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WEEX
- Thread starter Bobby5
- Start date
I know Joey Mitchell passed away from cancer. I thought I'd also read Mickey had passed too. Freddie...no idea where he is, but he'll live forever. Freddie's company used to be called "Fling-A-Thing" (don't ask). Perhaps that still exists or folks from the Valley know where he can be located.
While you're locating folks from that station, what about the PD then. He's Dave Marino. He went to York for many years. No idea where hs is now. Big John Andrews and Bill Robbins. They were there around the same time. Back in the early '70s, WEEX FM and AM were simulcast, the FM in mono. What a great station!
While you're locating folks from that station, what about the PD then. He's Dave Marino. He went to York for many years. No idea where hs is now. Big John Andrews and Bill Robbins. They were there around the same time. Back in the early '70s, WEEX FM and AM were simulcast, the FM in mono. What a great station!
I worked for Bill Robbins, actually went to Mmobile with Bill back in 77...As far as I know Bill is still in Mobile, owns Mobile Speedway, at least he was the owner 3 years ago. Speaking of Freddie, I use to be one of the DJ for Freddy in the Fling a Thing...it was the parties that we DJ'd...as for Big John Andrews..John was traffic manager and filll in when I was at EEX...Didn't know Dave M. There was another individual there JJ Christian....Rob Fritz was doing news there before he went to WPEN in Philly and then in Boston...
You're right, Bobby. Jay "Joey Mitchell" snyder died of cancer in late 99 or early 2000. Mickey Hagerty was owner of a station up in shamokin, and died in the past couple years, as well. I dont' know the cause of his death.
JJChristian is still about the valley... as I recall, he's in the engineering game. When we worked together back at the BiGX, he did have a first-class license.
Dave Marino precedes me at the BigX by a couple years. I worked there in from 71-75, and from 78-80, I think. Although our lineup changed over time, when I got there, it was
6a-9a Tom Kelly
9a-noon Mickey Hagerty
noon-3p John Andrews
3p-6p Bill Robbins (PD)
6p-10p Matt Kincaid (Bobby Nixon ... appeared as a regular on the Steel Pier show for a while)
10p-2a Joey Mitchell
2a-6a Jerry Kaye
JJChristian is still about the valley... as I recall, he's in the engineering game. When we worked together back at the BiGX, he did have a first-class license.
Dave Marino precedes me at the BigX by a couple years. I worked there in from 71-75, and from 78-80, I think. Although our lineup changed over time, when I got there, it was
6a-9a Tom Kelly
9a-noon Mickey Hagerty
noon-3p John Andrews
3p-6p Bill Robbins (PD)
6p-10p Matt Kincaid (Bobby Nixon ... appeared as a regular on the Steel Pier show for a while)
10p-2a Joey Mitchell
2a-6a Jerry Kaye
So Bob you and I crossed paths...I was there from 9/74 through 2/77...worked weekends and during the day drove a paper truck for the Easton Express deleivering papers to the South Side...Tom Wolfe would have been the GM...Barbs cannot recall the last name was the copy writer...The engineer was Steve???
I worked there late 70's/early 80's. I was hired by Mickey Haggerty. When I was there, Haggerty was just stepping down from mornings, and the station was switching to more of an A/C format. Bob Ryan was brought in as PD by the GM, Tom Wolfe. John Knight (Knight in the morning) came in, along with Jane Farmer, who did news on his show. At that time, I was the MD and overnight guy. We also had Geoff Freeman, Carl Baker, Dennis Kelly and a few others who's names have escaped me.
When Knight left, I did mornings for about 4-5 months, then they brought in a new PD, Dave Dillon, who didn't like me, relegated me to overnights again, and fired me a few months later. He really changed a lot at the station, and made it a lot worse, if you ask me. Not too long later, they switched formats, moved some of the staff to the FM side and became 99Q or some such nonsense.
All the best,
Gene O'Brien (no longer doing the radio thing!)
When Knight left, I did mornings for about 4-5 months, then they brought in a new PD, Dave Dillon, who didn't like me, relegated me to overnights again, and fired me a few months later. He really changed a lot at the station, and made it a lot worse, if you ask me. Not too long later, they switched formats, moved some of the staff to the FM side and became 99Q or some such nonsense.
All the best,
Gene O'Brien (no longer doing the radio thing!)
wasn't the guy that was a pd charlie ryan? dave dillon was hired on from wnlc and wtyd in new london ct. he was the brains behind q100 and actually ordered a call sign change to wnrx for weex as a smokescreen for people to think weex was going news talk. and what really happened was the fm went ac and the am took the ez listening automation that wqqq used.
Th engineer @WEEX was a gentleman by the name of Steve Boyer. In addition to doing a great job @ WEEX/WQQQ...Steve designed and built audio processors. Does anyone remember The "Imp" ??
Later down the road he expanded to do contract engineering as "Sage Communications"...one of his employees was JJ Christian.
Fast forward now....Sage ended up doing all the engineering for the Clear Channel cluster and moved their office to that facility. Steve is now partially retired and living in New Mexico. He comes back to the Valley to visit family a few times a year. As a matter of fact I just saw him a few weeks ago when he was visiting Larry Tighe @ WRNJ in Hackettstown, NJ . And yes I worked for Dave Dillon at WEEX/WQQQ;
Later down the road he expanded to do contract engineering as "Sage Communications"...one of his employees was JJ Christian.
Fast forward now....Sage ended up doing all the engineering for the Clear Channel cluster and moved their office to that facility. Steve is now partially retired and living in New Mexico. He comes back to the Valley to visit family a few times a year. As a matter of fact I just saw him a few weeks ago when he was visiting Larry Tighe @ WRNJ in Hackettstown, NJ . And yes I worked for Dave Dillon at WEEX/WQQQ;
WEEX was a great station in the late 60's and early 70's.
It's funny how they simulcast on 99.9 (in mono) I think, but most people didn't listen to FM back then.
WEEX always struggled to compete with the Allentown stations, but in reality, they had the best signal if only people would have listened to FM!
They had great DJ's, just as good as anyone else on AM, and were a top notch station.
I miss those days, but they are never coming back.
It's funny how they simulcast on 99.9 (in mono) I think, but most people didn't listen to FM back then.
WEEX always struggled to compete with the Allentown stations, but in reality, they had the best signal if only people would have listened to FM!
They had great DJ's, just as good as anyone else on AM, and were a top notch station.
I miss those days, but they are never coming back.
When I started at East Stroudsburg (State College, not University, then) in the fall of 1970 WEEX-FM was the strongest top 40 signal in that area and if you walked up & down the dorm halls, if someone wasn't listening to rock albums, you could hear the Big X blaring from the room, popular especially among the 'jocks', a sizeable group back then. The echoing effect in the halls was amazing. It was also on all over town, especially the fast food places - there were 2, a "Burger Queen" and a "Dairy King". (Strange town!).
This was mainly the LV population at ESSC - the Scranton people hung a radio out the window & listened to WARM, the Philly kids put up an antenna and listened to WIFI and some others listened to (W)'OR-FM' from NYC. Always looking for the underdog (a WIBG listener in a WFIL world then), I liked WPIX-FM from NYC with jocks like Jerry Carroll (the voice of Crazy Eddie). Our AM carrier-current station piped in WNEW-FM so we had a clear signal to Allison Steele, Pete Fornatelle, etc. But we were talking about WEEX - great early top 40 FM station - why they took it to WQQQ at that point against WFMZ, who knows.
This was mainly the LV population at ESSC - the Scranton people hung a radio out the window & listened to WARM, the Philly kids put up an antenna and listened to WIFI and some others listened to (W)'OR-FM' from NYC. Always looking for the underdog (a WIBG listener in a WFIL world then), I liked WPIX-FM from NYC with jocks like Jerry Carroll (the voice of Crazy Eddie). Our AM carrier-current station piped in WNEW-FM so we had a clear signal to Allison Steele, Pete Fornatelle, etc. But we were talking about WEEX - great early top 40 FM station - why they took it to WQQQ at that point against WFMZ, who knows.
I recall in 1982 or 83, they put a news block on WEEX with music programming starting at 9 or 10. Then a station flip on 99.9 to what today would be called CHR/Hot AC as Q100. Then they relegated the dentists office music to the AM station and I think kept the news too. And I think WFMZ was still elevator music at the time.
I was in college at Lehigh in the early-mid 70's. I was very fortunate to land a weekend job at WAEB in 1974, but I have to say, as a listener, WEEX was my favorite station in the Valley. It was a great station in those days. And they had a pretty cool vantage point from up "on top of the rock." (I always loved that play on words. Anybody know whose idea that slogan was?)
i agree if weex were a 5kw am back then 'aeb would have been scared. i was a teen kid then listening on 99.9 fm when most did not listen to fm and they were smoking back then. i found old cassette tape of mickey haggerty and others from 1972 on the fm....it sounded rather clean for mono... heavy reverb during jock breaks...what a hoot.
Evidence on how great WEEX was back in the 70's was the annual "Community Spirit Day" on Hackett's Park in Easton.
People from all around the community came to the park to listen to music and I think fireworks. You couldn't find a parking space anywhere. This was way before Heritage Day, the local summer event in Easton.
All the surrounding neighborhoods around the park had cars parked in front of homes. I bet thousands of people were at the park!
I'm not sure what time of the year that this annual event took place. I wonder whose idea that was?
What a shame WEEX couldn't have hung on until FM became the number one medium for music.
It was the little station that could (and did).
People from all around the community came to the park to listen to music and I think fireworks. You couldn't find a parking space anywhere. This was way before Heritage Day, the local summer event in Easton.
All the surrounding neighborhoods around the park had cars parked in front of homes. I bet thousands of people were at the park!
I'm not sure what time of the year that this annual event took place. I wonder whose idea that was?
What a shame WEEX couldn't have hung on until FM became the number one medium for music.
It was the little station that could (and did).
2
22old
Guest
Just a little history, or, perhaps, prehistory. WHOL was at one time one of the valley's top stations. It ran neck in neck with WAEB. It was Gene Kaye's first stop when he came to this area. He stayed there for a couple of years doing a lunch time show from the window of Betz's Restaurant on Hamilton St. WHOL was also located at 1230 AM. There was a long (I believe about 7 years) courtroom battle between the Easton Express and WHOL over that frequency with the Express ultimately winning and WHOL being pushed up the dial to 1600. That happened in, about, 1957. I believe Charlie Thone was station manager at WEEX at that time, however, they spent many more years playing second fiddle to WEST in the Easton area.
I used to live in Edison NJ and one time on a family drive in fall of 1970 I tuned into WEEX 99.9 and loved it. When I got home I tried for it on a better stereo and got it! I used to listen to it quite a bit in Edison and in 1972 we moved to Oldwick NJ and then I was able to listen on 1230 too! It was a great station, I liked it better than WAEB 790 too. Yes I remember Bill Robbins, John Andrews, Dave Marino, Mickey Haggerty, Freddie Fredricks. Of those were the great days, WEEX, WABC, WFIL, WPIX, WIFI, WKAP, WCRV, WNBC, WIBG, WBUD, WOR-FM, Top 40 WDHA!
2
22old
Guest
WHOL was alone on 1230AM in the market. I don't believe WEEX existed, although it may have already been broadcasting an FM signal. The Express's contention in the long battle was that Allentown had 4 AM stations and Easton had only one. It was a long and not too friendly battle. When WHOL got moved up the dial to the 1600 location, most radios were incapable of receiving anything above 1590. WHOL ran a campaign where they supplied, free, some kind of adapter that would extend a radio's frequency range.
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