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KDKA Tribute?

D

Dusty Dale Brooks

There seems to be a real scarcity of audio from KDKA in the 1960s and 70s. With the quality of the station and its great signal I am amazed they weren't airchecked they way stations like CKLW, WCFL, WLS, WABC, etc.

Those Westinghouse stations were incredible. You could say the same thing about WIND and WBZ--also scarce.

Anybody got the 411?
 
Seems like most of the extensive airchecking was aimed at Top 40 stations. KDKA played Top 40 music for at least part of the day, but they were never a true Top 40 station.

There was an old engineer named John Scigliano who was said to have recorded miles of tape of KDKA. He passed away a good while ago and I never heard of anything happening with whatever tapes he may have saved.
 
I wanna hear the 1920 election results from KDKA! <ducking tomatoes>

cd
 
cd637299 said:
I wanna hear the 1920 election results from KDKA! <ducking tomatoes>

cd
Click to expand...

I wonder if they had a bunch of annoying pundits on who turned out to be wrong
about virtually everything? ???
 
You are so right, Boss Radio. And it is such a shame because some of the greatest radio was done on the great full-service MORs like KDKA, WNEW, KMPC, KOMO, KHOW, WIND, etc. In fact, the Group W stations were as a group incredible. So were the Metromedia stations. Lost forever...unless there are reels of tape lying in some engineers attic.
 
cd637299 said:
I wanna hear the 1920 election results from KDKA! <ducking tomatoes>

cd
Click to expand...

Well, they're out there. But you better hurry. Frank Conrad's handiwork is a little over 92 light-years away, and moving really fast.
 
All I saved from my time at KDKA was "The Pittsburgh People" a two hour tribute to Pittsburgh pop music written and produced by Chris Rathaus and me and hosted by Art Pallen (1972, I think). I have the album set that Westinghouse put out in 1970 to commemorate radio's 50th anniversary. Alas the Harding Cox election segment is only an early recreation. :). I also have a promo album with a lot of Rege Cordic's bits that was done for ad agencies. No normal airchecks, however. I do hope KDKA does something for their 100th. At the 50th celebration party I recall marvelling at the few "old folks" that had survived 50 years. 50 years later that will be me, Dave James, Jack Bogut and some others.
 
In conversations with old radio friends and colleagues there is lots of interest in audio from old full-service stations as well as country and R&B stations. It is scary to think that
the only thing the industry is leaving for posterity is Top 40 airchecks.

Think of the call letters from which there as of now there are virtually no audio records: WTIC, WIP, WBAL, WMAL, WRCP, WHN, WCAR, WJR, WLW, WHAS, WRVA, WWVA, WSM, KEEL, WWL, KHOW, WEMJ, KOA, KLAK, KRLD, WBAP, KOMO, KEX, KING, KFBK, KLAC, KMPC, KGBS, KFMB, KMOX, WIOD, WGBS, WINZ, WGN, KGO, KNBR, WOR.

Tell me it ain't so!
 
I do have some WGBS Miami stuff from 1961, although at that time, I wouldn't call it MOR, although it sure seemed to be full service---all things to all people----but the teenagers were listening to WQAM then.

And, boy, did they have a lotta commercials----we complain today! Probably as many spots as major-city sports-talk stations run today---although the ads were spread out then, not the 5-minute clusters of today.

cd
 
I checked over the pile of tapes and ETs in the basement and found some interviews from the KDKA Farm Hour from 1954. There are at least 500 ETs and several hundred tapes. Some of the ETs are 16 inch and we don't have any of the old transcription turntables.

Some of the tape labels are missing so they will have to be listened to to determine the content.

If someone would like to volunteer to look this stuff over, let me know and I'll meet you there on my regular xmtr. day. However, I don't want to do anything until after the first of the year.
 
While neither are from the 60s or 70s, both of these books are interesting from an historical perspective. And for those of us fascinated by the engineering side, the pictures and the names involved are also of interest:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/KDKA-1946.pdf

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/WJAS-1952.pdf

...and from down the road, there's also a 30th Anniversary book from WWVA:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/WWVA-Album-1926-1956.pdf

Thanks to David Gleason for making these available on his impressive http://www.americanradiohistory.com site.
 
Bob, I have all of these in my collection. The back of the KDKA book shows the Grant Building beacon which spells Pittsburgh in Morse code. This system is still in operation, but the lights are now white rather than red.
 
DonItForYears said:
Ed and Wendy King anybody? A great telephone talk show where you NEVER heard the caller - - -
Click to expand...

Anyone know what ever happened to Wendy King? Is she still with us?
Was watching her in an old Rick Sebak program the other day.
 
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