102.9 WDRC-FM
Ken Gilbert, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | June 17, 1989
Courtesy of Contributor “Mr. 70s“, Paul DiMarco, here’s a pristine quality recording of my friend Ken Gilbert on the old “Big-D 103” oldies station. The recording is so good, in fact, you’ll swear this is being broadcast live as you stream it! Hey Chris, I think there’s a price check at register two… Highlights of this aircheck include tons of phone call requests aired live, classic PAMS WDRC jingles, originally sung for the AM side 1360 WDRC, and a contest where the winner is invited to the “Oldies but Goodies” cruise on the Connecticut River. Listen for the contest tease and the winner’s phone call included in this aircheck. The commercials have been left intact for historical purposes. This aircheck was tightly scoped by ...
Ron Sedaille, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | July 21, 2007
As posted here on Airchexx, WDRC-FM’s “All Request Saturday Night” had a long run. From its humble beginnings during the station’s Top 40 incarnation in 1984, through the mainly 50’s and 60’s format to the Classic Hits incarnation in the days just before the format change in 2014, Ron Sedaille is well known in Connecticut and did a show that’s quite reminiscent of 1960s radio. He even has his own jingles! The WDRC tribute site WDRCOBG.com says this about Ron Sedaille: A native of Bangor, Maine, Ron moved to Connecticut at the age of 1. He was hired by Frank Holler to do weekends and fill-in shifts, (and) after Frank’s departure he took over “Jukebox Saturday Night” and transformed it into “All Request Saturday Night,”...
An Evening with Frank Holler, Part 2: 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford
Part 2 of this scoped hour features more Frank Holler, more PAMS original jingle sings, re-sung for Big D 103, and because of the way this tape was recorded, includes an undated couple of breaks from our Contributor, Ken Gilbert! What apparently happened, is this was originally one of Ken’s skimmer tapes, left in the studio skimmer machine so that the night this was recorded, it taped over most of Ken’s previously latest show. Still… Both of these gentlemen are great talents and it is only fitting that both get featured in Part 2.
An Evening with Frank Holler, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford
All new from Contributor Ken Gilbert is this RARE recording of WDRC AM 1360) original OBG jock, and then Program Director Frank Holler, hosting “Jukebox Saturday Night”. Straight from the source, Ken Gilbert was proud to tell us that he began and founded “Jukebox Saturday Night”, while DRC-FM was still a Top 40 station in 1983! But this is one time that Frank Holler was doing the show and he picks out some incredibly rare Oldies for his show this particular night. Listen for the old WDRC PAMS cuts!
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 ...
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.
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 ...
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, 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...
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