Here’s a bit of Chicago history that would otherwise probably be lost to time.   Many thanks to aircheck collector Matt at Big Apple Airchecks for this slice of radio gold.

Hear more Ron Brittain on WCFL below

Ron Brittain was in Chicago radio for several decades.  On this recording we hear Ron doing an assortment of bits for his morning show on WCFL.

Now, all the bits (we assume) were recorded in 1968.  And what it sounds like, from the listener point of view, is a tape recorded by someone (I suppose we’ll never know the origin of this one) who stopped recording after the music started and then picked it up again when Ron Brittain began to speak.  This does not appear to have come from the WCFL skimmer machine (which we presume was a dedicated reel to reel machine in the transmitter room), but rather from a listener who was a fan.  Wherever it came from, this tape barely survived the ravages of time.

As to the audio quality, this starts out rather poor, then does somewhat improve.  The final few minutes of this tape sound decent.   I’ve done some audio restoration to make this listenable.

You can hear more of Ron Brittain’s radio genius by clicking HERE.

You can contact Steve West, the Airchexx Curator, HERE.