"Off-topic...Bob, was WHEN in the 70's anything like I heard it in 1982-83? That was one awesome personality Hot AC in the early 80's."
It was. Of course it had continuity in the person of morning man Phil Markert (who, with the exception of a couple of years out of town in, IIRC, the late 70s) spanned most of WHEN's great years as an AC station. (No disrespect to Ray D'Orio, who held the gig down for a few years but may be better remembered for his afternoon work there after Jack Mindy left.)
There are those of us who remember the 1973-75 iteration of WHEN so well, and feel so fond about it, that we're partial to it. The lineup was Phil Markert, Dr. Al Adams, Jack Mindy, John Simmons and Roy Taylor with "The Coyote" on weekends--as good a lineup as Syracuse ever had. PD Jim Ashbery built the lineup and created a music mix and formatics which made it sound truly major market, and Bob Ashton and later Rod Wood headed up a 24/7 news team that ranks with the best an Upstate New York radio station ever put together--to find anything equal or better, IMHO, you have to look to the news teams Jim McLaughlin put together at WKBW in the early 70s and at WBEN in the late 70s and 80s.
At WHEN in the 70s we even had a fulltime airborne traffic reporter, pilot and broadcaster "Captain Gordon" Spooner, on air during both drive times--we were a true full service radio station. Again, you have to go to WBEN to find something similar.
Those who remember WHEN as it was in the 70s will know this isn't just a former staffer's nostalgia...though in the interest of full disclosure, it is that. In Western NY, 1972-77 WGR and 1978-83 WBEN had the same clout and the same quality in doing the full service AC approach.