Pretty self explanitory. For me:
–before I was ten I listened mostly to the hometown AM country music station my mom loved. Me and my sister would also listen to its FM cousin, a top 40 station.
–around 1985, the first oldies station in my area (870 am out of the Tri-Cities, WA) started up and spared me the horrors of late 80s pop music. I also started listening to this local station that aired a combo news/sports/easy listening format, especially their old time radio shows. What did you listen to as a kid and do you remember the specific station.
KWOD 106.5
Alternative, rock, very occasional pop. Based in Sacramento, CA, if I remember right.
You are right. I mourn it’s loss.
KZAP 98.5 in Sacramento. The greatest rock station of all time. I loved this station and even got to work there for while before it changed format to country in the early 90’s.
Fort Worth, late 60s early 70s, KLIF and KFJZ. I’m pretty sure that there was a third station (AM) that my friends and I listened to regularly, but I don’t remember the call letters.
Most of us had AM transistor radios that couldn’t pick up FM stations.
WLS, Chicago. It was my first exposure to humourous political commentary, and I LOVED it.
In fact, I was a kid who really didn’t like stuffed animals, but I saw a stuffed raccoon at Radio Shack that had a radio in it’s belly, and omg that was my best friend for a decade. Listened to WLS every night while going to sleep. <3
CHOM-FM (97.7) out of Montreal. They were a great album-oriented rock station when I was growing up.
WHAS-AM out of Louisville, KY - oldies, news (I think its all news now). Used to love listening to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
Late at night - WLS from Chicago (with John Records Landecker doing the Boogie Check).
WKQQ FM out of Lexington, KY (98.1 then, 100.1 now, I think)
There should be a term for coming into a thread and finding that people have already said everything you were going to say. I grew up listening to KLIF (I can still recall the brief little jingle and Gordon McLendon, the Old Scotsman), at least until I got a radio with FM.
And what was my favorite thing to listen to? At 11PM I would turn on the radio as low as possible since I was supposed to be asleep, and listen to EG Marshall on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, with its creaking-door intro and breathless acting.
When I did get FM I listened mainly to KZEW (the zoo!) and KNUS.
WJPS, 1330 AM in Evansville IN. Pop & rock. My favorite DJs were The Real Rodney Russell and Scotty Drake. I went to sleep listening to WJPS every night.
WHFS 99.1 from Annapolis, MD. For a kid in suburban VA, the station hinted at a broader and exciting world out there. It barely came in and I had to put a coat hanger on my radio antena to get a signal, it was like listening to Radio Free Europe from behind the iron curtain.
WOWO - 1190 AM - Fort Wayne, Indiana - When I was growing up in western Ohio in the 1950s, WOWO was the powerhouse radio station. Programming was varied, including (if I remember correctly) Lunch in the Little White Farmhouse Down the Lane from the Little Red Barn. But it also included rock n roll, at least on Saturday mornings.
WIBG (“Wibbage”), Philadelphia. Rock ‘n’ Roll!
WNDR 1260 AM with Dandy Dan Leonard and even better WOLF 1490 AM with Bud Ballou, and in the morning Mac & Maude! Syracuse NY area. GOOD TIMES! in high school, in the 60’s and maybe early 70’s. We listened to the radio constantly on our little transistor radios, those DJs were heroes. Mac & Maude played excerpts from “Chickenman” every day, had us ROTFLMAO, and little comedy clips from “Ronald Reagan”, maybe ‘stuffing the Thanksgiving turkey’ with Nancy, ended every segment with ‘byyyyyyyye’. Good, good times! We were so young and optimistic and all the world was a great adventure ahead of us. Cheerful, silly 60’s rock and comedy. Miss it!
I had the cocker spaniel!
WNCR-FM, Cleveland, Ohio
In the 60s, this was my idea of a perfect radio station. They didn’t play music in a certain category (Rock, Pop, R&B, Classical, etc). They just played Music–everything from Dylan to Mahler, often within the same show. They didn’t just string a bunch of tunes together, each show was truly Programmed, as in someone taking a lot of time to select each piece and assemble them into a coherent whole. They would sometimes even match key signatures in the transitions.
During the news segments, they would play music relevant to the story as background.
I’ve never heard anything quite like it since. My gold standard for radio.
and WFIL
DC in the 60s - WINX AM
Philadelphia in the 70s - WMMR FM
CKLW AM Windsor, Ontario
WRIF FM (Baby!) Detroit