Dallas
Capt. Billy, KAFM 92.5 Dallas | April, 1974
Date of Recording: 04.xx.74 Station: 92.5 KAFM (KRLD-FM, KZPS) Dallas, Texas, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personality: “Captain” Billy Comments: Sounding suspiciously like a McLendon station, this short-lived Top 40 outlet sat at 92.5 on the FM dial. Never to be a serious contender to the REAL McLendon FM at the time, KNUS 99, this station did sound pretty good. By today’s standards, it sounds awesome! Notice the imaging and the voices. Pretty typical for Top 40 stations in the mid-70s, in fact, listen to the 92K “Great Get-Off” promo at 1:56. The same sound effect was used as part of the Top of Hour ID at WXLO, X-Rock 80 and some others. See how many other similarities you can find with this vs other Top 40 stations of the day… Today, 92.5 is a Clas...
Airchexx-In-HD: CHR 99.5 KPLX-HD2 Dallas | April 25, 2007
Here at Airchexx, we try to cover all the bases when it comes to documenting great radio. Whether its from the 40s, 60s, 80s or today, if it’s interesting, we’ll post it. Here’s one that shows great promise. It’s not quite ‘there’ yet, simply because there are no jocks. HD radio has such potential, except for the drawbacks that are becoming apparent: Lack of a commitment by local market managers to put on a local oriented music format with jocks, and a serious lack of radio receivers both in the home and in autos. Editorializing here, the FCC should have mandated that beginning on the date HD radio was to commence, receiver manufacturers should have been ordered to make all FM receivers capable of receiving HD signals. Alas, they dropped that ball and HD...
Ken Knox on 1190 KLIF Dallas | January 4, 1961
Courtesy of George, a trader who provided this via our sister site Radioinsight.com, here is a PERFECT recording of Ken Lock on KLIF, back in the very early days of Top 40 radio! KLIF, of course, was the Gordon McLendon station in Dallas, at this point competing with crosstown KBOX for the Top 40 crown. But listen, this is *not* all Rock & Roll! The first song you’ll hear is from Lawrence Welk! The music is all over the place, which is what you’d expect from a genuine Top 40 station (not the pre-programmed and preformatted crap that passes for Top 40 today), and from a programming standpoint its a breath of fresh air. What really stands out in this short aircheck is KLIF news. Sure, this is packaged with the usual beeps and other sound effects you’d hear in the 50s a...
Cat Simon on 103.7 KVIL Dallas | October 19, 1979
Now from the ‘annonymous’ donor file from two years ago comes this somewhat obscure recording of KVIL in the waning days of Top 40 before going to AC (and subsequently smashing the competition just like the top 40 days). Cat Simon is very entertaining – you’ll hear contests in the form of a Susan B. Anthony dollar coin giveaway, a car that gets 150 mpg (another, earlier gas crisis that we’re all familiar with), and some pretty cool jingles.
Composite: 98.7 KNUS “K-News 99” Dallas | September 2, 1972
“KNUS… With the world’s Greatest Contest…” Once again, we go back to the Robyn Watts Collection for a real CLASSIC! You have one minute from the time your prize is announced to call in and claim it. Actually, you have to listen to see how this contest works. KNUS is the epitome of continuous contesting! When not playing the ‘World’s Greatest Contest’, the station is giving away albums, T-shirts and more! This is McLendon’s personality station, and its a serious lesson on how to do radio the RIGHT way! As always, listener comments are welcome!
Mike Seldon, 1190 KLIF Dallas | 1972
Running close to 10 minutes in length, here’s a decent quality recording of the legendary 1190 KLIF. As we wrote on another KLIF Composite several years ago, the magic that was Gordon McLendon’s brainchild comes to life once more, with the station’s unique jingles, sounders and personalities. Here’s Mike Seldon. Now, someone out there remembers him and we’d sure like to hear from our visitors regarding this period in KLIF’s history. One thing is certain. No audio museum of radio is truly complete without a few from KLIF. Here’s one for the ages.
Promo: The Great Rat Roundup– KNUS Dallas | 1978
Frankly, when this posted, your webmaster falsely assumed this was a big KNUS promo. Alas, the person who says he created this piece contacted us to set the record straight. Apparently this was *NOT* used on the air. Here’s what creator Bob Buchanan says about it: the roundup was NOT an on-air promo. it was something i created and voiced in an after hours production session. it was in response to the rats that had died in the mclenden theater/studios over the weekend when exterminators put out poison. by the way, it was done in 1978…not 79…while i had a brief stop at knus. i returned to kvil as ops manager until late 79. We stand corrected. But… GREAT PIECE!
Drew Pierce, 570 KRQX Dallas | October, 1984
Thanks to Contributor Robyn Watts, we now fit one of the pieces of the 570 AM puzzle in Dallas. 570 Dallas started off as WFAA – and really, the station that was WFAA began elsewhere on the dial – where every other AM station in America did, at 833 Kilocycles (KC) was at a couple of different frequencies during its life, even sharing time for a long while with WBAP. Eventually, as history shows, the station that would eventually become KLIF moved to 570. KRQX began on July 2, 1983. It perhaps was, the great experiment. Can Rock music survive on the AM band? It did for a time, on the frequency of one of America’s greatest Top 40 stations ever. Yet, the format you hear on this aircheck is not exactly what you’d expect. Motown. Carole King… Classic Rock was a dif...
Jim White / Tommy Kramer on KNUS 99 Dallas | 1972
KNUS 99 – 98.7 to be exact, was McLendon’s FM powerhouse. Originally slated to be an all-news station, and almost never to be because Gordon McLendon almost sold it in the 60s, KNUS turned out to be the SECOND successful Top 40 station, right behind (and later surpassing) sister KLIF 1190. Here’s two great jocks doing Top 40 in a style imitated by much of the RKO chain (NOT the other way around) throughout the 70s. It’s GREAT radio – no reverb, plenty of personality and some big contests for the time period.
QuickChexx: 1190 KLIF Dallas | 1972
The next series of airchecks pertain to the Dallas market – in particular, Gordon McLendon’s contribution to broadcast history in ’72. Perhaps there has been no greater innovator in all of broadcast history than McLendon, from his baseball play-by-play re-creations to HIS style of Top 40 radio. This is one in a series of KLIF / KNUS airchecks that we’d like to present to you. All scoped, but all apparently original recordings in terrific condition! One thing of note… Notice how many different call letters 1190 Dallas has had since 1990 (from FCCInfo.com): KFXR from 11/12/2001 KTRA from 04/09/2001 KJOI from 09/29/2000 KLUV from 08/17/1998 KOOO from 01/10/1997 KDFX from 11/03/1995 KGBS from 08/17/1992 KUII from 02/04/1991 KYII from 12/25/1990
Ron Chapman, 103.7 KVIL Dallas | March, 1988
Here’s part of the Ron Chapman Morning Show on KVIL. Not much in the way of music here, but some beautiful jingles, lots of traffic reports and some news of the time. This is from before the station started calling itself “lite FM”. I’m impressed by the quality of Chapman’s show, and of the music segments heard (remember, all music is scoped), the variety of songs played. Many of these aren’t heard on the air anywhere today, thanks to ultra-tight over-tested music playlists, so enjoy this slice of North Texas radio KVIL from late Winter, 1988.
Composite: KNUS Dallas | 1979
New Contributor Karl Ireland sent in some truly fascinating material for your listening pleasure. Here’s an un-dated station promotional composite of “FM 99” KNUS. Based upon the music, I’m guessing this is from Spring, 1979. Who’s the narrator? Listen to the voice very carefully and see if you can answer. This follows one broadcast day from Morning Drive through the end of the night.
- 1
- 2
