I sent an email to dale schaefer at mainline asking him about certain stations

[PROjammer]

99.7 Kicked off as Top 40 in June of 1979, changing calls from WCSN to WKJJ. KJ-100 remained
as Top 40 under CC Matthews til Janary 1981 when CC went to then WQHI, to work for
WEBN Cincinnati owner Frank "Bo" Wood and John Page Otting who left WKJJ a few months earlier,
to be GM of WQHI, The new owner of 95.7 wanted to call the station "the River", and get the calls
WRVR, however Viacom had them on an FM in New York that went A.C. as WLTW so they moved
the WRVR calls to an fm in Memphis, When 95.7 could get WRVR, and needed new calls, it was CC Matthews
that came up with the idea of WQMF. He knew that WQFM was taken by an album rock in Milwaukee, however,
FM backwards spells MF, and WQMF was available. Hence the Other Corporation applied and got WQMF.
Meanwhile at WKJJ they got a new GM Frank Seymour, who came from Ch 5 in Cincinnati. Franks spend gobs
of money, which Great Trails was not known to do, they hired Bill Bailey for WCII, as example. About a
year after the spending spree Great Trails showed Frank the door and hired a guy from WKWK in
Wheeling, W.Va. Dick Ferry. Dick came in and within 3 months went AC as Magic 100, a nightmare,
a few years later Dick died of a heart attack and Tom Perryman came in as GM and took the failing
Magic 100, blew up the WKJK calls and in the fall of 1985 WDJX came about.
FYI... some history on Louisville radio.

 

[hotpatrick2004]

You can go to www.lkyradio.com and listen to john david baker at djx in july of 1985 there first day on the air.

 

[Craven707]

I loved KJ100 as a kid in high school. It was like AM radio on FM. The jocks didn't even sound stoned, lol. I was bummed when they flipped it to magic. I only listened to them when I was trying to sleep.

 

[greg.hahn]

99.7 Kicked off as Top 40 in June of 1979, changing calls from WCSN to WKJJ. KJ-100 remained
as Top 40 under CC Matthews til Janary 1981 when CC went to then WQHI, to work for
WEBN Cincinnati owner Frank "Bo" Wood and John Page Otting who left WKJJ a few months earlier,
to be GM of WQHI, The new owner of 95.7 wanted to call the station "the River", and get the calls
WRVR, however Viacom had them on an FM in New York that went A.C. as WLTW so they moved
the WRVR calls to an fm in Memphis, When 95.7 could get WRVR, and needed new calls, it was CC Matthews
that came up with the idea of WQMF. He knew that WQFM was taken by an album rock in Milwaukee, however,
FM backwards spells MF, and WQMF was available. Hence the Other Corporation applied and got WQMF.
Meanwhile at WKJJ they got a new GM Frank Seymour, who came from Ch 5 in Cincinnati. Franks spend gobs
of money, which Great Trails was not known to do, they hired Bill Bailey for WCII, as example. About a
year after the spending spree Great Trails showed Frank the door and hired a guy from WKWK in
Wheeling, W.Va. Dick Ferry. Dick came in and within 3 months went AC as Magic 100, a nightmare,
a few years later Dick died of a heart attack and Tom Perryman came in as GM and took the failing
Magic 100, blew up the WKJK calls and in the fall of 1985 WDJX came about.
FYI... some history on Louisville radio.

Good stuff. Did Dick Ferry have the heart attack and die in his own office? I remember a story about that happening to someone.


Also- WQFM in Milwaukee was a legendary rocker. I always wondered if the QMF call letters were inspired by it. But I think QMF is a better letter combination than QFM for a rock station. Maybe it's my warped brain, but "MF" says something different to me than "FM."

 

[50000watts]

Hey Greg!

Ya know if I remember correctly, Dick Ferry was found dead at home by someone you know. I heard Jerry Snapp (one of the nicest guys in the biz and a darn good engineer) supposedly went to his house when he hadn't shown up for work and found him. It may also be Jerry just knew the details and someone else found him. It's been over 20 years since I heard this story so it's a little fuzzy.

I was hired by Tom Perryman there for the djx flip and loved that guy. Would love to know what ever happened to Tom. He was a top knotch guy and we all had much respect for him. Everytime you saw him he was smoking a big expensive cigar with a smile on his face.