WJRZ 970 AM

[irish_in_ny]

Hey all, this is my first post here. I'm a big fan of the 60s-70s radio era.

I was wondering if anyone has any clips/recordings or even just some information about a former Country station. Even any information on a playlist of the music would be great! The station existed from the late 60s into the early 70s with the call letter WJRZ out of Newark. I believe it was on 970 AM.

Thanks in advance,
John

 

[SonoSational18]

WJRZ, which was known previously by the call letters WAAT, then WNTA switched to country in 1965. At the time, the station was licensed to Newark. It changed city of license to Hackensack in 1968 when it moved its transmitter to a site along the Hackensack River. Presumably, this new site gave the station a better angle to get a signal over Manhattan. In 1968 it also affiliated with ABC's American Entertainment Radio Network and became the Mets flagship station. Its slogan was "The Sound of Nashville for Metro New York. In 1971 it was purchased by Pacific & Southern Broadcasting and became Top 40 "97-DJ" WWDJ.

 

[jmtillery]

Also, WNTA-AM 970 was once co-owned with WNTA-FM 94.7 and WNTA-TV 13 as WNTA-AM-FM-TV. The FM later became WFME while the TV became non-commercial PBS affiliate WNET-TV 13.

 

[alok]

There is a website . . . www.reelradio.com,that has airchecks of WWDJ 970 when it was a Top 40 station in the early 1970's
The site requires a membership but if you like to listen to airchecks it is worth the dues.

970 in New York was owned by the Channel 13 owners going back many years,before it became WNTA ,under Channel 13's new owners National Telefilm Associates ,in the late 50's.

Channel 13 was known as WATV ,the radio was 970 WAAT,it had a three tower in line array in Kearny,NJ before moving to Hackensack,NJ.
I believe it was 5kw day / 1 kw night back then . . . site was along the Belleville Turnpike ,same area as transmitter sites for WMCA 570 and at the time WNEW 1130.

check out www.reelradio.com , I think you'll enjoy it.

anothor good site ,to research DJ's, radio info, stories, etc. is www.440int.com.

Al

 

[pjc1961]

One of my favorite jingles when I was a youngster: "Double-U Jay Are Zee, Radio Ninety-Seven" during the country radio days in the late 1960s.

My grandparents listened to this station a lot - it may be that my grandfather was a Mets fan (or at least a "follower"),
especially in 1969 when they were champions and (as mentioned earlier in this thread) WJRZ carried the games.

 

[snorlax]

One of my favorite jingles when I was a youngster: "Double-U Jay Are Zee, Radio Ninety-Seven" during the country radio days in the late 1960s.

My grandparents listened to this station a lot - it may be that my grandfather was a Mets fan (or at least a "follower"),
especially in 1969 when they were champions and (as mentioned earlier in this thread) WJRZ carried the games.

LOL!!! I started singing it as soon as I saw this thread! I moved away from NY-NJ to go to college in 1970 and stayed in the Midwest, but that jingle just stuck with me.
I also remember when Howard Cosell did postgame.

 

[radioguy39nj]

One of my favorite jingles when I was a youngster: "Double-U Jay Are Zee, Radio Ninety-Seven" during the country radio days in the late 1960s.

My grandparents listened to this station a lot - it may be that my grandfather was a Mets fan (or at least a "follower"),
especially in 1969 when they were champions and (as mentioned earlier in this thread) WJRZ carried the games.

LOL!!! I started singing it as soon as I saw this thread! I moved away from NY-NJ to go to college in 1970 and stayed in the Midwest, but that jingle just stuck with me.
I also remember when Howard Cosell did postgame.

Bob Brown did pre and post-game shows when the Mets were on WJRZ. Howard Cosell did postgame when WABC had the Mets in 1962 and '63.

When the Mets started on WJRZ in 1967, the station had a terrible signal going east to Queens and Long Island. 970 was tough to pick up at night in that area. It was noted earlier that WJRZ changed its COL to Hackensack in 1968 to get a better signal into NYC. Also in '68, the Mets added WABC-FM (95.5) as FM flagship. In 1970, as WABC-FM got deeper into rock, WNBC-FM (97.1) took over as FM flag. The Mets left 970 after the 1971 season when the station flipped to top 40 and changed its calls to WWDJ.

 

[radiorob2.0]

There is a website . . . www.reelradio.com,that has airchecks of WWDJ 970 when it was a Top 40 station in the early 1970's
The site requires a membership but if you like to listen to airchecks it is worth the dues.

Al

They have a collection of airchecks from the start of the Top 40 format still using the call letters of WJRZ all the way through the last night when the jocks were creating some wild segues.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Memories here of WJRZ fly back to 1966-67, spanning about a year of solid listening just to them. And I'm a NYC rock and roll punk, raised on the Beach Boys, Rascals, Chiffons, Three Dog Night, etc.

Countrypolitan WJRZ was just that good. They kinda set themselves up as a 'touch' softer Top 40 .... maybe a 1966 equivelant of WGBB on Long Island.
Except WJRZ played C&W records!
Ed Neilson was a funny, veteran morning man. Others who come to mind are Jerry White, Steve Hollis, Lee Arnold, and Don Larkin.

I forget the official name of their 'current' survey, but it indeed had 100 songs (not 97).

Agreed, pjc1961 !! Their (drool) jingle package from that era was terrific.
It, of course, was based on the riff from 'I'm An Old Cowhand ... on the Rio Grande'. They had slow jingles and fast ones, all of which were well-distributed through each hour.
But my selfish favorite might not have been part of the package. When the time came to play a dusty Oldie, one sounder they used was some great fiddle rave-up, with just the spoken 'And now .... another Radio 97 .... COUNTRY CLASSIC!' ....and a fiddle sting. Really lilting.

* * * * * * * * *

I listened to WJRZ so much, and so exclusively, eschewing Top 40 for nearly a year, that I completely missed the time when the song 'Windy' started playing ... kept playing .... then faded off the current survey. To this day, 'Windy' sounds like a new song to me instead of a fricasseed oldie.

 

[SonoSational18]

IIRC those jingles were from Pepper Tanner's (or maybe it was still Pepper Sound Studio) "Country Wide" which was also in use at WJJD Chicago and boatloads of other stations.

 

[chime]

Here's what else I remember of 970.
Around 1957 when I moved to NJ WAAT also had
Minor-League Baseball from Jersey City.  In 1961 as an
MOR WNTA had an electronic bulletin intro, nearly as
exciting as the sounders ch13 had until they signed off
on December 21, 1961 In Spring of 1962 970 changed to
WJRZ at 12noon on a  Tuesday. There was a contest,
where "WJRZ babies" born at 12PM got $100 anually til
21 years of age. In 1964 they had many hours of
old-radio shows Sunday evenings, also ran an old radio
documentary during the Paul Brenner show February
25-26, 1964. After the switch to Country, there was a
Sunday when they actually had a quite loud reeverb,
maybe louder than WKYC or later WWRL.
At the end of 1966 they had a top100 countdown, but a
really unique record they played, really didn't sound
c&w.  It was 2 people, 1 resiting letters of
the phrase "I love you"  and another saying the Morse
code version. In 1967 WJRZ ran the New Jersey Americans
ABA games with Spensor Ross, but they were disqualified
from the Playoffs, as the Teaneck Armary was tied up
with the circus, so the Americans moved to Long Island.
1 Saturday in the late60s or early 70s, they had a
fire, but certainly after getting back on the air, some
of the records were damaged. I think at 1 time they may
have run Rutgers Football Saturdays? And yes many of
their Pepper jingles were takeoffs on traditional
Country songs. I think I had heard 970-and-WAAT-FM had
run stereo experiments where you listened on 2 radios.
Thanks for listening

 

[LinoNewYork]

Here are two recording of WJRZ dated 6-5-67:

http://www.fileconvoy.com/dfl.php?id=g570fb474fda439e6999313240b95f4dc61b63e027

http://www.fileconvoy.com/dfl.php?id=gd62141441b22ab18999313244f69ee54fa9720ece

Both run approx one-half hour.

These were flea market finds.

LT

 

[mr_mjb1960]

Hey all, this is my first post here. I'm a big fan of the 60s-70s radio era.

I was wondering if anyone has any clips/recordings or even just some information about a former Country station. Even any information on a playlist of the music would be great! The station existed from the late 60s into the early 70s with the call letter WJRZ out of Newark. I believe it was on 970 AM.

Thanks in advance,
John

It was 1050 WHN..It later was turned into a Spanish Language Station named "RADIO WADO".

 

[davideduardo]

It was 1050 WHN..It later was turned into a Spanish Language Station named "RADIO WADO".

WHN 1050 was a different station than WJRZ-970 from Hackensack.

WHN became WFAN, and then briefly became WSKQ in Spanish as Super KQ, when WFAN moved to 660, but WSKQ almost instantly moved to the old WEVD FM. 1050 had the WHN calls on two occasions... with it being WMGM for a while up till when it was sold and reverted back to WHN under Storer ownershp (pre-WFAN).

WOV, the long-time Italian station was briefly Top 40 and then became WADO on 1280. WADO had nothing to do with 1050 or 970-

 

[gr8oldies]

WWDJ was also the inspiration for NINE.

 

[DrAkbar]

DJ's 5kw barely covered Pound Ridge, home of the legendary 9 Double Oh.

 

[TheBigA]

In 1966, country legend Buck Owens played Carnegie Hall, the first country artist to play that venue. The MC that night was WJRZ announcer Lee Arnold, who can be heard on later recordings of the show. Lee later moved to WHN when it became a country station.

 

[badjef]

WNTA-TV became WNDT, then WNET (for National Education Television).

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!

 

[Jackg]

Stumbled on this forum while Googling for WJRZ. In the sixties, I was a student and worked there as an engineer during the summer. Two years at the transmitter in the swamp and two years in the studio. At time it was like some of the crazier episodes of WKRP Cincinnatti. Other times, working with people like Steve Hollis and Bob Brown it was the height of professionalism.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

@ RadioGuy 39 :

A hearty 'second' here, regarding your indictment of WJRZ's signal into parts of Queens. On more than one occasion, nearing sunset at where I listened most (near JFK Airport) WESO from Southbridge MA would come in with WJRZ. One time WESO started burying them! Southbridge wasn't a water-path catch, either. The town is south of inland Worcestor. So a mere, omni 1000-watt daytimer indeed could annoy a 5000-watt local ostensibly licensed to serve NYC.
The region near JFK Airport also was about 15-20 miles weat of that notable dead spot in southeast Nassau County, where ALL AM radio signals get snuffed by whatever ground conditions exist there.

970 wasn't the only frequency to undergo such reception erosion, either. 930 WPAT, 1280 WADO and 1330 WEVD come to mind as regional-frequency signals which had signal problems in that direction and which made for some odd reception nearing sunset.