Dean Richards, 102.9 WDRC-FM Hartford | December, 1986

102.9 Hartford WDRC-FM Big D 103

WDRC-FM has been playing Oldies in one form or another, continuously since 1984. In the beginning, it was VERY tight and all 1950s, 60s and early 1970s music.

In the first part of the 1980s, DRC-FM was a part time simulcast of 1360 WDRC’s Adult Top 40 format. Interestingly enough, the station even turned the stereo pilot OFF during simulcast hours, which, by 1981, were just Brad Davis’ morning show 5:30-9 AM. By 1983, DRC-FM was full-blown CHR, probably intending to pick up the format where the AM side – a LEGENDARY Top 40 station, home to such names over the years as Joey Reynolds, Dick Robinson (Owner of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting) and many others, left off. But in 1984, the station shifted gears and started adding in Oldies. Slowly, at first, but one day, they just flipped.

What you hear here, is so very typical of the average broadcast day. Dean Richards is reading the liners and playing the moldy Oldies just as scripted on a typical day in Hartford – waiting for Santa to bring some snow for Christmas! It’s a short, four minute scope, but it will bring tears to the eyes of longtime listeners who today are wondering, where’s my 50s and 60s music? Today’s format is a modified Classic Hits rotation of music from the 70s, 80s and now the 90s, with a few 60 classics thrown in on occasion. So this aircheck will mean something to a few Big D 103 fans who remember how it all was… the first AND second times!

102.9 Hartford WDRC-FM Big D 103

**Note… this runs a bit slow, somehow we didn’t get the pitch correction quite right.

1 Comment

  1. The voice at the end of Dean’s Richards tape, my friend, it sounds like another voice answering the phone for the winner.. Doesn’t that sound like Frank Holler!!!!! Or is that the slowdown in audio you spoke if. Listen to a frank H tape then the phone conversation…… Weird.. Ken

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