Hartford
The Greaseman, WPOP Hartford | March, 1975
Thumbing through the vast unposted tape collection here at the Airchexx studios we stumbled upon this vintage scope of Doug Tract, AKA The Greaseman at WPOP Hartford toward the end of both his tenure and WPOP’s days as a music station before it became an all-news outlet. This is so rare, in fact, I think there is only one aircheck of Greaseman on WPOP on the web aside from this one. This is a first generation tape which sounds very much like it came right out of the studio skimmer. The only editing done here is your webmaster took the silence out of where the skimmer stopped recording when the mic cut off and back on. The BAD part of this recording is that the first part of each word is cut off, probably due to a delay in the remote relay on the tape machine. I will tell you that unl...
Ken Gilbert, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | December 27, 1987
Date of Recording: 12.27.1987 Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: Oldies Featured Air Personality: Ken Gilbert (WAQY, WTIC-FM, WDRC, WDRC-FM, WKNE-FM, WDOT, WZRT, WVAA, WVTK) Contributor: Ken Gilbert Airchexx Entry: 1,482 DRC-FM plays million dollar music!… Comments: Yet another Ken Gilbert recording from Big D 103 surfaces and this one is from a few days before New Year’s. Listen for a live promo for the Big D Big 300 countdown New Year’s Eve. And as if nobody remembers how cold Winters used to be in Connecticut, listen to Ken’s weather forecast. Temperatures in the teens and twenties are pretty normal (if not downright warm) going into January. This is very short, just 3:16, scoped.
LearJet, 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford | 1992
Date of Recording: 1992 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: CHR Featured Air Personality: Learjet Contributor: Robyn Watts Airchexx Entry: 1,462 “Today’s Best New Music First, 96-TIC-FM“ Comments: Two years before PD Paul Cannon would take the station to Adult Contemporary, the intensity of this mostly Dance/R&B CHR mix is here for all to hear in a VERY short scope of a jock known as “Learjet”. By 1992, TIC-FM shared the CHR format with KISS 95.7 (WKSS) and KC-101 (WKCI 101.3) in nearby New Haven. Connecticut is a small state and markets overlap. Still, at this point in time, WTIC-FM was the heritage Top 40 station, having been in the format longer than it’s two competitors. Click to Donate Now!
WDRC-FM Oldies Sampler | 1980s
Date of Recording: Unknown Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: Oldies Featured Air Talent: Ken Gilbert (WAQY/WTIC-FM/WDRC-FM/WDRC/WKNE-FM/WZRT/WVTK) Contributor: Ken Gilbert Airchexx Entry: 1,455 “I see Jerry Kristafer has a friend who travels there” Comments: For the sake of just ONE break on a 90 minute cassette, the rest of which appears to have been bulk erased (the original tape you can hear bits of audio from a prior recording trying to bleed through), we present a sample of the beginnings of Oldies “Big-D 103”. As Ken describes elsewhere, WDRC-FM morphed from CHR to Oldies over a few months in late 1983 into 1984, and by the time of this recording was firmly in the Oldies format. But its just one break with one listener call-in, and you ...
Ken Gilbert, 102.9 WDRC-FM “FM 103” Hartford | 1983
Date of Recording: 1983 (Exact date unknown) Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut Featured Air Talent: Ken Gilbert Airchexx Entry: 1,436 DRC-FM, playing EVERYBODY’s Hit Music! Comments: Well, here’s an interesting aircheck. This is from a period of time in 1983 when both DRC-FM and TIC-FM used a very similar approach to their respective Top 40 formats. As a listener, I preferred DRC-FM, partly because I could rarely pick up TIC, and partly because it seemed that DRC-FM let their jocks talk a bit more. Whatever the reasoning, this is a great aircheck! Just under 5 minutes in length and a bit processed in house because the source cassette played at slightly the wrong speed and sounded a bit gurgly… still does to a point, but these bits of hit songs will certainly br...
Ken Gilbert, “Jukebox Saturday Night” – 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | May 6, 1989
Date of Recording: 05.06.1989 Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut Featured Air Talent: Ken Gilbert Contributor: Ken Gilbert Aircheck Entry: 1,434 …Ah – Petula Clark, makes me want to eat spaghetti! This is My Song Comments: Its a week before DRC-FM’s 50th anniversary, and the station is all geared up for it. Constant mentions of WDRC being America’s FIRST FM radio station. Well, it might be the first one, Doolittle’s newfangled invention sure did revolutionize radio but it would take 25 years and a shift in frequencies off the old 49 megahertz band and a push for receivers to finally win an audience. This aircheck really speaks for itself! Ken Gilbert is his merry old self and just does such a great job handling callers and taking requests. But hey, t...
Ken Gilbert; Dean Richards, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | March, 1988
Date of Recording: 03.1988 (exact date unknown) Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut Featured Air Personality: Ken Gilbert, Dean Richards Contributor: Ken Gilbert Date of Contribution: 8.12.16 Aircheck Entry: 1,432 “…here comes Cher – I think this before she had tatoos and a big flamed bird on her backend!” Comments: Some radio recordings should never be hidden under a lamp – or in a box! Our second offering from the newly minted Ken Gilbert collection is this, super-high quality cassette of WDRC-FM (Big-D 103) from March of 1988. Its difficult to pin down a time on this, and the tape does not necessarily roll in chronological order. We hear Squirt (Gilbert), then a few minutes in, Dean Richards, then it finishes out with Gilbert. While the audio is ov...
Ken Gilbert, “Jukebox Saturday Night, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | 1984
Date of Recording: 1984 (exact date unknown) Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut Featured Air Personality: Ken Gilbert Contributor: Ken Gilbert Date of Contribution: 08.12.2016 Aircheck Entry: 1,430 Comments: “Every hour Music Means Money on Big D 103, Hartford’s Oldies Authority…” Every great radio station gets it start somewhere. Some made an abrupt format change that caught listeners unaware. Others made a slow turn. WDRC-FM was the natural blossom of its highly successful AM sister station. 1360 WDRC had a number of slogans over the years, “You’re never far from a friend”, “Where Your Friends Are” WDRC, Hartford’s Big D” and such. Some personalities would go on to become very well known, such as Dick Robinson, w...
Old Gold 1971 Remastered, Part 1 of 4
Going WAY back to the beginning of this website – well, okay, WAY back to the days when the radio industry trade circulated audio specials on vynl, here’s a completely re-mastered copy of one of the very first exhibits we had on airchexx way back in 2002! Old Gold was actually a vynl print – well, one could find it on vynl and on cassette in later years. The original copy we had obtained was on a worn out cassette and very muffled, but back then we were happy to post anything. Now, taken right from the record itself, a copy of Old Gold 1971. I’m posting this in four parts for easier listening. Beware, the vynl skips about 3 minutes in, during the WWDJ aircheck.. but not badly. Contained in this segment, in this order: WFIL Philadelphia – Dan Donovan KTSA San A...
Ken Gilbert, 1360 WDRC Hartford | January 1983
Date of Recording: January, 1983 Contributor: Ken Gilbert Station: 1360 WDRC (AM) Hartford Featured Air Talent: Ken Gilbert Comments: I asked Mr. Gilbert what WDRC-AM sounded like before the flip to Oldies, and so here’s a 9 minute high-quality scope from 1983. While Ken didn’t say so, it sure seems like Buckley did more of a slow format turn towards oldies from Top 40 during ’83. Listen to this, then the aircheck from later in 1983 to get a feel for where the station was going.
Ken Gilbert, “Jukebox Saturday Night”, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | 1985
From Contributor Ken Gilbert (Current Morning Man at 92.1 WVTK Port Henry, NY)! Ken writes: “This is an aircheck from around (19)85? Dean Richards helps me open Juke Box Saturday Night on WDRC FM.) There’s more heritage at 102.9 WDRC-FM than most stations can boast! Perhaps a great place to start is Man From Mars Productions‘ unofficial WDRC AM and FM fan site, wdrcobg.com! Why do I send you there? Because after you listen to this aircheck (and you really should listen here then go there in THAT order, to get the full effect), you’ll realize the true sense of HISTORY, that the folks programming Big D 103 were trying to convey. Its 1985. DRC-FM had been a Top 40 station (along with its sister station, AM 1360 WDRC) for a few years (technically, back to 1973 with a fe...
Happy New Year! – From 1360 WDRC Hartford | January 1, 1978
From Contributor Steve Tefft, who writes: (This) is from Otis in the Nighttime of WDRC fame. Recorded about 12:30 AM, January 1, 1978(again, New Year’s Eve). Otis obviously had a few before taking the mic. Happy New Year! Another lesson from the days of live, local radio, don’t drink and jock! Aircheck #1,316 since May 2, 2002!
