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Old AM Top 40's in Jacksonville

T

thebeach33445

Hey Guys:

I know about WAPE 690 the big ape. But would anybody know of any other Top 40 AM's back in the day and when the were on the air? Was WPDQ 600 one of them? I saw a Top 40 survey list with some stations on it. Here is what I found: WQTY 1220, WIVY 1050, WMBR 1460 which was called the Jacksonville Tigar. Are all of these correct? Can anybody help me with this history question?

Thanks a lot for all of your help!!

T.J.
 
You’re definitely right about WAPE, WPDQ, and WMBR.

I don’t remember WQTY and WIVY ever being Top 40.

1600 in Atlantic beach was Top 40 for a while. I think the call sign was WAQB at the time.

Bob
 
Re: Old AM Top 40's in Jacksonville (to Bob Dillehay)

Hey Bob:

Thanks for the reply and your help. Could you tell me when do you think WMBR 1460 was Top 40 and how long it lasted, and could you tell be around what years WAQB 1600 was Top 40. Would you remember when 1600 was WKTX? The dates don't have to be exact. Also would you happen to know any other station history in Jacksonville by any chance? I am doing some research on this because there is no site on the internet that has this type of history like Orlando and Tampa Bay. The surveys I saw for WQTY and WIVY were the early 60's. I googled WQTY 1220 TOP 40 and it came up with a link to click on. If I can find that link I will post it here.

Thanks again Bob for your help!!

T.J.
 
I thought the former 1280 was WIVY at one time, playing Top 40... Wasn't WJAX-AM 930 also Top 40 while WJAX-FM 95.1 was AOR?

Mark Tillery
General Manager
WELE-AM 1380
Ormond Beach - Daytona, Florida
[email protected]
 
WKTX 1600 was Top 40 in the mid-1960s and also had some talk shows such as Joe Pyne.

WQTY (also WTTT) 1220 was Top 40 in the early 1960s before being bought by Jones College.

1050 was WIVY. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it played some contemporary music and was owned by Ed Bell. Possibly Jacksonville's first totally Talk Radio station (though signing off at sunset) in the late 1960s. Was Known as "The Talk of Jacksonville" and operated by Jack Wheeler. WIVY later was Top 40 on 1280 after WQIK moved to 1050 from 1280 where it began operation in the mid 1950s playing C&W.

WMBR 1460 was Top 40 "Tiger Radio" during the early to mid 1960s.

WZRO 1010 at Jax Beach played Top 40 in the late 1950s.

WJAX 930 was Top 40 in the early to mid 1980s.

WPDQ 600 was Top 40 during the 1960s until early 1972.
 
Thanks to all of you who replyed to my question. There is alot of info I did not know about!!

jiminy cricket: Thanks for the info on WZRO, did not know about that one either. Would you know when WZRO ended it's Top 40 format? Was it when it went Religous WBIX in 1966? Was WTTT 1220 before WQTY or after. And what was WPDQ 600 after it dropped Top 40 in 72?

Again guys thanks for your help!!

T.J.
 
WZRO faded away in the early 1960s. The studio/transmitter site moved from west of Penman Rd. in Jax Beach to the Southside Estates area and the call changed to WBIX. I remember WBIX being a C&W station in the mid and late 1960s.

After Jack Wheeler left WIVY in 1969, he had a (brokered?) afternoon local talk program on WBIX. Wheeler stayed about a year before going to KDKA and the station gradually shifted to a religious format by the early 1970s.

I think WTTT (which I remember having all female DJs for a while) was before WQTY on 1220.

WPDQ 600 shifted to an R&B format in 1972.

An interesting tidbit about WPDQ. It was part of the first stereo broadcast in Jacksonville in 1958 or so even before FCC authorized FM stereo. WPDQ and WMBR collaborated for a few hours on several occasions.

If you took an AM receiver tuned to WPDQ 600 and put it on the left side of the room and put another AM receiver tuned to 1460 on the right side of the room, you heard stereo.

WPDQ transmitted its announcer along with the left channel while WMBR transmitted its announcer along with the right channel of the same music. The announcers talked to each other and the programming included numerous sound effects.

The purpose was to promote the sale of stereo home entertainment equipment.
 
When I was a kid, had to be 6th grade or so, I remember 1600 was still top 40 but between about 5pm and sign-off the owner let his kid pretty much take over the station and play "California Music" which basically meant the stuff the progressive rock stations were playing. (Had to be around '65-66?). People used to actually hang out in the parking lot while this was going on - kind of an early hippie thing. I went over there with my cousin and a neighbor a few times, needless to say my parents didn't know. Already a music/radio junkie.

I remember listening to QTY when I was really young, like 3rd grade. Everybody else listened to APE and I just wanted to be different. When Jones bought QTY and they started playing B/EZ they did it at first only after 5pm (That magic time?). I was really attached to that station because the guy that did afternoons was really funny. But I don't remember his name.
 
In 1959, I remember the WQTY studio being in the Arlington Plaza shopping center. They had a giant inflatable stage (like a balloon) they used for remotes. DJs would stand on top of it and toss records (45s) into the crowd down on ground level.

Transistor radios were verboten in class in high school in 1964-65, but it was not unusual to hear a surreptitious ape call and even a WKTX ID on occasion.

WKTX and WKTZ 96.1FM were at the same location in the little building on Atlantic Blvd. til WKTZ was sold in the early 1960s.
 
Digging through stuff in the attic a few months ago I found two printed Top 60 charts from WPDQ. One is from August '68 and has Jerry Goodwin (?) on the cover. The other is from 1969 and has Tom Kennington on the cover. Or maybe it's the other way around. I'd scan them but we can't post pix here..
 
I am one of those old radio guys still in the biz...and growing up on the South Carolina
coast in Beaufort SC we could get both Jacksonville top 40's (during the day)
of course with that 50kw's at 690 the APE rolled into town, but PDQ had a very
listenable signal as well...what a great radio "battle.." those were the days...
 
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