Airchecks from D.C. Top 40 War 1986

[Jkf]

I miss the old WINX studios in the heart of Rockville. Now that was a building for radio enthusiasts!

 

[Scholarm1111]

WXYV had a nice sounding urban format at 102.7 in 1991 which I remember from a summer in DC

 

[viper452]

Ive grown up listening to Q94 going through Richmond on family trips. It use to be an AWESOME top 40 station. Now its a shell of its fomer self.

 

[viper452]

Q94 has to be the oldest top 40 station in the country, right? It blows my mind that it started in 1972.

 

[viper452]

Yeah, I remember WXYV. 92.3 eventually won that competition though, and XYV changed to B 102.7, a very good top 40.

 

[Capn Davey]

In my opinion WPGC was the gold standard that other stations tried to emulate. While most fm stations in the DC Baltimore area were just starting to try mainstream formats WPGC had been doing this for over 10 years. Yeah they weren't slick like Q107 but they didn't have the big bucks behind them either.Alan Goodman was smart when pgc became Classy 95 the next year he made WAVA top 40 and it became like the WPGC of old smart move wish these idiots today would get a clue

Dave

 

[bigguy1974]

Yeah, I remember WXYV. 92.3 eventually won that competition though, and XYV changed to B 102.7, a very good top 40.

WXYV V103 was sold several times this is why 92.3 won but the Baltimore market ended up being the real loser.

 

[AM FM listener]

I grew up in the DC suburbs (Montgomery County) from 1970 to 1981. I remember WINX and WRC when they wereTop 40 but it wasn't long before I discover (the original) WPGC, "Where People Get Cash" and "Good Guys Radio"! I woke up to Harv Moore and the Red Head every morning. Jim Elliot later took over the morning show. Later during my time there, Q-107, with Dude & Doug in the mornings, came along and really battled 'PGC. Q-107 came across as "cooler" with its emphasis on rock music. I do not know the numbers but I suspect WRQX took lots of young male listeners away from DC-101 and FM-105 (WAVA), the two AOR's at that time. I also fondly remember the original WKYS, with Donnie Simpson in the mornings. What great time for DC radio!

 

[Willits]

Is there some board rule against putting a link in a message? I had a long post (for me, anyway) that I spent a lot of time on, and when I clicked "Save", it bounced....got lost. Gone. All that work for nothing. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[Willits]

I miss the old WINX studios in the heart of Rockville. Now that was a building for radio enthusiasts!

That rickety old wooden farmhouse was a lot of fun to work in. I was there doing middays in 1969-1970. We organized AFTRA there, but that's a story for another thread. Pierre Eaton probably put my picture in the middle of his dart board. In an effort to break the union, he offered me a PD position at 1490 WJMO, their station in Cleveland. To understand what was going on there at the time -- and I was totally unaware of all of the activity when he made me the offer -- look up "WERE 1490" in Wikipedia sometime and look at the goings-on around 1970 in the station history. I was very lucky in declining his offer.

 

[Willits]

There were three top 40 stations in the DC metro when I was at WINX. Each one of them had “something wrong” with their signal that prevented them from reaching the entire DC market 24/7. Our station was only 500-watts (three tower directional south) at night. It barely made it to the DC line. We partied a lot at clubs on Wisconsin Ave, but the signal was almost unlistenable even in NW at night. WPGC was a daytime station. They had a 15,000-watt FM station that reached the entire market all of the time, but FM penetration at that time was very low. They were a sensational station. I had an AM/FM radio in my car, unusual at the time, but I listened to them on FM practically all the time when driving. If you go to reelradio-dot-com, for $10 you can access their over 1500 airchecks. Do a search for WPGC in the search box and click on the one from 1969 with Tiger Bob Raleigh, about 2/3 of the way down the list. All the songs are intact, and it is a fantastic aircheck. It was made on the day man first landed on the moon. WEAM probably had the best reach, although at night they were pretty rough copy at about College Park and east of there on the beltway. They were the ratings-dominant station at the time, but IMHO, WPGC was a much better sounding station. It wasn’t until WRC came along, just after I had left, that an AM station covered all the market all the time.