WPAC

[Clayton Douglas]

in the early 70's I've been told WPAC was on am1580 as a daytimer and was sort of chicken rock/bubble gum/teenie boopper top40-- correct? who was the owner ? what other Long Island AM or FM stations tried top 40 in the 60's/70's? ? WGBB-am1240 did too right? owned by susquehanna. any other statiions try it ?

 

[lalumia]

I listened, as a teen ager back then, I called in a request for "Little Woman' by Bobby Sherman(a brand new single featured in 16 Magazine at the time time) and the afternoon guy put the call on the air and played it!Even as a kid I knew the station sounded very low rent, amateur hour,and IT WAS!!

 

[Martesque]

WPAC AM (1580) and FM (106.1) were owned by a company run by Jim Putbrese. I don't recall the company name, but they also owned WAPC AM (1570) and FM (103.9) in Riverhead.

Both stations played an adult-leaning top 40 (we call it AC today) and actually launched the careers of many well known radio people over he years. (Rick Sklar, Stan Martin, Don Cannon, Jim Ryan and Jack Kratoville to name a few.)

In 1968, WAPC became WHRF and remained "hot" AC until 1971 when it shifted to more easy-listening. In 1971, WPAC-FM was sold to Beck-Ross and became Top-40 formatted WBLI. WGLI and WBLI were probably the two "true" top 40 stations in Suffolk County in the early seventies, athough WGSM, WLIX and WHLI all took turns playing some top 40 songs.

 

[wgliradio]

WHLI was Top 40 until their flip to Music of your Life. WPAC became Country/WSUF after the sale of WPAC FM to Beck-Ross.

Kratoville worked at WHRF/WRCN, I don't believe he ever graced the airwaves in Patchogue. Don Cannon also did time at WLNG. There is an aircheck of Ryan floating around from his days on WBLI (did he work for Putbrese or was he working at BLI after Beck-Ross had it). Rick Sklar was at WPAC when the station was in downtown Patchogue and RF was from Bellport. The move to Woodside/Pennsylvania was in 1963 or 1964 IIRC.

WSUF burned in 1975 and was resurrected as WYFA foir a few years before being sold to Jack Ellsworth and it became WLIM.

"This is WPAC AM and FM Patchogue and WAPC AM and FM Riverhead."

 

[pqgeorge]

in the early 70's I've been told WPAC was on am1580 as a daytimer and was sort of chicken rock/bubble gum/teenie boopper top40-- correct? who was the owner ? what other Long Island AM or FM stations tried top 40 in the 60's/70's? ? WGBB-am1240 did too right? owned by susquehanna. any other statiions try it ?

My first experience hearing WPAC/1580 was one winter morning in 1971 when the skywave was still strong from Long Island. I heard the station sign-on a few minutes after sunrise, while living in Randolph, MA (15 miles south of Boston). If I recall, they were running 10,000 watts daytime only. The signal was similar to WHLI/1100 which also put a fairly good signal up here as well. I didn't know that WPAC and 106.1 were co-owned at one time. I guess at that time, FM's were considered "excess baggage" to these stand-alone operators like WPAC. How times have changed.

 

[bilco]

I was a DJ/Newsman at WAPC and occasional fill in at WPAC back in 1964-65 before going in the Air Force. We were owned by three brothers, Lee, Harvey and Morty Morrison. Forget which one did what now but one was an engineer, one a sales manager and the other the GM. Format was mostly middle of the road with some other stuff. I did a Classical music show on the Riverhead FM for the last hour before sign off at one time. Really low rent radio in those days, but it was good work for a 21 Yr old DJ and fun.
Bill Croghan,
Chief Engineer, Lotus Broadcasting,
Las Vegas, NV
KKOMP, KXPT,KENO,KBAD,KWWN

 

[gary sapiane]

I did the morning show on WPAC including dial a deal back in 1968 and then did the afternoon


show on WAPC....Don Cannon did the reverse during the same time.......Also worked at night

on WAPC in 1966 During the summer we could watch athe drive in movie during records......

 

[Steve_Green]

I believe the official name of the owner company was Adams-Getchall or Adams-Getschall.

Basically, 'The Big Guy' was Jim Putbrese (and maybe his brother) who owned it.

At 10,000 watts omni, one has to wonder how many people in Europe caught this station at European sunrise.

Funny : WPAC was 10,000 daytime watts and had an FM on class B 106.1 -- huge facilities. Patchogue rival WALK had AM 1370 with 500 squeaky daytime watts, and their 97.5 FM (another class B) was running something like 15,000 watts or 20,000 watts -- until maybe the mid-eighties when the FM went to 45,000. Yet, look at which AM-FM station still exists.

 

[pqgeorge]

I believe the official name of the owner company was Adams-Getchall or Adams-Getschall.

Basically, 'The Big Guy' was Jim Putbrese (and maybe his brother) who owned it.

At 10,000 watts omni, one has to wonder how many people in Europe caught this station at European sunrise.

Funny : WPAC was 10,000 daytime watts and had an FM on class B 106.1 -- huge facilities. Patchogue rival WALK had AM 1370 with 500 squeaky daytime watts, and their 97.5 FM (another class B) was running something like 15,000 watts or 20,000 watts -- until maybe the mid-eighties when the FM went to 45,000. Yet, look at which AM-FM station still exists.

WALK-FM/97.5 has improved their facilities substantially since the late 1970's. They were a regular catch in the Springfield, MA area (where I was living at the time) especially during tropo openings in the summer. A very solid signal even back in the late 70's. They were probably one of the last FM stations on Long Island to embrace Stereo in the early 1980's (other than WLNG-FM/92.1 , who is still mono to this day).