In honour of WLS Chicago's 85th birthday today, we have an off-air recording from Vancouver from December 1969.
Here is the best reception of WLS-890 I was ever able to record from Burnaby. This was a Monday morning, so CJVI-900 Victoria had not signed on yet after weekly transmitter maintenance, so you don't hear the usual co-channel interference.
Unfortunately, my tape recorder added a fair bit of background noise, and skywave signals have some high end audio artifacts added. So I've left the equalization just as my Lafayette HA-230 receiver modified it, with a 6dB boost at 250Hz, to improve the clarity. You'll also hear some remnants of a few lightning strikes somewhere between Vancouver and Chicago.
This is one of the few existing recordings of Bill Bailey on WLS. He was a legend in Louisville, Kentucky, but did not like Chicago, so only stayed for about 6 months at WLS. Not to be confused with another Bill Bailey at WLS, who later joined the station as the first Afro-American announcer at the station.
Although Sears had sold the station to The Prairie Farmer on October 1, 1928, they were still the largest buyer of ads on the station in 1969. Listen carefully to the tones used in the portion of the Sears ad that ends this quick clip. They are the closest thing to subliminal advertising that I've heard used on Radio. They are the same "chimes" used within each Sears store, including those in Canada, to page staff. So, anyone who had ever been in a Sears store at the time would immediately recognize them. Smart!
http://www.radiowest.ca/sound/wlsbb.mp3