I was just reminiscing, 55 years ago today, a South Philly lad at 11 years old, sitting on the Wildwood boardwalk on vacation at 26th street, Hunts pier area around 1:45 in the afternoon, listening to my Motorola 6 transistor radio locked on personality driven top 40 1340 WMID, I think the jock was either Gary Lane or Walt Cooper, big jingle and Don't Worry Baby by the Beach Boys came on, although the Beatles and British Invasion tunes were the order of the day, this fit the mood being near the beach. It didn't get any better than that, a far cry from today's radio. I know most people on this board weren't born, so they really have no idea what I mean by great times when radio was a fun thing. If anyone is my age and experienced this, you sure know what I mean. Amen
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wish I could turn back the hands of time
- Thread starter daddyoo
- Start date
I got a few years on ya, Dad. But when I was around that age ... 13, 14 ... I lived near JFK Airport in Queens NYC.
From that spot. WMID used to roar up the coast to us. In fact when *NYC* local WPOW was on 1330, WMID was often louder than WPOW was. The share-time WPOW had their towers in Staten Island. The louder time share was WEVD, whose towers were a lot closer. Re WPOW : It was really odd for a licensed NYC station with towers within the Five Boroughs itself to get splashed on *in a NYC borough* by a station a hundred miles away.
I've heard lots of stories about when people on Jones Beach -- farther east of JFK by maybe 12 miles -- regularly used to have coming out of their transistors, in no apparent order, pop music stations WABC, WGBB Freeport, and -- ta-da -- WMID.
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Was Gary Lane the guy who sounded like Dan Ingram?
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In one form or another, remnants of the Good Ol' Days still reside on various Internet stations. The picks here are Top Shelf Oldies, Memory Lane Oldies, Rewound Radio, and Ride Radio. Both 'the Ride' and Top Shelf carry one Rick Lewis, too. He has to have the best pure Top 40 / Oldies voice and delivery I've heard since Don Cannon.
From that spot. WMID used to roar up the coast to us. In fact when *NYC* local WPOW was on 1330, WMID was often louder than WPOW was. The share-time WPOW had their towers in Staten Island. The louder time share was WEVD, whose towers were a lot closer. Re WPOW : It was really odd for a licensed NYC station with towers within the Five Boroughs itself to get splashed on *in a NYC borough* by a station a hundred miles away.
I've heard lots of stories about when people on Jones Beach -- farther east of JFK by maybe 12 miles -- regularly used to have coming out of their transistors, in no apparent order, pop music stations WABC, WGBB Freeport, and -- ta-da -- WMID.
* * * * * * *
Was Gary Lane the guy who sounded like Dan Ingram?
* * * * * * *
In one form or another, remnants of the Good Ol' Days still reside on various Internet stations. The picks here are Top Shelf Oldies, Memory Lane Oldies, Rewound Radio, and Ride Radio. Both 'the Ride' and Top Shelf carry one Rick Lewis, too. He has to have the best pure Top 40 / Oldies voice and delivery I've heard since Don Cannon.
No clue, Nix, as to WMID's reception effect in that direction. Such 'graveyard' stations got OUT via the salt-water path, though. Up on Long Island's south shore, both WVAB 1550 Virginia Beach and WOBR 1530 Wanchese NC were daily regulars -- on a G.E. CLOCK radio.
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WCMC 1230 certainly was one of the last -- if not theee last -- station to operate full-time with just 100 watts. To my recall, WCMC was a full-service MoR station back in the mid-late 60's.
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WCMC 1230 certainly was one of the last -- if not theee last -- station to operate full-time with just 100 watts. To my recall, WCMC was a full-service MoR station back in the mid-late 60's.
WMID was heard as far south as Virginia Beach in the 60's, jocks would mention calls from there. True WCMC was a nice live and local mom and pop MOR station in the 60's. They put up a taller tower in 1965 the one you see today, added a weak mono FM simulcast, except for Phillies games and a TV station, the AM xmtr was always by the back bay. In the 70s they were off the bird Standards until 2010 I believe. WCMC has a nice daytime signal which can be heard as far away as Wilmington and in Philly with a good radio. It was funny how WMID could be heard hundreds of miles up and down the coast, but only made it as far as the Black Horse Pike and route 559 (Mays Landing Area) daytime going west. I did null out WHAT and WMID would come in Philly summer daytime during the 60's, if you turned your radio just right.
There was a nostalgic DX thread some time back, Daddyoo, about short-spaced AM stations. IIrc, the one with the most views was the 1340 'shoehorning' of WRAW 1340 Reading, WHAT 1340 Philadelphia, and WMID 1340 Atlantic City. Yet, they obviously were all cleared to broadcast and there is little, if any, signal overlap.
Oddly, all three of those stations have had the same calls for decades of upheavals.
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I lived in NE Philly for about two years, back around 1990. A real background treat was WHAT's blend of -- what to call it? Mellow urban Quiet Storm AC? -- in thos late afternoons. I couldn't have been much more than 7-8 miles from their tower, but they'd undergo being nibbled away at and chewed up by other 1340 stations. That sort of stuff was music to this DXer's ears. No doubt the culprits were WRAW and WMID, with maybe a little WBRE Wilkes-Barre and WOOK Washington. I have a few cassettes of their stuff.
Lol -- therein probably is the point of your nostalgic post : music on the AM dial.
Oddly, all three of those stations have had the same calls for decades of upheavals.
* * * * * * *
I lived in NE Philly for about two years, back around 1990. A real background treat was WHAT's blend of -- what to call it? Mellow urban Quiet Storm AC? -- in thos late afternoons. I couldn't have been much more than 7-8 miles from their tower, but they'd undergo being nibbled away at and chewed up by other 1340 stations. That sort of stuff was music to this DXer's ears. No doubt the culprits were WRAW and WMID, with maybe a little WBRE Wilkes-Barre and WOOK Washington. I have a few cassettes of their stuff.
Lol -- therein probably is the point of your nostalgic post : music on the AM dial.
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