08/16/2020
1942 Brooklyn Technical high school WNYE / WNYC, AM and early FM radio stations. My father Frank, graduated from Brooklyn Tech during WWII years. He was on the recording squad and member of the Radio club.
“WNYE began broadcasting as an AM Apex station on 41.10 MHz in November 1938 with the call sign WCNY, giving it an earlier starting date than any other FM station in New York City.It was the second educational Apex station, preceded only by WBOE (now WCPN) in Cleveland, Ohio.The station's original studios and transmitter were located at the Brooklyn Technical High School. WNYE served as a laboratory for developing programming for the city's public school system, and was known as the High School of the Air. Later its broadcasts were expanded to include adult learning, community-interest and ethnic programming. On October 25, 1939 the station's call letters were changed to WNYE, because the original call sign was considered to be too similar to WNYC, the New York City-owned municipal station.
Conversion to FM
At the time the Apex band was established the FCC noted that "The Commission at an early date will consider carefully the needs and requirements for high-frequency broadcast stations using both conventional [AM] modulation and frequency modulation".The commission's studies soon found significant advantages to FM transmissions over the Apex AM signals, with sound quality, and especially resistance to interference from static, including from lightning, found to be far superior for FM. In May 1940, the FCC decided to authorize an FM broadcast band, effective January 1, 1941, operating on 40 channels spanning 42–50 MHz, with the first five channels reserved for educational stations.This new assignment also resulted in the elimination of the Apex band, and the Apex stations were informed that they needed to either go silent or convert to FM.Prior to switching over to FM, WNYE received a series of special authorizations that permitted it to continue to use its Apex AM transmitter until June 29, 1941.
In 1942 WNYE made the conversion to FM transmission.
