Goodbye, WLLT. The original "Jack FM"!
> WLLT is satellite, so it has advertisers off the bird.
Sigh. How sad. I know the station was made fun of on here and
by others, but to me, WLLT just rocked, and I made a point to listen
to it, when I could, in DeKalb. I still live there, but the signal
is weak and often gets trashed by tropo from 107.7 in Milwaukee...
and now from the 107.7 near Bloomington as well.
I once heard Frank Sinatra followed by Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To
Have Fun" one day driving up I-39 just north of Rochelle. Yeah, THAT
was memorable to hear those two songs back to back! I don't know if
that's ever been done before or since, even in a format flip!
In its latter days, the signal would have audio difficulties from
storms on occasion, and when I called their studio line, their
phone quality (not the line itself) was atrocious. They didn't take
requests; I now understand that it was probably all off reels or
hard drive. That was when they were only on 18 hours a day. A few years
ago, they made a little stink that they were on 24 hours. But even though
the jocks were mum most of the time, when you called the studios, they
were there! An electic AC staffed 18 hours a day in Polo, IL. COOL!!!
Alas, I could tell that they were struggling, and I am surprised that
this didn't happen a lot earlier. I can't remember the evening guy's
name now, but his voice was on a lot of liners and commercials. Being
cheap, some of my favorite songs were recorded from WLLT on tape during
"good reception days". I still have him on tape.
I suspect the owner sold out, and the new owner just blew out everybody
to run it cheap. How sad. WLLT was one of the last bastions of real
radio in northwest Illinois.
WLLT playing eclectic music, and all-request live Saturday nights on
WRHL (in mono) on 102.3 FM. And "The right music" on 92.5, WDEK,
with live jocks 24/7 in the late 90s. That was good radio!
Progress sometimes isn't.
Sorry for the rant on what many of you probably think is just a
tiny unmemorable station. For me, I thought it was really cool.
Up until a few weeks ago, when I actually travelled out there, I
made a note to listen to it.
Gilbert