WIOD-AM 1360 
Sanford

Original Call Letters: WIOD 
Originally Licensed: April 5, 1956 
Original City of  License: Sanford
Original Frequency: 1360 
Origin of Call Letters:                                                                            Meisch Building, 1st St. Sanford. First home of WIOD
Original Power: 1,000 watts daytime
Original Format: Block Programming
Original Location: Meisch Building, 1st Street 
 
Network Affiliation(s):

1956: NEW RADIO STATION (By Tammy Wersinger of The Sentinel Staff - Flashback Column - November 5, 1989)
IN SANFORD. Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Browne and John Bolling filed an application for a new radio station in Sanford. Browne was former chief engineer of WTRR-AM 1400 in Sanford, but left to start his own station. The new station would broadcast daytimes at 1,000 watts.

WIOD History
Mr. Doug Douglass was kind enough to supply information for these pages. In a copy of pages for Sanford from the 
1958 Broadcast Annual  I found a listing for station WIOD in Sanford. I thought this was a misprint. Bill Reck co-owner of 
WTRR-AM 1400 in Sanford verified that there was in fact a second radio station would take to the air in Sanford in 1956. 
In 1946, Miami station (on the air originally in 1926) WIOD, changed their call letters to WCKR and Sanford Broadcasting Company saw an opportunity to “cash in” on those famous call letters. The Sanford station would later change to WSFR (Sanford Florida Radio). Their first studios were in the Meisch Building next to "old" post office, then the library. Then the studios were moved near the Amtrak station in Sanford.

Mr. and Mrs. Emerson Browne and John Bolling filed an application for the new radio station in Sanford. Browne was the former chief engineer of WTRR-AM 1400 in Sanford, but left to start his own station. WSFR-AM 1360 would move to West 1st Street near where the Auto Train now operates. WSFR went “dark” in 1959 or 1960 and the frequency was "deleted" by the FCC after the station was off the air for over one year.

Names In WIOD History
Emerson Browne-1956-Co-owner-Sanford Broadcasting Company
John Bolling-1956-Co-owner-Sanford Broadcasting Company
Joseph Horenstein-1959-Prersident-Sanford-Seminole Broadcasting, Inc.
Bud Carrigan-1959-Commercial Manager-Sanford-Seminole Broadcasting, Inc.


Note: 1926- WIOD 610 AM (Miami) is Florida’s seventh oldest continuously licensed broadcast radio station. Installed in the spring of 1925 by Carl Graham Fisher, a Miami Beach developer, the station made its formal air debut on the South Florida airwaves on January 19, 1926. Carl Fisher selected the letters WIOD as the call letters signifying “Wonderful Isles of Dreams” to commemorate Collins Island, on which the station was situated. After enduring several hurricanes and subsequent power shutdowns, WIOD was acquired by Isle of Dreams Broadcasting, a subsidiary of NBC, in early 1929. The station also shared time with sister station WOMB during this adverse period, and was known as WIOD-WOMB, using the on-air slogan “Wonderful Isle of Dreams.” James M. Cox, Jr. became the chief owner of Isle of Dreams Broadcasting Corporation in 1946, and the call letters became WCKR  for owners Cox-Knight Radio. The company would eventually become Cox Broadcasting Corporation in early 1964.

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