Friday, April 17, 2009

WJAN-TV 17 Pictures...

Amateur Radio operator Ed Thomas, of North Canton, who shared with us some rare WAKR-TV-23 Photographs a few weeks back, has come up with a few pictures from WJAN-TV 17 in Canton, Ohio, Which, as WDLI-TV, shut off its analog channel 17 last evening..



WJAN-TV Test Pattern..probably from the early 1970's


A pair of 2-inch quad tape machines..Dave Little of Canton owns a few of these machines..(not sure about these particular ones) And has been copying various older Hoolihan and Big Chuck skits..To save them for posterity.And possible future DVD sets of skits..



Early view of the original WJAN studio and transmitter location..At the corner of Reno Drive and California Avenue in Louisville, Oh. near St. Thomas Aquinas High School-Just outside the Canton City limits.

This was the transmitter that was turned off last night..All of WDLI's digital facilities are in Akron..




This appears to be a logo slide of WJAN-Gives you a better idea of what the lettering on the logo looked like. When I first started watching WJAN on occasion in the 1970's..I did not like the "eye" dotting the J in the logo...looked somewhat creepy to me..

Big thanks to Ed for these pictures..If he has any more of WJAN, and he doesnt mind, I'll add them to this post..

Here is a 3-part summary of the History of WJAN/WDLI I did in 2007..

Part 1:

http://clevelandclassicmedia.blogspot.com/2007/09/serving-city-of-cantonwjan-tv-17.html

Part 2:

http://clevelandclassicmedia.blogspot.com/2007/09/1960s-programming-on-channel-17minimal.html

Part 3:

http://clevelandclassicmedia.blogspot.com/2007/10/wjan-tv-1970-77growing-pains.html

Not as complete as I'd like but it's still hard to find much on WJAN-TV Canton on the net, even 2 years later..Just about nothing on YouTube..


5 comments:

  1. I wonder when the last time the studios where even used. Are they still using that tower for digital broadcasts or is that signal being sent from another location?

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  2. believe the digital broadcasts, as I mention in the blog are coming from the Akron area now..

    April 17, 2009 11:42 PM

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  3. The VTR on the right in that pic looks like an Ampex VR-1200.

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  4. I think you're right wbhist and the portable 2" machine on the left might be an RCA TR5...

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  5. @Anonymous: when the DTV switch happened they began broadcasting from a new location on Wadsworth Rd in Akron, up behind Rolling Acres Mall.

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