Here’s a sample of “DC-101” from the Summer of ’99. Notice the format is current based, and right in the middle of the Rock Genre, with plenty of classics. There were harder rocking stations, such as Baltimore’s WIYY “98 Rock”, and true-Alternative formats such as 99-HFS, but DC 101 straddled the fence and played it all.
Here’s a short sample, commercials included. Illustrating just how long ago 1999 was, when was the last time you could buy a Big Mac at McDonald’s for $2.99? That’s why we leave the commercial breaks intact!
does anyone have tapes of the original WWDC AM 1260 when it was a pop music station? I was told it was the first U-S radio station to ever play a Beatles record that was flown over from England by a friend of the late DJ Carroll James in 1963.
First DC-101 ‘check I ever heard. At points, I heard what I thought was static: maybe it was something else. At :54, was that the tail end of “Nookie”? Also, what was the song (again, the tail end, as I know this and most other ‘checks are scoped): that comes up at 1:09? I enjoyed the little I heard of it. The McDonald’s “Did Somebody say McDonalds?” jogged my memory: I’d forgotten that slogan. One other thing, I forget where it was, but I remember AT&T’s “00 it’s magic” jingle. Pilot did that number in late ’74: a few years back (2010, maybe?), Selena Gomez covered it. Sorry for being so wordy, but I had quite a few comments to make on this ‘check.
You did hear static. What I didn’t write in the description but perhaps should have, is that this tape was obviously recorded some distance from Washington. It appears to have been recorded on the fringe of WWDC-FM’s signal area. Also, being that this was recorded in the month of July, there is a phenomenon that FM DX’ers and Ham Radio Operators know as Tropospheric Ducting. For those who don’t understand such things, basically, a temperature inversion occurs in the lower atmosphere, enhanced by higher humidity. Often, this causes reception of and/or interference by stations much further away than under normal circumstanes. Not to be confused by a different propagation anomaly called Sporadic E, which, without going into a long explanation (I gotta go to work in a moment), can cause reception of commercial FM (and even public service bands) stations hundreds or sometimes over a thousand miles away! Someone will surely be along to explain further, but it suffices to say, Tropo is at work on this recording… and that in itself is a whole hobby that some people enjoy immensely!