All Time Favorite Radio Stations in the Hudson Valley

[xmradiopro]

WALL 1340 1972-1982-

WALL-FM-WKOJ-WKGL 92.7 FM- 1972-1986

WBNR 1260 & WSPK Stereo 10-47 1974-1977

WSPK Gold N Stereo - 1978-1983

WGHQ 920 -1979-1983

WKNY 1490 -1979-1983

WGNY 1220-1972-1983

WDLC-WDLC-FM 1972-1982

WTBQ 1110 -1972-1983

WEOK 1390- 1972-1983

WHVW 950- 1976-1984

WPDH 101.5 FM 1976-1986

WFMN 103.1 FM 1972-1982

WKIP 1450-1976-1986

 

[buford]

wzad was awesome! independent ... creative .... good line up ... good personalities .... ahhh! the stories that could be told!!!

 

[xmradiopro]

Oh yes I forgot WZAD...great station, great DJ's-Henry Kotterill, Bruce Wayne Allan, Paul Dimarco- active station with live remotes, etc.

wzad was awesome! independent ... creative .... good line up ... good personalities .... ahhh! the stories that could be told!!!

 

[HudsonValley1967]

WSPK-1967-1968 They had a country format. I was never a fan of country, however the format was very tight.
WHVW-1964-1968 A Top 40 format that ate into WABC's share.
WBAI (NYC)-1966-1972 About as far left as you could go. Their newscasts called the Viet Cong, "the rebels". Available on Cable TV
88-108 MHz Broadband or via your FM antenna if you lived on hill. Pacifica owned the station.
WLDJ 1968-1970 AM Pirate on 740 KHz. Big signal from somewhere near Middletown.
WFMN 103.1 Newburgh 1966-1972 Elevator Music Format. True to their format. Hour after hour of Lawerence Welk and Fred Waring
and his Pennsylvanians. I should know, I broadcast quarter hours of Frank Sinatra while playing the Rolling Stones on the cue monitor.

 

[oldies4ever]

WHVW--1963-1974---good jocks, great music variety-- jocks good, conversational and tight on the air...request line was always open....ahh the good ol days of AM radio......

oldies4ever ;D

 

[disney fanatic]

I go with the two stations:

WBPM (1993-99) when it was a Top 40/CHR station at the time when it was "B94". It has the best jocks including Carl Dayton, Lou Brown and CJ. They were great back in the Robert Maxwell days.

WBPM (1999-2001) when it was also a "Jamming' Oldies" station known as "Rhythm 94.3", good station, CJ and Lou Brown remained on that station where they usually played Donna Summer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Commodores, Spinners, Four Tops, Temptations and many others. That's the one station that I missed.

WBPM (2004-2007) a good oldies station at 92.9 when it was called "Cool 92.9". Rick McCaffery was the best where he did the "Solid Gold Jukebox" on Friday nights and also played a lot of doo-wop music for 2 hours. Great station that I missed so much.

 

[rtetro]

WLDJ 1968-1970 AM Pirate on 740 KHz. Big signal from somewhere near Middletown.

I can't believe that someone actually remembers WLDJ!!!!

Several friends and I started the station in my parents' basement on Crescent Place in Middletown; we moved to a friend's attic on Lake Avenue; and finally to the attic of a house on Houston Ave (between East Ave and Academy Ave). We ran for about three years, originally on 860 kHz and later 740 kHz, with about 50 watts into 150 foot long wire antenna. The transmitter was home brew, and we used my friend's Ampeq bass guitar amp for a modulator. We could be heard pretty much all over central Orange County. To my best remembrance, the only processing was a pair of clipping diodes to keep the transmitter from overmodulating.

We surreptitiously operated "under the radar" with only a few of our very closest friends knowing our true identities. On air names were such things as Byron Brimstone, Jonathan Frederics, Wendy Williams (no - not the later radio/tv performer), Lee Risely, and so on. The format was VERY, VERY free-form - playing anything from the Beatles to the Fugs to Beethoven, depending on what mood struck the person on the air; along with some rather left-leaning political talk. I have to say that I believe most of us were pretty heavily influenced by Bob Fass, Steve Post, and Larry Joesphson on WBAI - as well as people like Rosko from WOR-FM, and the guys at WFMU (at Upsala College).

The station came to an unceremonoius end one day when the FCC came to town. The inspector was in Middletown for two reasons - to perform a routine inspection at WALL, and to find us. He inspected WALL first. What the inspector didn't know is that we had friends at WALL who tipped us off. We shut down WLDJ before the FCC could find us. We distributed a lot of the equipment between us. The wood and other material from the console, as well as several pieces of furniture and equipment were dumped off a hill on a back road near the Middletown Resevoir (we were probably directly inspired to dump the stuff "off a side road" by Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant).

Such was the end of my pirate career. But, a year later a mysterious thing happened. The carrier current station, WOCC, at Orange County Community College, suddenly changed its frequency from 640 to 740 and dramatically increased its coverage area to well beyond the campus perimeters. This lasted for several months until the college dean (who had at one time worked in radio) heard the station in Pine Bush - 12 miles awaay. Needless to say, knowing that something was not entirely kosher with WOCC, the station went dark that very day. I wasn't involved in that operation, but I know who was and where the transmitter had come from.

If confession is good for the soul...then this pretty much makes mine complete concerning radio-pirating. Hey, we were all young and stupid once. Right?

 

[garnet]

I grew up with Van Richie and WKIP on in the kitchen as my mom would get my older brother and sister ready for school. I was 4 in 1969...we listened probably til 1975. My sister had WABC blasting from her room constantly. I knew, even at that young age, how enormous the sound of Ron Lundy saying good morning to NY was. I had a friend 2 houses down. His older sister listened to WNBC . My first experience with competition. I spent time at WKIP as a kid. At 10 we moved to some apartments behind the station. I can't believe they let me come in and hang out. My older brother was die-hard WNEW. As I started choosing my own stations, WPDH was my favorite. I feel lucky being brought up in a place that, at least in the late 70's and early 80's, had a radio station that played some pretty cool stuff. Over the years, I've always run into people who have never heard a certain song or band. I did, because of WPDH. WDST was fun and interesting to have, too. WBPM's early automation was a good education, and their jingles always sounded better that K104's to me. For me, CHR took over in 1983. I had listened to K104 throughout my teen years, and it was fine. But, I could tell the difference between K104 and Z100, or WTIC, or WPLJ, or WAPP, or WZOU, or PRO-FM, or KC101. I 've been in radio my whole career, and I'm 47 now. I was always kind of bummed that I never worked in my hometown, but it sure was a great place to be exposed to a really wide variety of fantastic radio.

 

[rtetro]

My all time favs:

WALL 1340 back in the late 60's to mid-70s. One of the best local stations ever, anywhere.

WHVW 950. Sounded great under Tom Shovan - even with the spliced up homemade jingles. (That was part of the geniius of the station).

WKIP AM/FM. We couldn't get 1450 in Middletown, but 104.7 blasted in. Great Top 40.

And a station that never gets much respect or credit:
WWLE, 1170, Cornwall from its sign on in the late 60's until about 1973. This was one heck of a professional sounding MOR station, belying its 1KW Daytimer status. With jocks like Bill Beale (x-WNOE), Don Kirby (x-WIP), and syndicated shows from Jerry Marshall (x-WNEW) the station sounded top notch. Plus those PAMS "Smart Set jingles originally produced for WRCV in Philly and BBC Radio Two, you couldn't do much better on a small, local station. Unfortunately, internal strife among the owners eventually doomed the station's performance.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

I started out in radio, long ago, the year MCMLXVII, at WKNY 1490, and did the next summer at top 40 WBAZ 1550. So although I haven't been active in the area even as a DXer for a long while, certain impressions never leave you, as old as those memories might be.

Quadruple-ditto WHVW. Flat-out all time favorite Hudson station, circa 1966-68 for me. One day, at friends' house in Baldwin Long Island -- south shore, too! -- they were booming in.

* * * 1/2 stars to WTBQ as well. At the time, that gorgeous Greenwood Lake area was due for a station, and WTBQ must have made quite a, um, splash.

* * * stars to WRRC 1300 in Nanuet, circa 1967. They used the Pepper-Tanner 'It's What's Happening' jingle package (or at least part of it).

* * 1/2 stars to WGHQ 920. Despite being a rock n roll punk, I always liked Beautiful Music/MoR. WGHQ had that major-market/professional/no nonsense approach to their air sound .... very impressive.

I have to ask if there ever had been a full-time Country station on AM between NYC and Albany back in the late Sixties ......

 

[xmradiopro]

Steve,
Do you trade airchecks ? send me a pm if you do. Thanks.

I started out in radio, long ago, the year MCMLXVII, at WKNY 1490, and did the next summer at top 40 WBAZ 1550. So although I haven't been active in the area even as a DXer for a long while, certain impressions never leave you, as old as those memories might be.

Quadruple-ditto WHVW. Flat-out all time favorite Hudson station, circa 1966-68 for me. One day, at friends' house in Baldwin Long Island -- south shore, too! -- they were booming in.

* * * 1/2 stars to WTBQ as well. At the time, that gorgeous Greenwood Lake area was due for a station, and WTBQ must have made quite a, um, splash.

* * * stars to WRRC 1300 in Nanuet, circa 1967. They used the Pepper-Tanner 'It's What's Happening' jingle package (or at least part of it).

* * 1/2 stars to WGHQ 920. Despite being a rock n roll punk, I always liked Beautiful Music/MoR. WGHQ had that major-market/professional/no nonsense approach to their air sound .... very impressive.

I have to ask if there ever had been a full-time Country station on AM between NYC and Albany back in the late Sixties ......

 

[HudsonValley1967]

Thanks for saga on WLDJ(AM) 740 KHz, Pirate. I recall the station playing Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me" and the Beatle's " Come Together" back to back. For our younger readers see the comparisons of these tunes on your search engines. Yes, the station was political too. During the Spring of 1970, it covered some of the anti-war activites.

WOCC signed on with money provided by the OCCC student council in the Fall of 1969. The transmitter (6EA8 driving a 6146) was homebrew. Circuit design was crafted by WALL's Chief Engineer, Terry King. Transmitter was built by one of the co-founders of WOCC.
The mixing board was homebrew also. The transmitter was coupled to a Bogen PA Amplifier via a modulation transformer. The "antenna" was the AC lines around the OCCC campus. The station started out on 610KHz.. Because WICC 600 KHz- Bridgeport,CT and WIP- 610 KHz Philidelphia, PA caused problems with the signal, it was moved to 640 KHz.

Orange County has a large population with an underrepresentation of College Radio. WOCC never went for a FM license. To my knowledge neither did carrier-current FM WKDT - West Point/USMA.

OCCC has been heard on Internet Radio in recent years. Now that the OCCC-Newburgh campus is up an running, maybe that campus will go broadcast FM.

 

[fybush]

Orange County has a large population with an underrepresentation of College Radio. WOCC never went for a FM license. To my knowledge neither did carrier-current FM WKDT - West Point/USMA.

WKDT has operated on FM at 89.3, but not with a license from the FCC. Because it's a government agency, its FM broadcast was authorized by the NTIA instead of the FCC. I'm not sure what the status of WKDT's FM broadcast has been since WLJP in Monroe came on at the same frequency with an FCC license.

(There have been similar NTIA-authorized FM signals from the Naval Academy in Annapolis and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.)

 

[HudsonValley1967]

As for Country and Western (C&W) HV stations-late 60's? WSPK/WKIP-FM 104.7 MHz had a C&W format in 66' and 67'. There was even a
C&W dance-hall in Newburgh at the time. By 68' the station found the local "Apple-Knockers" were not into Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty. By 68' the station atop Mt. Beacon was playing Lead Zepplin (in the first part of the year in "mono").

 

[HudsonValley1967]

RE: WKDT-FM. Thanks Scott! The NTIA was a White House creation. Back in the days of Nixon and Agnew, the for-runner of the NTIA was the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP). Nixon and Agnew were never happy with the politics of the FCC. They wanted their own policy and regulation group that could go around the FCC and the Congress. Hence, the OTP was born.

RE Government Stations. When I visited Japan 20 years ago, I found my co-workers in Tokyo said they learned English hearing a U.S. Armed Forces AM station. The station was located in metro Tokyo. The station was so popular that an OEM I worked for made an American Forces "only" radio receiver.

 

[Time Traveler]

As for Country and Western (C&W) HV stations-late 60's? WSPK/WKIP-FM 104.7 MHz had a C&W format in 66' and 67'. There was even a
C&W dance-hall in Newburgh at the time. By 68' the station found the local "Apple-Knockers" were not into Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty. By 68' the station atop Mt. Beacon was playing Lead Zepplin (in the first part of the year in "mono").

Prior to their long run as AOR/Classic Rock starting in 1977, WPDH was country for a while too...

 

[xmradiopro]

WPDH actually started as Classic Rock in 1976

As for Country and Western (C&W) HV stations-late 60's? WSPK/WKIP-FM 104.7 MHz had a C&W format in 66' and 67'. There was even a
C&W dance-hall in Newburgh at the time. By 68' the station found the local "Apple-Knockers" were not into Charlie Pride and Conway Twitty. By 68' the station atop Mt. Beacon was playing Lead Zepplin (in the first part of the year in "mono").

Prior to their long run as AOR/Classic Rock starting in 1977, WPDH was country for a while too...

 

[HudsonValley1967]

Prior to the Classic Rock stage of WPDH, the station was AOR. In 1971 I was on WPDH with Terry Lacona (he went on to be the Producer and Announcer at "Austin City Limits") playing the Greatfull Dead and Led Zepplin. Prior to the late 60's, WEOK-FM (now WPDH) played some classical and opera music at night. This was when WEOK-AM was a daytimer only.

 

[RadioGetsResults?]

And a station that never gets much respect or credit:
WWLE, 1170, Cornwall from its sign on in the late 60's until about 1973. This was one heck of a professional sounding MOR station, belying its 1KW Daytimer status. With jocks like Bill Beale (x-WNOE), Don Kirby (x-WIP), and syndicated shows from Jerry Marshall (x-WNEW) the station sounded top notch. Plus those PAMS "Smart Set jingles originally produced for WRCV in Philly and BBC Radio Two, you couldn't do much better on a small, local station. Unfortunately, internal strife among the owners eventually doomed the station's performance.

Now THAT was a GREAT radio station. Joe Manglass was there in the '70's as well and was terrific - especially when paired with Bill Beale. (If memory serves me, Bob Maines and Bob Kreiger were also on staff there.) Their sales "team" consisted of the late Joe Greco. He was Herb Tarlek long before WKRP brought that character to us.

 

[dx1ng]

WKDT has operated on FM at 89.3, but not with a license from the FCC. Because it's a government agency, its FM broadcast was authorized by the NTIA instead of the FCC. I'm not sure what the status of WKDT's FM broadcast has been since WLJP in Monroe came on at the same frequency with an FCC license.

As far as I know, WKDT still broadcasts. I hear them here in the Poughkeepsie area when WLJP is off the air (often due to Thunderstorms /Power outages). It's a been a while though (maybe a year or so) since I last noted WKDT.

WKDT and WLJP must be only 8 or 9 miles apart..... that's gotta be a record for close-spacing on the SAME channel.