WISL Radio

A Station Takes Shape

Before WISL reached Shamokin listeners, Radio Anthracite was planning a regional broadcasting business. A February 24, 1947, Broadcasting report on the company’s Nanticoke station said it had also applied for a combined AM-FM outlet in Shamokin and an AM station in Pottstown. The company officers listed were Henry W. Lark of Sunbury, president; Sam Price of Harrisburg, vice president; and Carl Rice of Sunbury, secretary-treasurer. The proposed Shamokin outlet was part of that larger ambition, although the application alone does not establish that both AM and FM services were built.

By January 1948, the Shamokin station had a name and a program director. Broadcasting’s January 26 issue announced Tom Gillespie’s appointment to WISL. Previously an announcer at WWNY in Watertown, New York, he was joining a new 1,000-watt station on 1480 kilocycles. The notice gave January 25 as its scheduled start. That is an announced date, rather than a surviving account of the first program listeners heard.

Four Towers Above Town

Chief engineer B. T. Marshall described the physical work in RCA’s September 1949 Broadcast News. Studies began in 1946, and construction followed in June 1947. A four-tower directional antenna southeast of Shamokin was designed to protect other stations using the channel at night. Finding room on Big Mountain was difficult: brush-covered slopes and old stripping ravines complicated the search. An aerial survey revealed a suitable flat section.

Marshall also described rocks interfering with the installation of the buried ground system. Testing followed in late 1947, and permission for program tests came in January 1948. The article’s photographs show the towers, transmitter equipment, and a studio viewed through the control-room window. Another caption identifies Marshall with general manager C. R. Petrie inspecting an RCA rack during installation. These are views of the station’s working equipment, not photographs of a particular broadcast.

Licensed for 1480

Broadcasting’s March 29, 1948, FCC-actions column reported a license for the new WISL station and a change of studio location. It listed 1480 kilocycles, one kilowatt, a directional antenna at night, and unlimited operating hours. The compact entry describes a licensed service; it does not supply the changed studio’s address or a daily program schedule. Alongside the January appointment and Marshall’s account, it places WISL’s beginnings in a sequence of planning, equipment tests, and licensing rather than a single ceremony.

The Station in the Centennial Year

Shamokin’s centennial-era history places WISL at Rock and Sunbury Streets under Radio Anthracite, Inc. Its 1964 advertisement returned to the technical facts listeners would recognize: 1480 on the dial and 1,000 watts, advertised as full-time service. A coverage map and tower illustration presented broadcasting as a way to reach the surrounding region. That later advertisement belongs to a different moment from the construction photographs, but both show how the station connected its local identity with the reach of a radio signal.