WRNJ - why I'm here
I started listening in 1989 while living in the Poconos and commuting to work in Essex County, NJ. I liked what I heard (for the 30 minutes or so I could still get AM1000 while passing through on Rt. 80.)
Long story short - my (now-ex) wife wanted to move back to NJ, and I agreed that it would be a good idea. Hackettstown was a pretty obvious first choice.
So we found a place in Independence... and then my brother moved into the area, then my sister, then my parents.
So now, my brother and parents live in H'town... and my sister, ex- and kids still have their homes in the township right next door.
My fiancé and I still listen, and still spend a fair amount of time in Hackettstown.
All of this started with Russ Long's morning show. It was his fault....not that anyone's complaining.
jjmonth4 
jm62 I remember when they first signed on the air, mid 70s I think and a rooster crowed when came on at sunrise and they played the national anthem when they signed off at sunset.....boy has that station come a long way ! It's all good I listen to them all time...
Dam He's a great guy, as most of us have, I have met him several times. Always wondered why he retired, moved away and then came back though, but it is great that he did.
Reggie Voter 
iJay Russ was serious about helping a radio station get up and running in Maine ... he gave me a business card and encouraged me to keep in touch.
I found out all they could offer was a part-time sports job ... can't move to Maine and expect my wife to start all over and look for a new job ... in Maine... when all they have is something part-time.
If RNJ offered a part-time sports job, I'd jump at it and work my tail off, but it's not going to happen.
As far as I know, that station in Brunswick, Maine, never got up and running.
Andy Loigu They have radios in Maine? I thought that they communicated by tying notes to moose's antlers.
Mariann Just for simplicity, I would think. I think they picked it up after Superstorm Sandy when everyone said they "heard it on RNJ." Just shorthand thing is my guess.
soccermom79 
Derek I don't think that there is a KRNJ or an NRNJ or even an ARNJ so it probably doesn't matter, except for when it is time for their official ID.
I've heard other stations in other markets drop the "W" also ... it's just something people in the industry think is cool now, you know, trending.
I'd call it The Orange (with apologies to the Syracuse basketball team) or...
ORANGE 92, but then you'd also have ORANGE (other frequencies) and it would get kinda confusing.
In the Lehigh Valley, stations like B104 have different programming on their other frequencies, like ZZO-95, NewsTalk 790 and 1470 The Fox (a sports station) but that's "big time" radio ... bigger budget, more advertisers and listeners.
In Easton, atop College Hill, you get ESPN Lehigh Valley on AM and The Bone (FM rock) broadcast from the same building. For a few years, The Bone carried the Yankees' games.... it is high ... it is far ...
Now the Yankees are overpaid losers and they've dropped them.
My coworker at General Motors in Parsippany
used to work for WRNJ in 1979 his name was Bob Hunt
Mr Negative I remember Glen Herman, I worked with him on a promotional video for WCCC in 1992 ... he had the right voice and cooperated with everything we asked him to do, he made me look like a great producer.
I still have the VHS copy, if I knew how to post it, I'd do it right now.
If Glen sees this somewhere, maybe he can put it on You Tube ... I know I left a copy of it for the College's historical archive ... wonder if they still have it.
Russ worked on a project with my wife, Adele, many years ago .... where they interjected parts of songs into a "news script" and it was really funny ... the people where she worked at that time loved it.
Local radio people can be very helpful, I worked on many a WCCC ad with Lew White, now retired.
Really dating myself here but when my daughter was a senior in high school...she and her girlfriend used to go after school up to the WRN J station and help out..working back then with ....who else??? Russ Long!
joyful Russ Long invented radio, so I hear (-;
I should thank the Hackettstown football team for all the chances they gave me to say ... third down and Russ Long.
Also had an opportunity to work track runner Mark Bahnuk into a call ...
we need Mark Bahnuk right now, it's third down and a mile to go.
Russ used to call his sports recaps Long Shots, a "long" time ago.
I used to come on, calling myself "Sports Boy." Those were fun days.
And, of course, I've been known as The Walrus, a nickname given me 50 years ago by a football coach. We had fun with it on WRNJ.
"In Easton, atop College Hill, you get ESPN Lehigh Valley on AM and The Bone (FM rock) broadcast from the same building."
what frequency is 'the bone' broadcast on? I've never heard it.
BrotherDog The Bone is 107.1, I think... but it's license is out of Belvidere and it's broadcast out of Stroudsburg, not Easton, as far as I know... I think you mean 99.9 The Hawk, Andy.
The Bone (WWYY-107.1) used to be WRNJ back in the '90s and played country music, oddly enough. Then there was a whole thing where there was a deluge of country stations and the station got bought and moved to Stroudsburg. For whatever reason, the location in Hackettstown was allowed to keep the WRNJ call letters though.
ianimal WWYY 107.1FM is now called "Spin Radio"
http://www.spinradio.fm/
They have more than one transmitter - they piggy back out of Stroudsburg's VPO facility, as well as the South Mountain station, and even still broadcast out of the old Belvidere. Believe it or not, there's a whole wiki page about the story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWYY
GC The Bone got the shaft? No more Mandatory Metallica during Wednesday night poker games? That sucks...
"Spin Radio" doesn't exactly sound hard or heavy. What's their format, any idea?
ianimal - If you want a station more Bone than The Bone, dump the pretenders, get your computer speakers out, and hook into WSOU Pirate Radio on line. Anywhere with a DJ named Mothra has got its act together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3WuAMMzUbw
I went to college in Newark, GC... I know all about 89.5. But, I also have satellite radio... I can listen to NWOBHM and other classic metal on Ozzy's Boneyard or metal and hardcore punk on Faction or Liquid Metal. I can stream it online too. It's just that one night a week out in the garage that will be affected.
thanks guys, i remember that 107.1 fm with the country-western format, and also simulcast as wrnj for awhile, i like the hawk, and the allentown stations, even that zarapeth one that comes in clear as a day wherever you are and the rest of them as well.
i like to keep up with what's going on with radio stations, maybe i missed my calling, although as the KOAM (hs) always says, not much money in it for regional dj's.
When I was visiting ESPN Lehigh Valley (Nassau Broadcasting) just a month ago, I could have sworn The Bone was broadcasting from the same building,
but even if it was The Hawk, it still illustrates my original point that broadcast companies run multiple radio stations with different formats ... if I had the bucks to start a station, I'd call it The Walrus.
I loved it when Baltimore had a classic rock station called The Colt, playing on the old nostalgia for the Baltimore Colts. But, I guess that generation of fans is getting on ...
That Paxinosa Road location atop College Hill has a phenomenal scenic view.
Talk about Lehigh Valley radio, I'm listening to the corny old Christmas songs on LEV ... it must be a money maker, they do it every year ...
Feliz Navidad, Santa Claus is coming to town, also lots of Mannheim Steamroller, and baby, it's cold outside.
It would be a Blue Christmas without it.
Yeah, it's definitely The Hawk. When I was very young, it was originally WEEX 99.9, then WEEX became 1230 AM and the FM Station became WQQQ (99.9 kind of looks like three lowercase q's) and was called Q100. Not sure when it became The Hawk... probably during the '90s.
About 10 years ago it was WODE (relying on memory again) and it was an Oldies format ... then it became the Hawk ...
but I do think the Hawk, Bone and WEEX (now the LV ESPN station) all are part of Nassau Broadcasting, which is headquartered in Princeton.
Mega media, ugh. Someone will search the web and discover what's what.
Anyway, a shout out to an old hero, Dick Hammer, who was out there broadcasting P'burg, Easton, and Lafayette games for 36 years on old WEST 1400 ... and every morning he'd have a trivia question with a dozen Dunkin Donuts as a prize.
Unfortunately, I won a lot of those trivia prizes, thus the "physique" I have today (-;
Took a "spin" up Paxinosa and found three vans parked in front of the broadcast building atop the hill, with logos painted on them for spin radio 107.1, the hawk, and Lehigh valley sports radio ... anybody who does not believe me can go there and see it for himself.
I liked what I heard of Spin 107.1 on the radio, trying to determine if it is automatic broadcasting.
Problem with radio is so many people got into it to make big money, and now those people are owners ... the people who make good radio are the people who LOVE RADIO ... sure, everyone needs a living wage, but if you have a genuine interest, becoming wealthy is nice, but not important. You love the process.
By the way, all the stations that carry shows like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity are keeping local people from having local shows regarding local issues.
That'll stir up a hornets' nest of all the rush and Hannity fans.
Took a "spin" up College Hill to Paxinosa, to the little radio complex and saw vans with signage for Spin 107, the Hawk, and Lehigh Valley Sports Radio 1230 and 1320. All were there in the same parking lot. If anyone does not believe me, they can take the ride up there for themselves.
Getting on my soapbox a little bit.
Heard Cowherd today on ESPN radio, do a rant I happen to agree with. Gotta attribute sources, because this is tit-for-tat HL, and we need to be academic with everything.
The thoughts about stations that carry shows like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity are denying a lot of local people jobs in markets around the country ... local people who could be doing local shows about local issues ... those thoughts are my own.
If there were any "liberal" shows out there, I'd say the same thing.
Sports, music, politics, so many small market stations are airing "national" shows because it is cheaper than producing local programming.
Don't want any of the academics out there accusing me of plagiarism, now, do I?
According to the "spinfo" on the website, their "business address" is in Easton on Paxinosa Road, but the "studio" is in Stroudsburg. Maybe the Spin 107 guys drove down to pick up their paychecks (-;
http://www.spinradio.fm/ContactUs.aspx
I'm due for a trip to Sullivan Trail in Forks Township up that way for some "Sunday Gravy" at DeLorenzo's anyway, so maybe I'll take you up on it.
The whole story is here... Nassau went bankrupt and they were sold to Connoisseur Media. It's almost hysterical how convoluted and screwy the commercial broadcast radio industry is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWYY#The_Birth_of_the_.27The_Bone.27
Convoluted and screwy, good choice of words.
I should give RNJ credit for at least trying to be local, they just don't have the resources I guess, to do all they could be doing.
I've had conversations with Tom Fallon, who manages the sports station, and he knows I write for newspapers. He told me he insisted the station have some locally produced and oriented programs before he took the job, and I give him credit for that.
They carried the Pburg-Easton game. Since it had to be played on Saturday, and my plans had been to head to Baltimore, I could catch that second half in the car as I made my way south and west bound. People do listen to sports on local radio.
Well, the reason I brought up the broadcasting complex at College Hill, is because RNJ has three spots on the dial, two on FM, which broadcast the same thing.
They could make the AM a news, sports, talk type of station, like most AM stations are these days, but this one would be the go-to source for our particular area. One of the FM outlets could be either country or classic rock or oldies, take your pick ... music for an older crowd. The other FM could be the "now" stuff ... a lot of which is actually agreeable music.
Takes hiring of sufficient staff to do it, though.
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