(Part two of a three-part series about McKeesport's radio stations.)

It sure wasn't "Camelot." Not with its bargain-basement studios and miserably low pay.

But for "one, brief shining moment," McKeesport's other radio station was one of the top-rated in the Pittsburgh region.

These days, the "Mighty 1360" barely acknowledges Our Fair City at all, except for the FCC-required "legal ID" at the beginning of each hour: "WPTT, McKeesport-Pittsburgh."

. . .

It wasn't always that way. As the FCC prepared to lift its wartime ban on new radio station licenses, two competing McKeesport factions applied for allocations.

The effort to get the 1360 kHz allocation was led by one of the city's greatest boosters, Robert M. "Mr. Robert" Cox, owner of Cox's Department Stores. With a group of other prominent local businessmen, including real-estate agent William Buck, grocer James Balsamo and Ken Paxton of the G.C. Murphy Co., Cox formed the Mon-Yough Broadcasting Co. in 1945, and a year or two later, the company was granted a license for "WMCK" --- the call letters were short, of course, for "McKeesport."

Few people in those days owned an FM radio; the FM band was then a wasteland of elevator and background music. The FCC, which was trying to encourage development of FM, asked WMCK to take a license for 104.9 mHz FM as well.

. . .

WMCK's main AM frequency was granted a license for 5,000 watts of daytime power --- enough to cover most of Western Pennsylvania. But because the station had to share 1360 with other stations at night, and because AM signals bounce around the atmosphere, WMCK would have to reduce its power to 1,000 watts at sunset and make its signal "directional" so that it wouldn't travel so far.

That directional signal would play havoc with future attempts to expand 1360's audience. But in 1947, when McKeesport's population topped 50,000 and TV hadn't yet arrived in Pittsburgh, the lack of a big nighttime signal wasn't a problem.

To pull the signal in at night, four towers were erected in Lincoln Borough, near the Lincoln School. One was slightly taller; that tower held the antenna of WMCK-FM until the late 1950s, when Mon-Yough Broadcasting decided the 104.9 license was a waste of money and gave it back to the FCC.

The studios were located in the Elks Temple on Market Street in McKeesport, and WMCK went on the air with a mix of "good music" (mostly pop standards) and local sports broadcasts.

In the 1960s, as a sop to the teen audience, a young disc jockey named Terry Lee Trunzo was hired for the overnight shift to play rock 'n roll. He'd soon become the face of the teen music scene for most of the Mon Valley.

. . .

For a brief period of time around 1965, Mon-Yough Broadcasting changed 1360's format to all "beautiful music" under the call letters "WPQR" (for "Western Pennsylvania's Quality Radio"), but the slogan wasn't fooling anyone --- 1360 was a McKeesport station, especially after local sunset, and the call letters eventually reverted to WMCK.

By the late 1960s, "Mr. Robert" and the other investors were looking to get out of Mon-Yough Broadcasting; either they were tiring of the radio station, or they needed to focus their attention on their businesses. Cox's, for instance, was rapidly growing and now had outlets in North Huntingdon, Monroeville, Washington and Charleroi.

According to legend, Cox made at least one attempt to sell WMCK to Trunzo. Whatever the truth, the station was sold in 1969 to a Cleveland company called Westchester Corp.

And that's where the story gets interesting.

. . .

Westchester was created in 1964 by Bob Weiss, Norman Wain and Joe Zingale, three salesmen from Cleveland's big pop music station, WHK, who quit their jobs to purchase a station in Westchester County, New York. A year later, they purchased Cleveland's WDOK (1260) and changed the call letters to "WIXY," pronounced "Wick-Zee."

They copied the successful Top 40 rock format at WHK, but cut back on DJ talk and commercial interruptions. A series of promotional coups --- like sponsoring the Beatles' visit to Cleveland in 1966 --- soon made WIXY a force to be reckoned with.

Wain and Weiss were well-qualified to shake up stagnant 1360 in McKeesport, and they did. In January 1969, they lured away the sales manager of Pittsburgh's Number 1 hit music station, KQV (1410), and after a month of planning, the new sound of the old WMCK was ready.

. . .

WIXZ hit the air on Feb. 27, 1969, and at first, McKeesport didn't know what to make of it. As the last strains of "Houston" by Dean Martin faded away on 1360, on came the sound of clattering machinery. It was the recorded sound of a computer sorting punchcards.

"I am Segue, your computerized disc jockey," droned a robotic voice. "This is the new 'Wick-zee' 1360, WIXZ McKeesport. You are listening to the sound of automated radio. I am the world's only perfect radio announcer ... I have no moving parts. I can never make a mistake. I have taken over your radio dial at 1360." (Hear it at Jeff Roteman's KQV website.)

And on came "Papa Oom Mow Mow" by The Rivingtons. Hour after hour, it continued. "Segue the Computer" would announce a "super oldie" by Pat Boone or The Beatles, and invariably play "Papa Oom Mow Mow" instead.

When the "stunt" finally ended and a real, live DJ came on, he sounded only slightly more sane. It was outrageous Dick "Wilde Childe" Kemp, imported from WIXY in Cleveland, screaming over the intros to the records.

. . .

The music was loud, fast and bright, and so was Kemp. The format had changed, as had the airstaff; the only DJ kept from WMCK was Terry Lee, who introduced his new colleagues to the public during his dance-party show, "Come Alive," on Pittsburgh's WIIC-TV (11).

Suddenly, WIXZ was everywhere, with contests, concerts, promotions and giveaways.

The upstart from McKeesport was a real aggravation to KQV, the dominant rock and pop music station in Western Pennsylvania for more than a decade.

A few stations had tried to compete with KQV, but had serious limitations; either they were "daytimers" like WEEP (1080) that were forced to go off the air at local sunset, or they were stodgy and "adult-oriented," like KDKA (1020).

By the late '60s, KQV commanded a whopping 35 percent of the young adult audience, and many of their parents were listening, too; any station that wanted to program rock music in the Pittsburgh area was fighting for KQV's leftovers.

. . .

Who did these crummy amateurs think they were, broadcasting from McKeesport (which wasn't exactly a bastion of pop culture)? And what was Westchester Corp. doing, trying to challenge broadcasting giant ABC, which owned KQV?

Nevertheless, WIXZ gave the big boys a lot of trouble ... for a little while, anyway.

. . .

(Tomorrow: The thrilling (?) conclusion.)