Comments on: WEEP 1080 Pittsburgh Composite

By: Bob Woody

Bob Woody — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:16:05 +0000

I grew up in Plum Borough east of Pittsburgh in the 1950’s. I still remember the first day WEEP went top 40. They played “Just Born” by Perry Como EVERY record for the entire 1st day! It was quite a station. The best jingle…”In Pittsburgh Pennsylvania WEEP, where the music speaks for itself” At sign off each night…..”From now until 6am tomorrow morning, you won’t hear a peep out of WEEP!

By: Ed Salamon

Ed Salamon — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:27:37 +0000

Thank you, Gary.
I appreciate your good words about WEEP and WHN.

By: Mark Roman

Mark Roman — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:12:59 +0000

Now this is a total throwback. My father was a big listener to WEEP and I was forced to go along in the car as he wouldn’t go anywhere near KQV. I’ve heard all the airchexx of Dave Scott and Steve Reisen on KQV but had no idea they moved across the street. WEEP for JOY! I didn’t realize how good the station sounded back then. Thanks!

By: Davis Palmer

Davis Palmer — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:48:58 +0000

I was born in Pittsburgh in 1949. While I grew up listening to KDKA on crystal sets, the first real rock and roll station I remember was WEEP. I heard several of Mother’s friends had asked technicians to fix table radios so they wouldn’t receive WEEP and apparently a few actually managed the trick. (Though Mother had been a professor of voice at Georgia State Womens’ College and Pittsburgh’s PMI, she encouraged me to listen to rock and roll, hoping it would make me fit in better in school. Father dismissed rock and roll as junk till he became a bigger Beatle fan than I was, but that’s another story.)

Summer nights, I’d listen to WEEP on my red Travelr transistor radio till the station signed off. I was a loyal fan till I discovered the 24 hour KQV in mid-summer, 1961.

In 1987 or so I was job hunting and I stopped in at the studios of WEEP. To me, it felt like a visit to a shrine, but the young staff, mostly in their twenties, were surprised to learn WEEP had once been Pittsburgh’s premier rock and roll station. I suddenly felt very old. It was enough to make me weep.

By: jerry starr

jerry starr — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:19:57 +0000

Would really like to get in touch with Bob Brandon who posted here earlier. I worked briefly at WEEP in the Fulton Building shortly after the 50 KW went on the air, was one of the guys who came down from Youngstown temporarily when the station underwent a change in format. I worked for Myron at WHOT in Youngstown for 40 years, retiring a few years ago.

By: Seymour Czowznofskei, Incognito

Seymour Czowznofskei, Incognito — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:25:33 +0000

What a lot of folks are missing is that the original WEEP (for joy!~) had as it’s on-air staff Perry Marshall, Tony Graham (later PD at KDKA) John Christian (Sir Walter Raleigh). It was largely owned by one John Kluge who went on to found MetroMedia. It was also the first real Top-40 radio station in Pittsburgh, in very late 1957 or very early 1958, predating the ABC-owned incarnation of Top-40 KQV. WEEP’s main problem is tht it was only a daytime AM at the time. Myron Jones purchased the station in,I believe, 1969 with the intent of getting it on the air full-time. His plan had been to change the city of license from Pittsburgh to Mt. Oliver PA, and change frequency from 1080 to 1070 AM KHZ, with 500 watts daytime and 1,000 nightime directional pattern. The FCC would not approve the application. Thereafter, Mr. Jones applied for daytime directional 50,000 watts at 1080AM, with provsion for 25,000-wattts-critical hours. This application was approved. Eventually, the station added FM. Finally, ownership of the station was decided in courts with the apparent final decision forcing Jones to sell the station to Joseph Fields. Many knowledgable folks think that, if WEEP had become a 24-hour AM operation in the early 1960’s, it would have taken KQV for quite a ride. Myron Jones also owned top-40 stations WHOT in Youngstown, Ohio and WJET in Erie PA. Both stations dominated their markets.

By: gary kerns

gary kerns — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:19:01 +0000

I’d have to say my two favorite stations were NYC’s WHN and WEEP. I listened to WHN(when I could get it) from ‘79 to ‘87. WEEP was probably my favorite, owing to the fact that I lived(and still do) in West Virginia. I’d positively DIG it if WEEP and WHN could come back as classic country stations. Something to think about, huh?

By: Bob Brandon

Bob Brandon — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:03:49 +0000

Nice to hear the old WEEP on 1080. When I was at the station in the late 60’s and early ’70’s it was still owned by Myron Jones out of Erie, Pa. (WJET) Roger Willoughby Ray was GM, Don Evans-PD. I was CE busy building the 50Kw AM tower site in Hampton Twp. It fired up in the summer of 1970. In addition to Daddy Dave Scott coming over from KQV …. they also had Steve Rieson (sp?) come over from KQV where he had done mornings for a while. Studios were in the Fulton Bldg. – 11th Floor. We watched 3 Rivers Stadium being built!

By: Joel Raab

Joel Raab — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:28:52 +0000

I was PD of WEEP from 1978-81. Was fun to hear this aircheck, especially my good friend Dave Anthony.

By: Joseph Masi

Joseph Masi — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:50:27 +0000

After an internet search, I discovered that the Jack Armstrong I knew at Duquesne is Carl J. Marcocci, who started at WEEP in 1957. Today he owns radio stations in central Florida (WGUL is one of them). He had a terrific air personality in those echo friendly nineteen-fifties. Glad to see he succeeded in the business.