Airchexx.com

Found this in a pile of tapes – okay, that’s not very good housekeeping on our part, but this was sent in sometime since Oct. 09 and I wanted it posted, because it’s SO good!

I believe this was recorded sometime in the early 90s. It features Tony Terzy (sp) in a scoped presentation that sounds light years better than the station does now. Listen closely, you’ll hear a hint of reverb as Terzy interacts with callers (a female contest winner from Milford, CT – hey, was that you?) and plays Connecticuts Hottest Music!

Listening to this one more time… on the Top 10 at 10 here, Madonna, New Kids on the Block…? This has to be 1989. The station is imaged by Charlie Van Dyke! Oh yes, this is so awesome!

This is KC-101 at it’s 90s best!

KC-101 logo circa 1979

Contributor Andy Bologovsky presents this sixteen and a half minute tour of the Kopps-Monahan studios of 13 WAVZ. Its mid-Summer and the New Waves is sizzlin’ with a lineup of jocks who all made it to major market stations after their stay in New Haven. It’s an Oldies weekend, but its not exclusively Oldies, with some 1974 blockbuster hits heard in here along with the classics. Sure, its scoped, but this moves along with lightning speed.

You’ll hear (in order): Mike Dean, Bill Rock (WNBC) and Brian Phoenix, along with plenty of commercials to make you wish you were back in the good old days when gasoline was still under 75 cents a gallon!

Description by new contributor Pete Salant, current PD at Clear Channel Connecticut – WWYZ, WELI, WPOP and WAVZ…

Nobody can “best” Willie B/Cliff Kenyon, but I thought you might like to hear a higher quality aircheck of WFIF from March 1976. Randy West actually IS my oldest friend in radio. We met at WRNW when it was an 800 watt mono station in Mt. Kisco, NY, above a hardware store; we both had summer jobs there following our freshman year at college, Randy at City College (now City University of NY) and me at Boston University, where Howard Stern was in my class at the School of Public Communications and followed me at WRNW a couple of years later after it had moved to Briarcliff Manor, NY and went stereo. I worked for Randy at WFIF for four months during a year-long self-imposed hiatus from WAVZ.

WFIF had no presunrise operating authority, so the station signed on as early as 7:15AM in December and January. WFIF also had no transmitter remote control, as it had a “critical directional array” and had to have an operator with a first class license on duty at the transmitter. We had no air monitor, just program straight off the board, so we had to call the transmitter on the phone and confirm the carrier was on before starting the broadcast day. At that time, there was a really simple modification that could be done to the Audimax automatic gain controller at the studio to speed it up and make it sound pumpy and compressed (which it was specifically designed NOT to do!), so Randy and I did the mod one evening after signoff, and we rigged a ¼” phone jack in parallel with the phone line to the transmitter so we could aircheck off the Audimax output, the closest we could come to an actual “air” check. The Audimax’s companion peak limiter, the Volumax, lived at the transmitter, so all we were missing on these airchecks was the final peak limiting that kept the transmitter modulating at 99% negative and 125% positive peaks.

On this aircheck, you’ll hear plenty of cue burn because it is right off the board and the Audimax where you could really hear the high end just like an FM station. Randy did some of the most brilliant imaging I’ve ever heard, to this day, with absolutely NOTHING to work with but a mic, a turntable, a cart recorder and a Magnecord reel machine (when it worked). He and the legendary Tom Shovan, who was GM and salesperson (Randy sold too) figured out a niche for WFIF with “The Sound Of America” during the Bicentennial year; it was about half Country and half Pop.

I was “Mike Stone” because I didn’t really want it to be known I was working there; I believe I may have been paid “under the table,” but the statute of limitations has certainly long passed by now!

Every now and then, an aircheck comes along that really reminds me of what community full service radio really was in the 70s. Cliff “Rockin’” Kenyon, filling in this day for Randy West, is trying his best to be a big city sounding jock (and who wouldn’t, only 40 minutes from New York City), and in fact he was really SMOKIN’ at hist gig at nearby New Haven WAVZ (see the comments section of WAVZ New Haven, July 1974 where much of the 70s airstaff are sharing memories) as Willie B. Goode.

What, perhaps sets this Bicentennial Summer WFIF (The “Sound of America”) apart from most stations featured on this website is the close resemblance to many small town, community AM stations I remember from my youth. Full service elements such as (in this case) Mutual network news, a local news department, spots for lots of local businesses in and around the southern Rt. 8 corridor (New Haven County, CT), and LOTS of PSA’s! The music on WFIF is all over the place, some bubblegum pop, some early disco hits, some country (I tightly scoped this but you can make out some of the obscure songs you probably haven’t heard in 20 years). Frankly, given the studio equipment described (see the link above), the PD and staff did a great job of putting out a quality product with limited resources. And that’s the one thing that so many small AM stations had in common back in the 70s… aging equipment, old studios, old transmitters, almost no processing and a shoestring budget. But at least they were fully staffed by extremely talented people. Wasn’t that what made radio magical?

I have to add that WFIF was NOT typical smaller market AM radio in two areas: 1. While Milford CT isn’t a huge city (although today, Post Road, U.S. 1 has a huge commercial stretch), its a suburb of much larger New Haven, so it can be considered metro. Also, despite it’s relatively small signal, the format was top 40 in the truest sense in that everything that was a hit at the time got played, not just the power songs. Most small-signal, full-service type stations I remember played either ‘chicken rock’ or had some kind of lazy, haphazard format that included a lot of oldies and even standards mixed in with currents. So, WFIF is very unique, in your webmaster’s opinion. Remember, this part of Connecticut is within the signal contours of just about all NYC AM’s, so the station pretty much had to sound great in order to keep an audience.

As recordings go, one probably couldn’t get better than vynl. Programmer’s Digest was one of those trade publications that featured a different station each edition, and was sent out to various radio stations on a 33 1/3 LP. Featured on this edition, a composite of 13 WAVES and an entire day’s broadcast.

Sounding like the East Coast version of Dr. Don Rose, Here’s Judge Harrigan with one liners, traffic reports, time checks and the hits – all the ingredients you’d expect from a major market morning show, but this is LOCALISM done right!

On this particular day, there was a power outage in East Haven, and ConRail service was on-time!

13 Waves sported some of the best talent in the U.S., and this 8 minute profile from 1976 showcases the talents of such names as Paul “the Morning Mayor”, Midday guy Tom Morgan, “The Chucker” (who narrates this profile), Afternoon personality John E. Walker, Night guy Mike West (WGNG Providence, WTIC-FM Hartford), Sunshine 10pm-2am and Early morning she-jock Lise.

Courtesy of Contributor Andy Bologovsky – Thanks!

Back by popular demand, another great recording of 70s powerhouse 13 WAVZ New Haven. Who woulda thunk this AM station on the Connecticut shoreline would generate such interest? There’s a long list of alumni who frequent the other WAVZ posts on this website, and our longtime site friend and contributor, Andy Bologovsky decided to contribute more. Andy writes:

“Enclosed are a couple of WAVZ goodies from my ‘Vault’ for your website.”

I think you’ll enjoy John E. Walker from 12/1975 (Check out the incredible processing on that signal!). Hope the recordings bring out even MORE listener comments on the website!

Enjoy, Andy B.

This is a long aircheck. Its a “Motown Weekend” and they go back to the 60s a lot, but listen for PLENTY of 70s commercials, tunes and chatter from Walker, who sounds more like he belongs on New York’s 99x (WXLO) than in New Haven, but this Kopps-Monahan station was at the top of its game during this period – and no wonder!

This is a real gem. Thanks Andy!

There’s very little WE can say that conveys the excitement generated by 13 Waves during it’s heyday of the mid-late 1970s. Some of the best and brightest broadcasters in Southern New England graced the air on WAVZ – and a few of them have posted comments about this recording below.

If you read the comments before listening, do yourself a favor now, and see why this AM station OWNED the New Haven market, at a time when AM stations were already in steep decline as music stations. Oh, if this had been put on the sister FM station, we’d be listening to 101 Waves instead of KC 101… but would that have been such a bad thing? We can only dream, I suppose.

Also, sample this WAVZ aircheck from 1973…

And, recording of John E Walker on 13 WAVZ from December ’75!

This recording came from a vynl copy of Programmer’s Digest, a popular industry aircheck archiver in the 70s and 80s. This is a professional demo of “The New LUCKY 13″

What this demonstrates, once again, is just how creative and exciting AM radio was all those years ago.

…”a Kopps-Monahan Station”. Yup. The legal ID says it all. WAVZ was fondly known as one of the best Top 40 stations in Southern New England – and for good reason. 13-Waves as it was known, had some of the best talent available on the air.

Lee Roberts sounds great here, and he’d go on to a bigger gig in Hartford at WTIC-FM – which at the time (1979) was a Mike Josephs consulted “Hot Hits!” tm Top 40 station. We have a few airchecks of 96-TIC-FM here at airchexx.com.

This is probably one of the oldest and most rare airchecks anywhere. As the story goes, this is the demo that got Dan Ingram the job at WABC. If not, it surely goes way back. You’ll hear WICC, WNHC and KBOX.

Click HERE to Listen!

Kopps/Monahan was one of those small broadcast companies that believed in doing things right. In New Haven CT, their highly rated 13 WAVZ was a ratings success story. In 1979, they decided to launch the format on FM, flipping WKCI 101.3 to Top 40 as KC-101.

Here is a composite from later in their first year… finishing with ‘Friendly’ Floyd Wright. Wright was later heard on WTIC-FM Hartford, then on WWYZ Waterbury, after the format flipped from AC to Country in 1988.

Click HERE to Listen!

Here’s a short composite of KC-101.
This nicely compliments the clip of Danny Lyons on WNBC. Sue O’Neil was previously on WXLO 99X New York, and WVBF Framingham/Boston.