Jacksonville
Composite: 690 WAPE Jacksonville | September 16, 1971
Recording Date: 09.16.1971 Station: 690 WAPE (WPDQ/WOKV) Jacksonville FL Format: Top 40 Branded: “The Big Ape” Featured Air Personalities: Jack McCoy, Larry Dixon, Teddy Bear (Ted Richards) (CKLW), Jay Thomas (WXLO 99X/SiriusXM) Contributor: Big Apple Airchecks (Website) Total Time: 11:31 “That’s Squeaky the Mouse our night time disk jockey“… Curator’s Notes: WAPE lives on today in Jacksonville, on the FM dial as a mainstream CHR, continuing the tradition started over four decades ago on 690 AM. North Florida isn’t exactly the place you’d expect a major Top 40 station, but then again, WAPE, “The Big Ape” wasn’t your average radio station. Home to many who would go on to eventual stardom elsewhere, ...
“Catfish” Tom Kelly, 99.1 WQIK Jacksonville | September 18, 1996
Here’s an almost perfect scope of The Hit Kicker during a late-Summer weekend. The year is 1996, although on the tape provided it says 1994… but your webmaster was doing Country radio in 1996 and played the same currents at KOUL Corpus Christi, so I know better. One thing I always really liked about WQIK was the jingles. I can’t remember the package I heard but it had to have been some kind of retro CHR package. In 1992 I was in Jacksonville while stationed on the USS Samuel Eliot Morison and listened to WQIK’s AM signal (at that time it was an AM/FM simulcast) using an old R-390 receiver. Now, an R-390 has a number of bandwidth settings, the top of which is super-wideband, so listening to this station, on its AM signal, with reverb in the audio chain on that receiv...
P.K. on Classic Soul 101.5 WSOL Jacksonville | September 18, 1996
Date of Recording: 09.18.1986 Station: 101.5 WSOL Jacksonville, Florida, USA Current Owner: iHeart Media Format: Classic Soul Featured Air Talent: P.K. (initials unknown); Isaac Hayes, Station Imaging Voice Comments: From 1986, here’s a great sounding Classic R&B station voiced by the legendary Barry White (thanks for the correction). Sounding almost like a forerunner to the Smooth Jazz format in it’s approach, WSOL is a mostly-ballads R&B Gold format, with a few then-currents thrown in (listen for Prince). The DJ goes simply by the name PK. Runs 11 minutes, scoped.
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...
Allan Sands, 690 WAPE Jacksonville
Courtesy of Robyn Watts, we’re completely unsure of the date on this one, although there are clues contained within this aircheck. Allan Sands(see below for the correction) even has his own jingle. All of which contributes to a stellar recording highlighting the then number one radio station in Jacksonville. Top 40 radio at its very best here.
Traine on the Radio, 95.1 WAPE-FM Jacksonville (FL) | Undated
Traine on the legendary Big Ape! WAPE-FM, that is! 95.1 picked up the CHR, er, Top 40 format where 690 left off two decades earlier. This particular weekend, it’s “Big Ape’s 80s Backtracks Weekend”! Similar to what some stations were doing with ‘Whatever Weekends” in the middle 2000s to counter-program the emerging “Jack-FM”(tm) stations, WAPE-FM is doing a flashback of all 80s tunes. Good ones, too! No jingles on this particular aircheck, but the imaging is good, and Trane has a great set of pipes!
Chrissie, WPLA 93-3 The Planet, Callahan/Jacksonville (FL) | Undated
Here’s another station with a dubious history. Finding info on some of these now defunct stations can be a challenge, but hey, we try. The jock goes simply by the name “Chrissie” in this Modern Rock formatted scope. There are two spot breaks in this, bringing the total time up to 11 minutes. While this tape had no date, I would guess by the music that this was recorded sometime in 1995. One of our visitors could make a more educated guess, and that’s what the Comment section below is for. WPLA moved to 107.3 in 2005, then flipped to Oldies in 2010.
