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Airchecks: JRN Smooth Jazz

S

smoothguy

Guys -

For anyone interested in Jones Radio Network Smooth Jazz airchecks, I've posted my own mp3 files on 4Shared.com.

This remains a work-in-progress for me and I will continue these efforts as time permits.

Available right now... are files from WQJZ (Ocean City MD), circa August 1999. These are analog recordings on cassette transferred to mp3. The quality of these is as you might expect, less than optimal, but still very representative of Jones programming and on-air talent of that era. The original analogs were marred a little bit by some spotty radio interference at times. Otherwise these are very pleasant to listen to, and they deliver some great mid-to-late 90's tunes everyone will easily recognize.

Also available for downloading are WQJZ 'Net' recordings directly captured to mp3 the last weekend of September 2008 - hours prior to their flip.

All WQJZ files are located here:

WQJZ: http://www.4shared.com/dir/9917549/154690da/WQJZ.html

Soon to be available will be JRN's WKYL 102.1 (Lexington KY) recordings from mid-July 2008. These uploads are still a work in progress. Stay tuned here for updates.

All files are encoded mp3 @ 192/48000. Of course, this is a higher bit rate than necessary for the 32k streams captured. But this occurred to me after I already encoded them - too late to change.

And please be cautious.

I've taken all necessary measures to ensure these files are virus free. All the files were prescanned before uploading. Nevertheless, I encourage you to scan them again yourself immediately upon download as a precautionary measure. If you remain concerned, you can simply 'play' the files directly from the 4shared.com site using the built-in player applet before downloading (or in lieu of downloading them.) To play, click the file once, choose 'play' from the tabbed dialog. This opens an applet for listening to the files.

I'm advising you because days before this, my system was compromised with a variant of the 'Smitfraud' virus. A rogue attack was introduced to my system after I ignored all warnings and downloaded an advertised 'update' to my mp3 codec. This is how 'Smitfraud' generally infects machines. As soon as I downloaded the codec, immediate browser hijacking was apparent. Instantly I disconnected from the Net and ran 2 full back-to-back virus scans. These scans turned up numerous malware items, which I quarantined immediately. Still, it did not entirely eliminate my problem. Smitfraud is difficult to remove and
most virus scanners cannot do the complete job. So I used my other PC to Google for a solution. There is an excellent virus removal 'fix' for Smitfraud (smitFraudFix) available from this wonderful free site (below) along with a wealth of information regarding 'Smitfraud' variant attacks and their removal techniques.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=74265

Be especially cautious (as I was not) before downloading codec files; and always do so from a trusted site. In my case I ignored the warnings! Should you ever have this problem, the site above is a true godsend. This cleared my system of the problem and repaired my registry entries in mere minutes. Trust me on this one.

Enjoy the music. Jones lives on!

-- Randy aka Smoothguy
 
Hey, that's great Randy! Thanks for putting forth the effort. Can't wait to check them out. In the "fingers" of Chieli Minucci, "It's Gonna Be Good." 8)
 
Regarding the WQJZ recordings from 1999...

In re-listening to those (which I have not done for several years) it was disappointing that Riker was not hosting those shows. I wonder if anyone remembers 'Deborah Lee' as a Jones voice talent? In these recordings she reports "sitting in for Keith Riker" during the music breaks.

While it's possible that she was actually substituting for Riker at the network while he was away, based on her skill level and presentation I highly suspect she is not a Jones talent, but a local voice filling in for Riker in the afternoon daypart. Riker appears to be doing only the station liners on these tapes.

Also, I see someone named Deborah Lee is now the PD at WOCM, Shelbeyville, DL, not far from OC MD which further convinces me that she simply moved across town for work.

I do remember actually hearing Riker host on WQJZ back then, as well as Steve Michaels and Lonnie Taylor during that period. I just failed to capture them on tape. The music alone blew me away, and I was more into that than the on-air talent, I suppose.

Also, these old tapes were recorded on 90 minute cassettes - 45 minutes each side. For some reason, I stopped the tapes minutes before the end on each side. I recall being really annoyed by this later... at the gaps in silence, and having to fast forward the tapes before continuing play on Side B. So I believe I spliced in some tunes of my own at the end on each side just to fill the gaps in silence. It appears I copied Peter White and Hardcastle tracks just to fill space. These are not truly from the JRN program... just telling you this in the interest of truthfullness because the splice is pretty obvious - and bad.

smoothguy
 
Randy,

Thank you for all of your work putting these files up! I look forward to listening to them. While I'm downloading your files, I uploaded one of mine. This file was taken from WFJZ, which was located near Ft. Wayne, IN and recorded 17 November 2003. There is a buffering glitch toward the middle of the file, but otherwise it should sound all right. The station used Streamaudio as a host, and WFJZ was one of the first JRN stations to stream after the large webcaster shutdown from 2002. The file is encoded at 80/44.1 mono and was recently added to my folder:

http://www.4shared.com/dir/9317605/db4184ca/JRN_Smooth_Jazz.html
 
Spirit -

Another for my collection..! Thanks so much..! Yes, I used to stream WFJZ myself years back - before they flipped. Can't remember when... It was, maybe, three years ago or so. I think they stopped streaming for awhile, and that sent me on a mad scramble to find another JRN affliate.

One of my main resources for finding JRN/SJ (terrestrial) streams was www.radio-locator.com. I think that's how I discovered WXJZ in Gainesville FL and WKYL in KY.

I really appreciate you posting this.

As for Debra Lee (or Deborah Lee) perhaps you're correct. I truly don't know if she was Jones network talent or not. Perhaps so. I just noticed that her presentation style wasn't quite up to the nornal par; albeit, not as polished and smooth as some of their more well-known talent.

-- Randy aka Smoothguy
 
Randy,

Thanks so much for doing this. All things considered, I think your tapes from 1999 sound great. I started reviewing them tonight. Thanks to you and spirit once again for the memories!

Chris
 
smoothguy said:
Regarding the WQJZ recordings from 1999...

Also, I see someone named Deborah Lee is now the PD at WOCM, Shelbeyville, DL, not far from OC MD which further convinces me that she simply moved across town for work.

smoothguy
Click to expand...

Hey Randy. Thanks again for the uploads. Actually, I believe WOCM and WQJZ are sister stations. You may recall me talking about their "high speed" ;) operation on the Jones thread some time ago. I was so enamored with 97.1's music back in the late 1990s, I decided to pay them a visit to the station to praise them and see if I could get some giveaway stuff (hats, T-shirts, etc). The actual studio where they broadcasted from was a mobile home in the middle of a corn field (no joke, the Smooth Jazz version of the Field Of Dreams :D) in Selbyville, DE, near the MD border about 10 miles or so west Ocean City and the Atlantic. The one person (a female, at the time) who was holding down the fort was very nice, and took me into the small studio to see the computer/mixing board that pulled in and played the Jones feed. It was also where they recorded their local spots, weather, and traffic. It could not have any been bigger than a large walk-in closet.

When I found out they didn't have anything to give away, I asked them if there was a local embroiderer who may have done their staff stuff. They gave me the name of the place, and I proceeded to get a black polo with WQJZ's call letters and station logo sharply displayed. Suffice it to say, I still proudly wear it today, and it still looks like new! Just another little sidebar Jones story I thought you might get a kick out of.

Chris
 
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