning, anyone know the best way to get in? Planning on walking through the woods and park somewhere nearby
What a waste! I worked in radio back then and that was probably a nice studio at one time .
Those are carts for commercials they look like 8 track tapes
Me too! And the people I worked with had been in radio since the 50s and 60s! These guys are making me feel OLD! Lol
@@KW-xw4hg no kidding. They’re speaking in the tone of voice Indiana Jones reserved for the stones of Shankara and the cup of Christ!
If you got power to that and power to the transmitter I wonder if everything will still work and I wonder if you could transmit
I seriously doubt it!
I would have taken any patsy cline , or kitty wells CDs if there where any an, run!
The time is stopped...
Those personal messages should be returned or destroyed. The record collection cleaned up and sold.
that 8track cassetteis actualy a cart tape
Flooding maybe the cause of the relocation
Damm Shame..
How fungus have to leave a boombox party there :(
Those records cost lot of money and cds
you should have shown the towers and transmitters ..
each record is worth 10 dollars each to a record shop these days in australia. thats alot of money lying around there
We’ll… yes and no. The value is in the scarcity/rarity. Flood the market with all of those and you’ll DeBaise the value and they’ll be less than worthless, sort of like what led to them being abandoned there in the first place. The market is only in those with intrinsic interest - it’s a very niche thing.
Please tell me the name of the song 🎧 that starts at 0:30 🕧. I like 👍 it. I’d ask the owner about those vinyl records. Some of them are probably worth something. A lot of them are probably still in pristine condition. No property is ever truthfully abandoned. It’s always in a set of hands 🙌. I’d also ask on being able to take the CD’s 💿. Back then, music 🎶 was a lot better. Your friend, Jeff.
I find more new music I love than I can possibly keep up with.
Bro saying 1998 like it was 300 years ago.
If you threw Steve Dahl into a radio station full of disco records, the result would be similar to this. If not, worst!
what is restorable and salvageable should be restored/salvaged instead of trashed.
Well, they didn't leave everything behind---I don't see dogs, pickup trucks or shotguns lying on the ground
😂😹🤣 *I love the way you say 1998 like it’s ages ago. Don’t worry, someday you, too, will be 40+ and rolling your eyes when kids all and all over really ancient stuff from the teens and 20s of the 21st-century!*
God for bid you get over to England or France where there’s stuff that’s actually 1000+ years old, or the Middle East/Asia/North Africa where there’s stuff thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years old. Places where you can actually feel the weight of history, roaming through cities built from the rubble of the city that was built before on the rubble of the city that was built before… it’s kind of sad actually how people in America think that their nation is old, and they think anything more than 15 years old is ancient, useless and worthless.
Some of those albums were apparently Christian artists, while the CD's were Country. Did you look at any of the 45's?
but he radio station still works
Darth Vader is the one holding the camera.
thoes are cd`s
Looks like the God Channel ... no wonder the CD/vinyl media haven't been stolen after all this time
WFMC AM was Country in the daytime, Southern Gospel at night. In the same building was an FM station, WOKN who's format was Soul/R&B.
wish i could have gotten to those mixing consoles before the water damage happened. the are worth thousands $$. guess the station had no place to store that stuff.
Maybe a couple of hundred..not thousands
what i meant was without water damage, they would be worth 1000's. been shopping for one for my station. can't find anything in decent shape for less than 3k.
@@garybrown7044 I'm betting they got an insurance check, and the contents legally belong to the insurance company, who doesn't want the stuff.
Just my two cents.
@@WGBW1590 betting is would be quite a job restoring those mixing consoles, if it could even be done. i've re-capped older amps before & it almost drove me nuts!
An abandoned country music station ... No loss!
Nah man, 90s country and before was some of the best music out there.
Not just country music station it's also a Christian music station... most likely abandoned because it was on a am frequency and very low budget
After flooding the stations (WFMC and WOKN) started broadcasting from another location in Goldsboro.
Son of a b**** I guess I'll just have to look up the call sign and see if they're even still trying anymore those who listen know exactly what I mean.
In the buckle of the Bible Belt North Carolina. Looks like they moved operations elsewhere, probably it was half abandon in place/half storage. Of course now it’s all abandon/future landfill.
1:42
Doesn't look like a country station. Looks like a Christian station. Just sayen.
WFMC AM was Country in the daytime, Southern Gospel at night. In the same building was WOKN FM, a Soul/R&B station.
not country, its christian
All worthless garbage. Too bad the business won't get fined into oblivion for creating a hazardous waste site.
Like your self
@@nevergiveup9560 Go take a bath with toaster.
@@haywoodyoudome words said by a loser real class buddy .
All that worthless garbage - just like the stuff you hoard in your mothers basement. What’s the matter? Your inflate a date have a headache? Did you Flash somebody at Mardi Gras & they gave you beads to put them away? Everybody’s so woke now, you’d think they’d be tolerant of man boobs!
I bet you were conceived on a two-lane road; after all, that’s where most accidents happen. Just think of all the misery that could’ve been avoided if your mother had been less concerned about smearing her lipstick & gone ahead and leaned over to rest her head in daddy‘s lap!
There’s the one person who ruins it for everyone
show the transmitter and R.F. amplifier. show all the power equipment , not the junk
Que les sucedió a estás estaciones solo Dios sabe
Not a country station, a whacko religious outfit. Can't believe they abandoned all of that awesome gear....
WFMC AM was Country in the daytime, Southern Gospel at night. WOKN FM was located in the same building that was a Soul/R&B station.