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WCPO Aircheck

Thank you very much for posting this. WCPO airchecks are rare. It is nice to hear Gary Corry again, and Walt Maher reading the news. I have a six-minute aircheck of Gary Allyn from 1965, and there is an aircheck of Shad and Mike posted at karenserenity.com/inspiration from November of 1964. Hopefully, someone can dig up more of these treasures. Once again, thank you for posting it.
 
The date of this aircheck is Sunday, May 3, 1964 based on the sports scores given. It was good to hear the voice of Tom Jones. He was also seen on the news on WCPO-TV, Channel 9 about this time. Tom later went to WKRC-TV, Channel 12, giving that station three on-air personalities named "Jones". There was Paul Jones, Bob Jones (also heard on WKRC Radio) and Tom.

Thanks for posting this.
 
js said:
A friend of mine was going through his tapes and found this, probably from 1964.

It's a big file. 15.8mb/34 minutes. I didn't want to compress it too much. The quality is great for it's age.

Right click & "save target as"

http://www.johnsandor.com/media/WCPO.mp3
Click to expand...
Thank You for sharing this gem! Much enjoyed...and the quality was excellent for 1964 AM radio.
 
JS,

Thanks for the trip down 1230 memory lane!! Too bad though that Miles "Big Daddy" Folen was at Castle Farms and not the studio. Rollin' with Folen! Miles is the voice that begins the Dave Clark Five promos and comes back with the ticket info. I think Bob Keith may be the other voice in the DC5 promo.

Speaking of the Dave Clark Five, that concert was cancelled shortly before the event. Never did hear as to why but I suspect that ticket sales were light for the DC5 following WSAI's Beatles concert. Compare those ticket prices ($2 & $3 for reserved seating) to today's concerts.

Back in those days, the jocks at WSAI/WCPO all worked three hour air shifts (6-9, 9-12, etc) with the exception of overnights and weekends. On weekends they pulled six hour air shifts giving each jock one day off. I found it amazing that Walt Maher and Tom Jones were doing news and sports on a Sunday afternoon. These days it's the intern on weekends.

Gary Corry was mostly used as a utility man filling in where needed and/or midnights. Although I personally didn't think he was up to par with the other on-air jocks, Gary always survived the revolving door, format change after format change. Obviously, he had value to the station.

I heard Mike Gavin's (of Shad & Mike fame) voice a several times including the Long Distance spot when Gary was napping. Mike is WDJO Sales Manager and you can still hear him pitching spots on WDJO today.

Thanks again, JS!! BTW, nice job on the editing.
 
RadioBill said:
Speaking of the Dave Clark Five, that concert was cancelled shortly before the event. Never did hear as to why but I suspect that ticket sales were light for the DC5 following WSAI's Beatles concert. Compare those ticket prices ($2 & $3 for reserved seating) to today's concerts.
Click to expand...

May I make a correction? The DC5 was set for early June in this year (1964). The Beatles didn't come to Cincinnati until August 27th.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
RadioBill said:
Speaking of the Dave Clark Five, that concert was cancelled shortly before the event. Never did hear as to why but I suspect that ticket sales were light for the DC5 following WSAI's Beatles concert. Compare those ticket prices ($2 & $3 for reserved seating) to today's concerts.
Click to expand...
May I make a correction? The DC5 was set for early June in this year (1964). The Beatles didn't come to Cincinnati until August 27th.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction. In any event, the two concerts competed and the DC5 played second fiddle to the Beatles as did WCPO to WSAI in terms of ratings.

Another correction to my previous posting is the correct spelling of "Big Daddy's" name. I just found a prized WCPO Nifty-Fifty Survey sheet from October 1962 and the correct spelling is Myles Foland. The air staff from then was Bill Dawes, Myles Foland, Dick Provost, Bob Smith, and Jim Dandy.
 
I sent the download link to my brother who sent it to Walt Mayer's daughter, who sent it to Walt himself. Walt was "flabbergasted" in his daughter's words...the uploader of this file made a former Cincy radio/TV person's day. Thanks again...
 
In Bob Keith's book, he wrote the DC5 concert was cancelled because the electricians union at the Gardens decided to go on strike that night.
 
JS - I know this came from a friend, but do you have any idea how the WCPO tape was made? The quality makes it sound as though it is taken right off of the board at WCPO rather than from an over-the-air signal on an AM or FM radio (remember WCPO had most of its output simulcast on WCPO-FM at 105.1 back then). I also say this because the recorded music was clipped with just the beginning and ending of the songs heard such as the station making it for use as a promotion or sales tape or a DJ/announcer using it in seeking employment with another station.
 
The recording was made on an old Webcor single motor recorder at 3 3/4 IPS on junk tape. The source was a Hallicrafter S38E AM/shortwave radio. I have the complete recording, if you want it. I scoped it.

I was also impressed with the fidelity. The narrow band AM of today sure doesn't sound like that!
 
Thanks for the quick response. It would be nice to have a copy. Is that something you can do via the computer? or? The quality is really great especially coming from an AM radio. It must have been somewhere in Cincinnati although a day-time signal such as that one would be heard farther than one at night on WCPO.

I remember back in the spring of 1962. WCPO had increased its day-time power to 1,000 watts (the night-time power remained at 250 watts) and the station held a contest for the farthest away listener in: Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. I think the prize for each was a transistor radio. There was no one from Indiana who entered the contest. The farthest away listener in Kentucky was someone in Independence (just down I-75). The farthest away in Ohio was a girl in Sardinia which is in Brown County, approximately 30 miles east of Cincinnati.
 
js said:
I was also impressed with the fidelity. The narrow band AM of today sure doesn't sound like that!
Click to expand...


If only modern AM radio receivers would sound as good as that recording from 1964. I can hardly listen to AM anymore with the hiss from HD AM and all of the RF generated from computers and other electronic equipment.
 
Growing up in College Hill put me 7 miles from the 1230 transmitter and 14 miles from WMOH 1450...night signals were about equal. 1230 was about the poorest graveyard signal, 1450 was one of the best. Both cranked out some fine radio back in the day...

The quality is even more amazing now that the actual method of recording is known. With the sound of today's AM stations and typical radios, that quality would be tough to duplicate...sad, isn't it?
 
The WCPO recording was made from Golf Manor, and there is a picture of a deck like the one that recorded it on this brochure on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...0/6589821000_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40QQfviZ1

Here is the non-scoped version of the WCPO aircheck. Be warned, it's 40mb/87 minutes. I'm bound to run out of bandwidth soon on my $4 a month hosting account!

http://www.johnsandor.com/media/WCPOfull.mp3

Here are a few airchecks I had up on an old page:

Q102
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/q102scopedmono.wma
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/bengal.mp3
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/alnzip.mp3

Yes 95
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/yes95.wma

Stereo 96
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/wlwsaircheck.mp3
http://www.johnsandor.com/media/96montage.mp3
 
microbob said:
If only modern AM radio receivers would sound as good as that recording from 1964. I can hardly listen to AM anymore with the hiss from HD AM and all of the RF generated from computers and other electronic equipment.
Click to expand...

Come join me on the dark side & treat yourself to an HD radio. ;) AM sound quality has been dropping for decades. IBOC trashes analog on AM, but the digital service sounds pretty good. I just bought a JVC kd-hdr1 on Ebay for $110 delivered.
 
The Q102 Bengal cut is the infamous 1982 "Chris Collingsworth is Hard Up Party". The goal was to get Chris laid. It's amazing radio the current owner would frown upon.
 
This is one of the finest airchecks I have ever heard [with all due respect to Cousin Brucie and Fred Winston at their respective WABC and WLS 60s addresses]. I love and genuinely-respect the efforts of our predecessors. This “prehistoric” display gives true testimony to the perfection of mass-appeal “Top-40” radio. It should be required listening FOR ANY aspiring to a position that engages “youth” as a format directive. BTW, I’m a marketing professional ABOVE just a man of advanced age that won’t simply divorce himself from a by-gone past. Most with a functioning mind would agree—the contents of this aircheck [currently-transmitted] would not past muster or be appealing today... This is a history lesson. It’s MORE than just about reminiscing – it’s a treat 'n possible textbook in it's fundamentals! Furthermore, this is NOT about clinging a cherished era – it’s about simple marketing to the mass. I suspect, after listening to this, that “prehistoric WCPO” had MUCH more impact on its target audience then does the balance of your local stations, so-called aimed at the current youth, in Cincinnati today. I’m NOT going to leave 60’s WSAI out of this – they did also - 1360 "Rocket Radio" and "1-2-3 WB" also has a firm place in history!

Just as WCPO pumped out the Dave Clark Five and Searchers, they reported horserace results, news from our early engagement in Viet Nam, and the lingering Cuban situation... The “WCPO Newsroom” - they were FULL SERVICE – apparently with no detriment to youth listening – interesting. The “beep” upon the time-checks was reminiscent of the WABC “time chime” – an obvious and effective production element AT THAT TIME. “Good listening Radio”, “WCPO Fun Radio”, “The Fun Spot”, and “The King of the Queen City” [although passé by today’s standards] were classic and effective at that time as marketing positions. They seemed to know their market and address it accordingly. I really would have loved this station :)

My fave was “Vote Yes for Ohio Highways”... I suspect they were trying to build I-75/71/275 at that time! ‘ALL THIS WAS HAPPENING ON A 1000-watt “Class 4”... Holy cow!

This is a gem in radio history... THANKS js for finding and making it available! ‘Now, I just have to figure out how to save it! I'd love to keep it, but QuickTime won't let me :'(
 
To save the file, all you have to do is right-click the link, then select "Save Target As..." in Internet Explorer or "Save Link As..." in Firefox.
 
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