Hartford
Jerry Kristafer, 88.9 WJMJ Bloomfield (Hartford) CT | June 4, 2018
Station: 88.9 WJMJ Hartford (Wikipedia) (Website) Format: Catholic Radio, Full-Service Oldies Branded: “Where Faith Meets Life” Ownership: St. Thomas Seminary Bloomfield, CT Featured Air Personality: Jerry Kristafer Contributor: Steve West Aircheck #1604 Voluntary Subscription Options Yearly Subscription : $80.00 USD – yearlyMonthly : $10.00 USD – monthlyWeekly : $3.00 USD – weekly Oh, clues views from my “Game with No Name” coming up at 8:20 Curator’s Notes: The first thing you notice about this before listening is probably, “oh great, another religious station”. Not. This is a unique and somewhat historic radio station in that “WJMJ claims to be the first archdiocesan-operated radio station in the United States”. (...
Mike Raub, 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford | Undated
Recording Date: Unknown Station: 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford (Wikipedia) (Website) Format: Contemporary Hit Radio (CHR) Branded: 96 TIC-FM Featured Air Personality: Mike Raub (WTIC-FM/WELI/WKCI/WSTC/WNLK/WCTZ/HitOldies/The Pop Culture Channel/PC Upload) Contributor: Daniel Coulombe Curator’s Notes: Sent in by our good friend Daniel Coloumbe in Canada, here’s Mike Raub (HitOldies) on 96 TIC-FM. This sounds like it was from sometime in the early to mid 90s. Raub was the former Program Director of 96.7 The Coast (Gold Based AC) and 95.9 The Fox (Classic Rock) in Stamford CT, along with the WSTC/WNLK News Talk simulcast which ended in 2013 when then-owner Cox Communications donated the two AM stations to Sacred Heart University.
“1972 – Big D: 50 Years of Broadcasting History”, WDRC Hartford | December 31, 1972
Produced for it’s 50th anniversary of broadcasting, this off-air recording (with some additions by your friendly webmaster) starts in 1922 and records many important events, including the Hindenburg Disaster, the bombing of Manilla (WW2), programming highlights including Big Band music shows and radio operas like The Lone Ranger… then it’s on to WDRC’s years as a Top 40 station up to then-current 1972. The final portion of this is a recording made with a mic at a radio speaker at the stroke of midnight as Big D welcomed in 1973. This is an authentic original recording and we thank Steve for his contribution!
A “Happy” Christmas Night, WTIC 1080 Hartford | December 25, 1985
First time I heard this I nearly fell off my chair! Digressing for a moment, most of us on air people have heard or have access to a station blooper tape that got played at various occasions… Station Christmas parties being the usual place for such hilarity. Not this time. This one is NOT from a station in house recording, it was made by the contributor. Steve Tefft has the knack of having his recorder on at *just* the right time. Here’s an aircheck that reminds us that sometimes automation isn’t ALWAYS bad… given the right circumstances. Steve writes: (Here is an) outtake of WTIC news reader Paul Reynolds, from Christmas night, 1985. It starts with the jingle intro to the news, followed by about 20 seconds of silence(apparently Reynolds was passed out in the newsro...
Ken Gilbert, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | 1982 – Part 2
Date of Recording: 1982 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: CHR (Oldies; Classic Hits; Classic Rock) Featured Air Personality: Ken Gilbert (WAQY; WTIC-FM; WDRC-FM; WKNE-FM; WZRT; WVTK) Contributor: Paul DiMarco Airchexx Entry: 1,520 Curator’s Notes: And the Hits just keep comin’! Contributor Paul DiMarco apparently has most of the master reels from our friend Ken Gilbert and we’re slowly getting them archived for the ages. Here’s another recording from the master reel. From apparently spring or autumn of 1982 when WDRC-FM was in the middle of its attempt at pure CHR, here’s Ken sounding really fantastic, albeit doing the overnight gig preparing for morning drive. It’s labelled Part 2, because this comes in four ...
Chuck Wagner, 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford | 1981
Date of Recording: 1981 (Exact Date Unknown) Station: 96.5 WTIC-FM Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: CHR Station Slogan: “96 TIC FM“; “Your Music Connection” Featured Air Personality: Chuck Wagner (WWCO/WTIC-FM) Contributor: Paul DiMarco Total Time: 4:19 Airchexx Entry: 1,519 Mike West is gonna be back from vacation… He’s been doing his exercises, speaking with a rubber band attached to his chin Curator’s Notes: Sometimes there are interesting coincidences in this world of radio history. Here’s a couple. Chuck Wagner, heard here, is Charlie Wagner from 1240 WWCO Waterbury. Click “WWCO” in the description above. The voice is exactly the same. 96-TIC-FM, by the time of this aircheck, had stopped using the “Hot Hits ™...
Jack Miller, WDRC Hartford | June 17, 1972
Date of Recording: 06.17.1972 Station: 1360 WDRC (AM) Hartford, Connecticut, USA Format: Top 40 Featured Air Personality: Jack Miller (WARE / WEIM / WFEA / WBBQ / AKFN / WSPR / WWLP-TV / WBZ / WCBS-FM / WWYZ / WPIX-FM / WKZE-FM) Contributor: Steve Tefft …Sue, hello Sue – that was terrible! Curator’s Notes: Jack Miller did a weekly talent show on WDRC where listeners could call in and perform just about anything. It was, of course, all for entertainment, and some of the callers were truly awful. But, Jack Miller is the star of the show, and he DOES entertain. Shown here in this 14 minute original recording, Miller is a great host, who is much more than a disc jockey. His quick wit and ability to control this ‘talent’ show while playing along with the contestant...
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 Format: Top 40 Featured Air Talent: Ken Gilbert Contributor: Paul DiMarco 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 ...
