The Rural Radio Network (RRN) was an interconnected group of six commercial FM radio

FM broadcasting

FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...

 stations spread across upstate New York

Upstate New York

Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...

 and operated from Ithaca, NY

Ithaca, New York

The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...

 -- the first all-radio, no-wireline network in the world. It began operation in 1948 as an innovative broadcast

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...

 service to the agricultural

Farm

A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...

 community, but competition from television -- and a lack of affordable, well-performing FM receivers -- caused the founders' original business plan to fail. The stations changed ownership, as well as Radio format

Radio format

A radio format or programming format not to be confused with broadcast programming describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. Radio formats are frequently employed as a marketing tool, and constantly evolve...

s, several times in futile attempts to achieve profitability. Perhaps the group's most notable owner was the Christian Broadcasting Network

Christian Broadcasting Network

The Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.-Background:...

, headed by televangelist Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....

, which acquired the stations through a corporate donation in 1969. A decade later, Robertson decided to sell the stations and the licenses were gradually transferred to individual owners in 1981 and 1982, thus dissolving one of the nation's earliest FM networks.

Planning

The concept of building the world's first farmer-owned network originated at the Cooperative Grange League Federation Exchange (commonly known as "GLF"), an agricultural co-op

Cooperative

A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...

 founded in 1920 in Ithaca, which later merged with another co-op to form the Agway organization that remains today. GLF, also noted for its role in founding the P&C Foods

Penn Traffic

The Penn Traffic Company was the parent company for 79 retail grocery supermarkets in the Northeastern United States, concentrating mostly in Central New York. Its headquarters were in Syracuse, New York. Penn Traffic formerly had supermarkets also in Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire...

 supermarket chain, began to use radio several years before the start of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and later assembled an informal network of about ten AM

AM broadcasting

AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...

 stations, connected by leased telephone lines, over which a weekly five-minute program was aired. The value of this early "network" was proven during the war when GLF members found it difficult to attend regular meetings.

In December 1946, GLF's directors approved a plan to expand the use of radio and allocated $10,000 to form the Rural Radio Foundation, a non-profit organization that would embrace several agricultural interest groups including the New York State Grange

Grange movement

The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, also simply styled the Grange, is a fraternal organization for American farmers that encourages farm families to band together for their common economic and political well-being...

, Dairymen's League, and New York Artificial Breeder's Co-op. This foundation, which formally incorporated on March 18, 1947, would be sole owner of a subsidiary commercial broadcasting corporation, The Rural Radio Network, Inc., with any operating profits to be turned back to the founding groups for educational and research purposes. Corporate officers included president H.L. Creal, vice-president Clifford Snyder, and secretary-treasurer George Slocum. They were convinced that the recently-opened 88-108 MHz FM band offered superior reliability over AM "standard broadcast"

AM broadcasting

AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...

 -- particularly before sunrise when many farmers would start their daily tasks -- and broader opportunities to establish new stations where needed. In April 1947, GLF appropriated an additional $200,000 to launch the new FM network.

R. B. Gervan, head of GLF's Information Service, was granted a leave of absence from that position to serve as General Manager of RRN until it was well established. Robert B. Child, an experienced farm broadcaster, was hired away from Schenectady's WGY to serve as Program Director. Donald K. de Neuf was hired as Chief Engineer, and with optimism he began planning the network's technical facilities.

A primary objective was to provide satisfactory rural coverage throughout the "milkshed"

Dairy farming

Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for long-term production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale.Most dairy farms...

 of New York State

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 extending from the Niagara Frontier

Niagara Frontier

The Niagara Frontier refers to the stretch of land south of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and extending westward to Cleveland, Ohio. The term dates to the War of 1812. This only includes the land east of the Niagara River and south of Lake Erie within the United States...

 to the Capital District

Capital District

New York's Capital District, also known as the Capital Region, is a region in upstate New York that generally refers to the four counties surrounding Albany, the capital of the state: Albany County, Schenectady County, Rensselaer County, and Saratoga County...

, and north to the Saint Lawrence Valley

Saint Lawrence River

The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...

. The network would be headquartered in Ithaca, near the geographical center of this region and home of the New York State College of Agriculture

Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

The New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is a statutory college at Cornell University, a private university located in Ithaca, New York...

 at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

, the state's land grant

Land-grant university

Land-grant universities are institutions of higher education in the United States designated by each state to receive the benefits of the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890....

 institution. With the help of engineering consultants Dr. Miller McClintock, Murray Crosby, and William S. Halstead (the latter two would later develop an FM stereo system), six hilltop transmitter sites, each over 610 m (2000 ft) AMSL

Above mean sea level

The term above mean sea level refers to the elevation or altitude of any object, relative to the average sea level datum. AMSL is used extensively in radio by engineers to determine the coverage area a station will be able to reach...

 and spaced roughly 80 km (50 mi) apart across line-of-sight paths

Line-of-sight propagation

Line-of-sight propagation refers to electro-magnetic radiation or acoustic wave propagation. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in a straight line...

, were identified and acquired for the project. Based on 50 μV/m (34 dBμ) rural service contour predictions, these stations would have a combined coverage area encompassing 118,000 farms, 76 percent of the total farms in New York state at that time. Space for RRN's studios and offices was leased in the existing Ithaca Savings Bank building at 306 East State St. in downtown Ithaca, and General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

, which then manufactured broadcast products at the Electronics Park plant in nearby Syracuse, was chosen as the prime equipment supplier. Applications for the six FM construction permits were filed with the FCC

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 in mid-July 1947 and granted three months later.

Original stations of the Rural Radio Network

Community of License	County	Nearby Metro Areas	Call Sign	Frequency	Transmitter Coordinates
Wethersfield Wethersfield, New York Wethersfield is a town in Wyoming County, New York, United States. The population was 891 at the 2000 census.The Town of Wethersfield is centrally located in the county.- History :...	Wyoming Wyoming County, New York Wyoming County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. At the 2010 census, the population was 42,155. The county seat is Warsaw. The name is from a modified Delaware Indian word meaning "broad bottom lands"...	Buffalo Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...	WFNF WLKK WLKK is an American radio station located in Wethersfield, New York. Broadcasting on the frequency of 107.7 MHz, the station is currently owned by Entercom Communications and is operated out of the company's studios in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo...	107.7	42°37′23"N 78°17′16"W
Bristol Center South Bristol, New York South Bristol is a town in Ontario County, New York, USA. The population was 1,645 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from its separation from the Town of Bristol.The Town of South Bristol is in the southwest part of the county...	Ontario Ontario County, New York As of the census of 2000, there were 100,224 people, 38,370 households, and 26,360 families residing in the county. The population density was 156 people per square mile . There were 42,647 housing units at an average density of 66 per square mile...	Rochester Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...	WV WFXF WFXF, also known as "The Fox", is a classic rock FM radio station in the Rochester region of upstate New York.- History :- Rural Radio Network/Ivy Network/CBN :... BT	101.9	42°44′47"N 77°25′35"W
Ithaca Ithaca, New York The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...	Tompkins Tompkins County, New York Tompkins County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, and comprises the whole of the Ithaca metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the population was 101,564. The county seat is Ithaca, and the county is home to Cornell University, Ithaca College and Tompkins Cortland Community...	Ithaca Ithaca, New York The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area... , Elmira Elmira, New York Elmira is a city in Chemung County, New York, USA. It is the principal city of the 'Elmira, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses Chemung County, New York. The population was 29,200 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Chemung County.The City of Elmira is located in...	WVFC WQNY WQNY is a radio station broadcasting a Country music format. Licensed to Ithaca, New York, USA, the station serves that market and occasionally has appeared in the Elmira-Corning ratings, as the station can be heard well in the eastern and northeastern parts of that market...	95.1	42°23′13"N 76°40′10"W
DeRuyter DeRuyter (town), New York DeRuyter is a town in Madison County, New York, United States. The population was 1,631 at the 2000 census. The town is named after Michiel Adriaenszoon De Ruyter a famous admiral in the Dutch navy....	Madison Madison County, New York Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 73,442. It is named after James Madison, fourth President of the United States of America...	Syracuse Syracuse, New York Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...	WVCN WVOA-FM WVOA-FM is a radio station broadcasting a Christian radio format. Licensed to Mexico, New York, USA, the station serves the Syracuse area. The station is currently owned by Renard Communications Corporation, wholly owned by Craig Fox...	105.1	42°46′58"N 75°50′28"W
Cherry Valley Cherry Valley (town), New York Cherry Valley is a town in Otsego County, New York, USA. The population was 1,266 at the 2000 census.Within the Town of Cherry Valley is a village, also called Cherry Valley...	Otsego Otsego County, New York Otsego County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. The 2010 population was 62,259. The county seat is Cooperstown. The name Otsego is from a Mohawk word meaning "place of the rock."-History:...	Utica Utica, New York Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census.... , Albany Albany, New York Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...	WVCV	101.9	42°47′36"N 74°41′41"W
Turin Turin (town), New York Turin is a town in Lewis County, New York, United States. The population was 793 at the 2000 census. Turin has a village, also named Turin. The town is south of Lowville, the county seat, and north of Rome, New York.- History :...	Lewis Lewis County, New York As of the census of 2000, there were 26,944 people, 10,040 households, and 7,309 families residing in the county. The population density was 21 people per square mile . There were 15,134 housing units at an average density of 12 per square mile...	Watertown Watertown (city), New York Watertown is a city in the state of New York and the county seat of Jefferson County. It is situated approximately south of the Thousand Islands. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 27,023, an increase of 1.2% since 2000. The U.S... , Utica Utica, New York Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....	WVBN WVBN WVBN was a commercial radio station located atop Gomer Hill in the Town of Turin, New York, which began broadcasting in October 1948 on 107.7 MHz with an effective radiated power of 1.3 kW at 215 m above average terrain...	107.7	43°38′55"N 75°29′00"W

Station Construction and Configuration

Gervan had promised his managers that the network would be ready for operation by the summer of 1948, requiring de Neuf's engineering staff and contractors to construct transmitter buildings and towers

Radio masts and towers

Radio masts and towers are, typically, tall structures designed to support antennas for telecommunications and broadcasting, including television. They are among the tallest man-made structures...

 through the winter season. The likelihood of heavy precipitation in upstate New York's snowbelt

Snowbelt

Snowbelt is a term describing of a number of regions near the Great Lakes in North America where heavy snowfall in the form of lake-effect snow is particularly common. Snowbelts are typically found downwind of the lakes, principally off the eastern and southern shores...

 required temporary heated shells to be erected around each building site, allowing concrete to be poured and masonry work to proceed on schedule. The worst weather conditions, by far, were encountered at the Turin

Turin (town), New York

Turin is a town in Lewis County, New York, United States. The population was 793 at the 2000 census. Turin has a village, also named Turin. The town is south of Lowville, the county seat, and north of Rome, New York.- History :...

 site on the highest point of the Tug Hill Plateau

Tug Hill Plateau

The Tug Hill Plateau is an upland region in upstate New York in the USA, famous for heavy winter snow. The Tug Hill Region is west of the Adirondack Mountains and is separated from the Adirondacks by the Black River Valley. Although the region is and has traditionally been known as the Tug Hill...

, a remote area due east of Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

 known for record lake-effect snowfall

Lake effect snow

Lake-effect snow is produced during cooler atmospheric conditions when cold winds move across long expanses of warmer lake water, providing energy and picking up water vapor which freezes and is deposited on the leeward shores...

. Pending installation of telephone service, RRN engineers assigned to each construction site kept in contact by means of high-band VHF mobile two-way radios

Two-way radio

A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive , unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. The term refers to a personal radio transceiver that allows the operator to have a two-way conversation with other similar radios operating on the same radio frequency...

 that were later modified for remote-pickup

Remote pickup unit

A remote pickup unit or RPU is a radio system using special radio frequencies set aside for electronic news gathering and remote broadcasting. It can also be used for other types of point-to-point radio links....

 use.

Meanwhile, the GLF laboratory began testing various AM-FM table radios to determine which product would be carried in its farm supply stores. None of the existing models offered sufficient sensitivity to perform at all locations within the network's expected coverage area, so North American Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

 was contracted to design a special high-sensitivity GLF-branded "farm radio" and serve as its OEM

Original Equipment Manufacturer

An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...

. Designated the GLF model F-770, the set was priced at $87.50 (more than $700 in 2005 dollars after adjustment for inflation), a considerable expense for many farm families in 1948. A $15 two-section outdoor "turnstile antenna

Turnstile antenna

A turnstile antenna is a set of two dipole antennas aligned at right angles to each other and fed 90 degrees out-of-phase. The name reflects that the antenna looks like a turnstile when mounted horizontally. When mounted horizontally the antenna is nearly omnidirectional on the horizontal plane...

", manufactured by the Technical Appliance Corporation (TACO) of Sherburne, NY

Sherburne (village), New York

Sherburne is a village in Chenango County, New York, USA. The population was 1,455 at the 2000 census.The Village of Sherburne is in the Town of Sherburne, north of the City of Norwich.- History :...

, was offered as an accessory.

Construction of five of the transmitter facilities concluded in time for the network to begin operation as scheduled, but the Turin site could not be completed until the fall of 1948. A major complication was the lack of electric power at Turin; the site was so remote that the local utility would not run lines, so a redundant pair of Smith-Meeker 15 kW Diesel generators were installed along with a 12,000 gallon fuel tank, sufficient to operate the station for four months.

All six of the RRN transmitter buildings, which resembled small chalets

Chalet

A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...

, were constructed of masonry and wood from similar floor plans. A steeply-pitched roof was included in the design to shed snow and provide more interior headroom in the attic. A two-car garage, furnace room, generator room, and shower were at ground level, with a water well drilled through the floor of the generator room. The first floor, which was nearly eight feet above ground, included the transmitter room, a small studio area for visiting guests, a kitchen and workbench area, and a small restroom. The attic was accessible by means of a staircase and served as a dormitory for the operating and maintenance engineers. Just outside the kitchen was a side porch where off-air relay receive antennas were installed on a wooden lattice. Behind each building was a 30.5 m (100 ft) self-supporting tower that supported a four-section aluminum RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

"Pylon" tubular slot antenna

Slot antenna

A slot antenna consists of a metal surface, usually a flat plate, with a hole or slot cut out. When the plate is driven as an antenna by a driving frequency, the slot radiates electromagnetic waves in similar way to a dipole antenna. The shape and size of the slot, as well as the driving frequency,...

, 16.5 m (54 ft) high with a power gain of 6. de Neuf's choice of RCA's FM antenna over GE's competing "ring radiator" was likely based on the Pylon's reduced exposure to the elements, which would lessen the chances for VSWR

Standing wave ratio

In telecommunications, standing wave ratio is the ratio of the amplitude of a partial standing wave at an antinode to the amplitude at an adjacent node , in an electrical transmission line....

 problems during icing conditions.

RRN's original equipment list at each transmitter site also included:

• General Electric BT-1-A 250 W FM transmitter with Phasitron exciter
• General Electric BT-2-B 1 kW power amplifier (added in 1951)
• General Electric BC-1-A studio consolette
• General Electric FS-1-A monitoring speaker
• General Electric YDA-1 distortion and noise analyzer
• General Electric modulation and frequency monitor
• Dual RCA turntables
• Radio Engineering Labs 646-B tunable FM receiver
• Radio Engineering Labs 670-L crystal-controlled relay receivers
• Hoisington 16-element horizontally polarized collinear receive antenna
• 15 kW gasoline-fueled emergency generator

The downtown Ithaca studio was also primarily GE-equipped and employed an early GE 940 MHz studio-transmitter link to relay programs to the Ithaca transmitter at the highest point in Tompkins County, Connecticut Hill. RRN engineers also outfitted a remote broadcast

Remote broadcast

In broadcast engineering, a remote broadcast is broadcasting done from a location away from a formal television studio and is considered an electronic field production . A remote pickup unit is usually used to transmit the audio and/or video back to the television station, where it joins the...

 trailer which was taken to county fairs, farm meetings, and other public gatherings. This had a public-address amplifier and 50 W transmitter (tuned to 153.59 MHz) capable of sending remote programming to the closest hilltop transmitter site, where it could then be relayed to the rest of the network.

When the network was originally constructed, the FCC had not yet authorized remote control of FM stations. Each of the six transmitter sites had to be staffed with a licensed engineer throughout the broadcast day; this was a significant operating expense in the network's early years.

Early Programming

The Rural Radio Network's first day of operation was Sunday, June 6, 1948. According to a newspaper ad published the preceding day, the 1:00 PM inaugural program was a 15-minute feature entitled "Radio for Rural People", followed by a 15-minute newscast. Several more farm-related programs, interspersed with musical interludes, aired until sign-off at 7:45 that evening.

RRN's initial schedule offered nine and one-half hours of daily programming, beginning at 11:45 AM. On December 6, 1948, service was expanded to fifteen hours, signing on at 6:00 AM with news and concluding at 9:15 PM with an evening prayer.

Some program highlights from that period:

• 6:55 AM - Johnny Huttar, RRN's farm reporter with the latest market reports, weather, farm news and answers to farm questions
• 8:30 AM - "Claire's Scrapbook" with Claire Banister, Kay Stevens, and Pat Landon, featuring household hints, fashion notes, poetry and recipes, and musical sketches
• 11:30 AM - Country Music
• 12:30 PM - "Cornell Farm Hour"
• 1:30 PM - "Empire State School of the Air" - educational programming targeted to Upstate New York classrooms
• 3:30 PM - "Mail Box Tunes"
• 5:00 PM - "The Storyteller" - children's program
• 6:30 PM - "The Supper Serenaders"

Program Director Bob Child decided against airing radio soap operas

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 after a survey of farm women revealed that 25 percent found them objectionable. In the words of one respondent, "There is never a happy family life in the soap box opera type of program."

Several non-owned stations were affiliated with the Rural Radio Network during its first year of operation. The largest was William G. H. Finch's WGHF in New York City, which is known today as WRXP, and others included WSLB-FM in Ogdensburg, NY

Ogdensburg, New York

Ogdensburg is a city in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The population was 11,128 at the 2010 census. In the late 18th century, European-American settlers named the community after American land owner and developer Samuel Ogden....

; WFHA in Hartford, CT

Hartford, Connecticut

Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

; and WACE-FM in Springfield, MA

Springfield, Massachusetts

Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...

. According to RRN's December 1948 program listing, WGHF cut away from the network at 8:00 PM each evening for a Spanish language

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 program entitled "Programa Hispano".

Some of the individual RRN-owned stations also aired local segments from the studio facilities in each transmitter building. Thursday evenings at 7:30, WVBN in Turin carried a program called "County Students Speak", while WFNF in Wethersfield featured the live music of a barbershop quartet

Barbershop music

Barbershop vocal harmony, as codified during the barbershop revival era , is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture...

. On Fridays at 6:30 PM, WVBT in Bristol Center ran a local program called "Canandaigua

Canandaigua (city), New York

Canandaigua is a city in Ontario County, New York, USA, of which it is the county seat. The population was 11,264 at the 2000 census...

 Review".

Weather Roundup

One of RRN's most popular daily features was a series of live weather reports from each of the hilltop transmitter sites, moving from west to east. At 12:15 PM, an announcer in the downtown Ithaca studio would introduce the "roundup", then pause for a few seconds while the Bristol Center and Ithaca transmitters switched relay receivers. The engineer at Wethersfield would then fade down his relay receiver, switch on his mic

Microphone

A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...

, and report the readings of each of his weather instruments. By means of RRN's off-air relay system, this would be simulcast on the other five stations. After another pause, Bristol Center's engineer would go live -- followed in turn by the Ithaca, DeRuyter, Turin and Cherry Valley transmitter staff -- who would each flip the necessary switches to air their respective reports and relay the rest "down the line".

aircheck from April 1949. The first report originates from the WFNF transmitter building on NYS Route 78 in Wethersfield, NY and is followed by local observations from WVBT atop Worden Hill near Bristol Center, WVFC atop Connecticut Hill near Ithaca, WVCN in DeRuyter, the defunct WVBN in Turin, and WVCV in Cherry Valley. The program concludes with an official forecast from the US Weather Bureau

National Weather Service

The National Weather Service , once known as the Weather Bureau, is one of the six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States government...

 in Albany.

In 1953, RRN was granted authority by the FCC to operate its outlying stations from Ithaca by remote control. With the elimination of attended transmitters, responsibility for "Weather Roundup" reports was delegated to other broadcasters around the state, who continued to support the program for the next two decades.

The final "Weather Roundup" aired June 4, 1968 -- two days before RRN's 20th anniversary.

Subsequent Owners

On February 1, 1960, the network was purchased by the Ivy Broadcasting Company, a corporation headed by Woody Erdman

Woody Erdman

Ellis E. "Woody" Erdman was an American sportscaster, television producer, and businessman who served as chairman of Trans-National Communications, International Trade & Commerce Corporation and Boston Celtics.Ellis Erdman was a combat veteran of World War II, having served with the US Army...

, who also owned WTKO (AM) in Ithaca and WOLF (AM)

WOLF (AM)

WOLF and WWLF are the Radio Disney simulcasts for Syracuse, New York and the nearby Finger Lakes area. The outlet broadcasts at 1 kilowatt on 1490 kHz and 1340 kHz . The stations are 51% owned by Craig Fox, who also owns several other radio and low-power TV stations in New York...

 in Syracuse. The group of FM stations was renamed the "Ivy Broadcasting Network", and all stations received new call signs ending in "IV". Ivy filed in August 1961 to increase the effective radiated power of the stations, but only some of these requests were granted by the FCC.

In April 1966, Ivy sold the group of FM stations to Chenango and Unadilla Communications, a small upstate New York telephone company also known as C&U Telephone. However, in early 1968, C&U was acquired by Continental Telephone, a larger corporation. At that time, FCC regulations prohibited control of broadcast licenses by national phone companies of Continental's size, so the new parent was forced to divest the stations. This provided televangelist Pat Robertson

Pat Robertson

Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....

 the opportunity to acquire the five-station network, then valued at $600,000, as a tax-deductible gift. Mr. Robertson was already operating WYAH-TV

WGNT

WGNT, channel 27 , is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, USA. WGNT is the CW Television Network affiliate for the Hampton Roads television market and is owned by Local TV, which also operates WTKR , Hampton Roads' CBS affiliate...

 and FM station WXRI

WMOV-FM

WMOV-FM is a Rhythmic AC formatted broadcast radio station licensed to Norfolk, Virginia, serving Hampton Roads. WMOV-FM is owned and operated by Clear Channel Communications.-Simulcast:The station used to simulcast the format on WKSA...

 in the Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...

 area of Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, and he incorporated the five upstate New York stations into his fledgling Christian Broadcasting Network

Christian Broadcasting Network

The Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, is a fundamentalist Christian television broadcasting network in the United States. Its headquarters and main studios are in Virginia Beach, Virginia.-Background:...

 on January 1, 1969. Christian programming for CBN Northeast, as the New York station group was then called, originated from the transmitter site of the Ithaca station, WEIV

WQNY

WQNY is a radio station broadcasting a Country music format. Licensed to Ithaca, New York, USA, the station serves that market and occasionally has appeared in the Elmira-Corning ratings, as the station can be heard well in the eastern and northeastern parts of that market...

. During CBN's period of ownership, the stations underwent significant equipment upgrades, including installation of new RCA stereo

Stereophonic sound

The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...

 transmitters and circularly-polarized

Circular polarization

In electrodynamics, circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave is a polarization in which the electric field of the passing wave does not change strength but only changes direction in a rotary type manner....

 antennas. The off-air relay scheme was also eliminated in favor of Moseley PCL-303 950 MHz STLs between Ithaca and the outlying sites. The CBN Northeast network operated through the 1980's, until the stations were sold individually to separate owners, thus breaking up one of the first FM radio networks in the country.

Successors

The Cherry Valley signal was the only one to retain its Ivy Network/CBN callsigns, remaining on the air as WJIV 101.9. It has also retained a religious radio format since the Robertson era.

The DeRuyter license remains active as WOLF-FM

WOLF-FM

WMVN is a Rhythmic Adult Contemporary radio station serving the Syracuse market. WMVN operates at 100.3 MHz on the FM dial. A separate translator, W243AB, serves the city of Syracuse, New York on the 96.5 frequency...

 105.1, with a new tower but the original Rural Radio Network transmitter building. The station is owned by Craig Fox and currently runs a country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 radio format. During the 2000s, Clear Channel Communications

Clear Channel Communications

Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American media conglomerate company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008...

 owned the station. (The WOLF calls are borrowed from sister station WMVU, which held the call sign for many years.)

The Ithaca signal became WQNY

WQNY

WQNY is a radio station broadcasting a Country music format. Licensed to Ithaca, New York, USA, the station serves that market and occasionally has appeared in the Elmira-Corning ratings, as the station can be heard well in the eastern and northeastern parts of that market...

 103.7, continuing to operate from the Connecticut Hill site that was the CBN network control point. Serving a smaller market in Ithaca (as opposed to its counterparts, who serve bigger, more distant cities in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse), WQNY has been the most commercially successful of the network's stations, having earned top Arbitron ratings in the Ithaca market. WQNY is currently owned by Saga Communications

Saga Communications

Saga Communications is a broadcasting company that owns and operates stations in 26 markets in the United States. The company, which is based in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, primarily operates radio stations , but it also operates 9 television stations Saga Communications is a broadcasting...

.

The Bristol Mountain site remains in broadcast use, but not with the original RRN/Ivy/CBN license. That station is now WFXF

WFXF

WFXF, also known as "The Fox", is a classic rock FM radio station in the Rochester region of upstate New York.- History :- Rural Radio Network/Ivy Network/CBN :...

 95.1 Honeoye Falls, operating from Baker Hill, closer to Rochester. The current signal at the old Bristol Mountain facility, WHTK-FM 107.3, is a newer license that was moved to Bristol in 1999. Both stations are owned by Clear Channel. WFXF runs a classic rock

Classic rock

Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...

 radio format, while WHTK-FM has changed radio formats frequently, currently originating no programming of its own and simulcasting AM station WHTK.

The Wethersfield site remains on the air as WLKK

WLKK

WLKK is an American radio station located in Wethersfield, New York. Broadcasting on the frequency of 107.7 MHz, the station is currently owned by Entercom Communications and is operated out of the company's studios in Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo...

 107.7, with a new tower and a substantially renovated transmitter building. It has had varying success with several radio formats in the Olean, Buffalo and Rochester markets. Its current owner is Entercom Communications

Entercom Communications

Entercom Communications Corporation is the fourth-largest broadcasting company in the United States. As of November 2009, Entercom operates 110 radio stations in 23 markets across the United States....

.

The Turin transmitter building remains standing, but no broadcast station has operated there since WVBN went silent. The site now houses a microwave relay tower.

Since the dissolution of the CBN Northeast network, a new religious network has taken root in the area. The Family Life Network

Family Life Network

*WCIG - Dallas - 107.7 FM*WCIH - Elmira - 90.3 FM*WCII - Spencer - 88.5 FM*WCIK - Bath - 103.1 FM*WCIM - Shenandoah - 91.5 FM*WCIN - Tunkhannock - 91.3 FM*WCIT - Trout Run - 90.1 FM*WCIY - Canandaigua - 88.9 FM*WCOF - Arcade - 89.5 FM...

now covers much of upstate New York (on different stations).

External links

Tracking the old Rural Radio Network by Scott Fybush.