Mike Stone, WFIF “The Spirit of America” Milford CT | March, 1976

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!

Cliff Kenyon, WFIF Milford CT | July 20, 1976

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.

This is a gift from Andy Bologovsky, who was a big fan of WFIF. This particular aircheck is presented to the 70s WAVZ staff, many of whom worked here before the step up to Kopps-Monahan a few miles down the road.