Here’s a very interesting aircheck of Fairbanks Communications’ then recently-retooled WVBF as Top 40 “F-105”. The ‘check starts out with some strainge sounding robot promos (for lack of a better word), then moves into Frank Kingston Smith opening the F-105 Fantasy Parade in Framingham… conducted from the station rooftop.
Sure sounds like they had a fun time. Much of the airstaff is heard on this aircheck including then morning man Dale Dorman! This is the very FIRST aircheck I’ve been able to get my hands on featuring ‘Uncle Dale’ on WVBF so it’s a rare treat!
Audio quality wise, this starts out kinda bad, but quickly improves. Much tape hiss heard in the first 2 minues but by 5 minutes in this is perfectly acceptable, as it might have sounded this way on a tabletop radio had you been listening in ’77.
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This aircheck is not the fantasy parade. I BELIEVE it may be the WVBF “Star Wars” knockoff. The audio is so terrible I can’t really understand it. Somewhere in my deteriorating pile of open reel tapes I HAVE my shift on the SW knockoff. (For that “special”, which ran for two consecutive weekdays, I did Magic Christian’s afternoon time, 3 to 6.)
The Fantasy Parade was a riot. It was IN-and-OUT so fast (like five hours total) that the various police departments didn’t know what was going on. People… entire FAMILIES… piled into their wheels to go to the parade, but we never said where it was. We’d talk about floats and bands passing various landmarks that were so far apart, this obviously wasn’t possible. But people called every police agency in the market asking where the parade was.
I did the setup (6 to 10 on Saturday morning), but I think most of the credit goes to JoJo Kincaid who was the “anchor” for WVBF’s “coverage.”
I don’t believe that Dale Dorman joined the staff of WVBF until summer of 1978.
What a station that was!
Hiya Frank Kingston Smith, while you were up stairs in the morning, I was only downstairs in the WKOX-WVBF newsroom in the afternoon so we seldom met. But the only way to really enjoy these old sounds of 1979 is to return. As soon as I can get my DeLorean out of “impound,” I’ll be heading back there. It’s been in impound since 1985, so they want about $70,000. Could you contribute? ? ?
Regards, peter w.