WSFR-AM
1360 Sanford
Original Call
Letters: WIOD
Originally Licensed: 1955
Original City of License: Sanford
Power: 1,000 watts
Original Format:
Original
Location: Meisch
Building, 1st
Street
Meisch Building, 1st
St. Sanford. First home of WIOD
Owner(s):1956-Sanford
Broadcasting Company (Mr. and Mrs. Emerson
Browne and John Bolling)
History Of Call
Letters and Formats:
WIOD-1955
WSFR-1956-"Sanford Florida Radio"
1955:
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.
WSFR
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 library, now a
Sanford Police Department sub-station.
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 -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.
Tom Haley 
Gene
Pope
Lonny
Padron also chief engineer
Dick
Ravenhill In
Memory
Other names in WSFR History
Dick
Ravenhill-From Tom Haley; "...between 1960 and 1962 Dick was
Program Director at WSFR. If you say anything
about Dick, you would be completely accurate in saying he was one of the most
gentle men in Central Florida radio. This was so early in my radio career
that Dick had to tape labels on the microphone and turntable switches to help
novices like myself. Heck, I was only in the eleventh grade at Maynard
Evans High School! Dick Ravenhill taught me enough to get
through an entire radio show without any assistance and for that I will always
be grateful. I don't know exactly how long, but he played beautiful music
overnights at WDBO in that same time period..."
These
shots of Dick Ravenhill were taken at WDBO courtesy
of Tom Haley click pictures for full sized view
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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