WPFM Tribute Site on the air!!

[Tibbs4]

CCENG - CC's #1 Radio Engineer - Culpepper and what's his name owned PFM for sure. But, this heyday things got me wonderin'...
depends on what year you call it's heyday? Care to pick a year (give or take a year or two in any direction) and raise the
ears on here? Gil, by the way, was also part of helping same me from letting my heart attempt to buy certain radio stations on
the Gulf Coast, along with Jenny Woo's lesser 1/3. I am still grateful to all parties and try to note that each year on here/ beer.

I wonder if Steve63 (who has some awesome pix on flickr of PCB and WPFM) and Redneckriviera are even reading RI anymore?
You guys have a thought on the best year(s) of THE GREAT 108?

 

[cceng1]

I'm thinking it was when Skip Bishop was PD and Jeff Davis (aka Mark Elmore),Preston, Littlejohn and others were on the air that I can't remember because I turn 60 on June 2 and I have CRS disease (can't remember sh*t)......toooooo many radio stations in my past and waaaaay too many jocks that I have cussed out for breaking equipment

cceng

 

[steve63]

Yes Tibbs2, I still read R-I and lurk here in the North Florida section all the time. You're still in Nashville?

I spent the entire summer of 1984 in PCB and would have to go with the Birdman, Preston Young, Jeff Davis and Little John lineup. (I probably missed somebody, who was the PD then anyway?) It was also a great time for pop music, Springsteen's Born In the USA, Prince's Purple Rain, Van Halen (Panama wasn't about PCB?!) and up and comers like Madonna. Lots of good quality pop, rock, rhythmic and alternative rock crossover music. It was the perfect storm for CHR and WPFM and the big signal on 107.9.

With no local rock, urban or mainstream AC stations in the area, it left the entire under 55, non country audience to WPFM and they took plenty of chances with what they did. I've never been able to figure out the weird cover version of Papa Was A Rolling Stone with synths, drum machines and vocoder that I heard once, one afternoon driving down Front Beach Rd in my cousin's rust bucket Chevette with the radio on WPFM.

It didn't hurt that I was 21 (legal age) had a very nice place to stay with my relatives and enough pocket money to do what ever I wanted. Every night in the summer in PCB felt like a saturday night. 'PFM was the soundtrack, on every boom box on the beach, car cruising the strip and just about every business on Front Beach Rd. It was the closest thing i've ever seen to what Wolfman Jack's show on XERB was like in American Graffitti. I kinda felt bad for the guys still doing top 40 on 59 WDLP at Alvin's Magic Mountain's volcano in 1984. No one seemed to listen.

At the time the only other FM's in PC was country WPAP, easy listening on 98.5 WGNE, religious
100.1 WPCF and rim shot top 40 wannabe T-94 (94.5, we used to say the T stood for terrible). Plus there were a handfull of am stations, that seemed to be struggling even then. After the FCC's Docket 80-90 expansion, everything changed and not necessarily for the good. Today Panama City must be one of the most over radio-ed markets in the country.

Pre-Docket 80-90, the FM dial in PCB was wide open and the seemingly full time FM skip seemed to bring great stations from all over the gulf coast states like New Orleans' B97, Mobile's 97 WABB, Pensacola's WJLQ, TK101, WOW-Y107, WKRG G100, Ft Walton's Surf 98, Dothan's 106.7 KMX, Albany/Bainbrigde Ga.'s 97.3 WJAD and Gulf 104 from Tallahassee. There are a few more that I can't remember. I can still recall other stations skipping in from Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Biloxi and New Orleans. My only regret was to miss N.O'.s 690 WTIX in the 70's, they always put a decent signal into Bay County along the Gulf.

Island 106 seemed to give WPFM a real run for its money right way after they signed on with their antenna right on the beach behind the studios, not 30 miles away up by US231 and 20. Once all other stations signed on with transmitters "in town", WPFM's signal just wasn't the same. I stuck with WPFM on my subsequent visits in 1987 and 1991 and could never acccept Island 106 or the other new stations. I'll always remember meeting Jeff Davis at a remote at the Surf Hut and being nice enough to stick aroiund to talk to a radio geek from out of town like myself. He used to play my requests as well, even if they were a little out of format, like the Police's Message In A Bottle.

On my 1991 visit I heard a promo for a guest DJ spot on WPFM and sent them a note. Later that week Mike Stone had me come in and I was on the air with a real nice lady named Ruth who was doing middays (I think) I still have my WPFM t-shirt with an ad for Gerardo's Rico Sauve on the back. I have the show on a tape that I need to digitize (Bumper Morgan did the station ID's). Still have the old reverse car sun and surf logo sticker for the inside of the window as well. That salt air eats everything. It was great to see exaclty what the old Magnolia Beach Rd studios looked like, I know they have moved a few blocks away, or the street has been renamed, but what is there now? It used to be nothing but the piney woods.

After they changed to Power 108, it was never the same. It wasn't long (I think) after that that my cousins sent me an article from the News Herald about WPFM"s owners not paying taxes and shutting down for a while. By the time they were Rock 108 anything that made them special was gone. I was kind of happy to see them doing CHR during the Hot 107.9 era, but it just wasn't the same. It's nice to see the ol' WPFM calls back on ther air at 107.9, but it's pretty sad it took them this long to get a simple website and streaming audio. All the voice tracking and automation doesn't help there cause either. Their current battle with Island seems like a war of attrition.

On a trip to PCB in the early 1990's I stumbled on a big woodedn board that had the sun and surf WPFM logo from the surf observation shack at the Surf Hut and regret not taking it. It was just lying around unused and unloved. If anyone has pictures of the Surf Hut I would love to put up them on my flickr site (see below). I have sets on Front Beach Rd motels, Goofy Golf, Miracle Strip Amusement Park, Petticoat Junction and Long Beach Resort. Since joining the "I Remember Panama City Beach When It Was Fun" group on Facebook, my flickr page has been getting 500-900 hits per day. People really do miss the old PCB. I know I do. It was a honky tonk carnival on the world's most beautiful beach and the Great 108 WPFM was absolutely everywhere.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=59732024873&ref=ts

I have enjoyed the WPFM online tribute set and liked hearing ads for businesses that are probably long gone fom PCB. It's funny but I never remembered the WPFM jingles, but loved hearing them none the less. I am very glad that someone found the the old WPFM logo and was able to use it again.

I work in radio in my hometown of Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario at 105.3 Kool FM (CFCA) and 99.5 KFUN (CKKW). When I was 21 working at WPFM was my dream job. How cool it would have been to be on the air of the big 100,000 watt WPFM stick, playing the hits and hitting the beach and the bars and all the good weird stuff that they used to have in PCB on US98.

Check out my old PCB pics on flickr here,

The Miracle Strip/Front Beach Rd

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7576734@N02/sets/72157600228994130/

Miracle Strip Amusement Park

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7576734@N02/sets/72157600043394695/

Goofy Golf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7576734@N02/sets/72157607312734681/

Long Beach Resort

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7576734@N02/sets/72157600228802196/

and a few WPFM things in my Radio logo and TV stuff set

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7576734@N02/sets/72157602173546478/

 

[Tibbs4]

Steve! Good hearing from you. Cool post. I wish I had some photos I the old WPFM call letters on the Tower, but I just can't find them.
Nashville is still rockin'. City is growing and an aewsome place to live. Everytime we go to the beach I sort of wish I had kept the house
at Seaside, etc., but it's certainly just not the same. In fact, the only two things that are constant there are Jimmy Whitaker and of course
Charlie Wooten (Redman and Stellas will keep you going to 100, sir!) Hope you're listening to the "ole PFM tribute site when it's working.

 

[cceng1]

Tibbs.....I was driving to Port St Joe last night about 11pm because we had to take 94.5 and 93.5 down for a couple of hours so the guys could work on the strobies....just as I was getting ready to hit the Tyndall bridge, for some reason it popped into my head that I had forgotten to add Mike Stone to the list of people in my post.....thanks to steve (I think I have figured out who he is) for listing him. Oh, they got the strobies all fixed and we were back on at 131 am.....I know Rob is probably lurking.

cceng

 

[Tibbs4]

Thanks for the Mike Stone mention. Was he they guy on that mule going down Hwy 98 with a Mapquest
sign?

On to more important issues. Did you have pictures of the strobies? What color and how big? You know that's
probably important to someone else living in Navarre.

 

[partyshark]

I've been listening off and on for some time now. Are you running the audio through any processing? It sounds fabulous, nice and wide, not like some internet stations using unprocessed mp3 files that sound close and too tight in the base.

 

[thegreat108wpfm]

Thanks partyshark. I am using Breakaway (the $30 version) to push a classic Vigilante (modified Dominator).

 

[cceng1]

Tibbs......Barry Turner's partner was John Culpepper...they were out of College Station TX.....that came to me the other day out of the blue.

 

[Tibbs4]

CCENG --- see my post on May 25th, as I mentioned Culpepper. He was the lesser of two evils, IIRC (right)! Who was it that
paid $600,000 for WPFM --- was that the Milbach group (spelling?) That was the last time a station sold for reasonable rates
in PCB.

I ain't buyin the fact that Beach 95.1 was such a great buy. Time will tell, though. I imagine it'll be the start of
something bigger through. Wish that team lotsa hard work and success. The little guys need to take some of this dead
weight back and recreate radio.

Nothing that made sense back when there was real radio seems to fly today. Logic's certainly out the window...let's
hope these guys can take back our airwaves. Its more the fear of how advertisers have been so victimized that would
scare me.

 

[partyshark]

Thanks partyshark. I am using Breakaway (the $30 version) to push a classic Vigilante (modified Dominator).

Will that program sound just as good without the peak limiter? I want to do some podcasting and want to improve the quality. I currently have a Behringer Mic processor but want better sound on audio files that I may play during said podcast.

 

[thegreat108wpfm]

it sounds ok but the Vigilante brings it all together.

 

[partyshark]

it sounds ok but the Vigilante brings it all together.

Looks like I may be able to downlaod a demo so I will try it out at home later. I dont think I can score an Aphex for an affordable price. I checked ebay and I may be able to get one for less than 100 but it will probably go for alot more...

 

[cceng1]

Tibbs...it was Milblack.....Milligan/Blackman....also had Rock 103 in Columbus GA (now owned by CC)

Tommy Milligan and Sister Blackman (they are married)....Tommy is the main Piggly Wiggly store owner in Alabama and parts of GA. Sister is an attorney. They live on Bear Point at the end of Magnolia Beach Rd on PCB. They are now investors in Tragic.

Jim Martin,the GM at Rock 103 in Columbus commuted to PC a couple of days a week and was the GM of WPFM and Rock 103 when they owned it.....Jim was the GM at Rock 103 under Clear Channel until a couple of months ago.....he crossed town and became a partner in another group in Columbus....several stations but not sure which ones....think it was the McClure stations....can't believe CC didn't have a non-compete with him....someone let that drop thru the cracks in San Antonio

 

[onedurwho]

I'm with LJWalker. Was an avid listener from the early days of "King Biscuit Flower Hour" and just a few hours of late-night rock around '74-'75. Sad to hear about Young Preston Young (that I was a fan of over on WGNE-AM) and Stan Power (Waters). I had a chance to work with these guys in '79-'80 (Skip Bishop/Stan Powers/Ruth Sommers/Jeff Davis/Tom Sawyer/Ray St.James/Rick Nelson, (John B. Canterberry & Steve Grey on WWWQ-AM) with parttimers Stacy and Les Moore). I was doing nights on the sister WWWQ-AM when we switched to talk and I went over to 2-6am at WPFM for a few months. Jeff Davis was doing mornings then when I left for WQEN-FM/Gadsden, Alabama in December of '80. Skip ([email protected]) is a big-wig (at last check) in the record biz in New York as was Jeff Davis, in Atlanta. Before the real jingles came in (I think) Tom Sawyer made a Great 108 drop from the drum-part of "Children of The Sun" by Billy Thorpe. I also remember "Stu" was our engineer at the time with Jim (and wife 'Birdie') Broadus (sp?) as the GM for a while. Thanks to the internet and sites like this and www.superq104.com we can still do what we love! Thanks for the Memories!!!!

 

[Stormychuck]

the guy who is doing this lurks on this list from time to time....I have it going in my office and everyone is coming in saying "what are you listening to? it great!"

cw

Although I worked at WPAP in 1983, I was a loyal listener of WPFM, they in fact were a great sounding radio station no doubt about it....

 

[jmtillery]

I was doing nights on the sister WWWQ-AM when we switched to talk...

What years did you work for 3WQ? Do you know a guy by the name of "Shotgun" Dave Matthews? I think Dave worked afternoon-drive on WWWQ back in 1979. He and I worked together at WTMC Ocala before Dave left for Panama City.

I'm also curious to know if the 3WQ format was adult contemporary when you were there or had it switched to Town and Country by then? I believe they were calling the T&C format Spectrum 3 which, if I understood Dave's explanation correctly, consisted of hot adult contemporary with about a 30-percent contemporary country mix. I believe WPFM was AOR during that time, wasn't it?

 

[onedurwho]

I worked with Dave Matthews at the same time as Steve Grey/Shannon West and our "Morning Breakfast Flake" host (who's name I can remember). Dave came infor a quick-stint and did nights. Worked with an index card box of jokes/liners etc and drove an old "blues brothers" dodge (with radio/lights/siren??). He was a card and great on-air guy. We were billed as "The Adult Station" doing the hot AC. I moved over to WPFM for 2-6am for a few months and then left for WQEN-FM Gadsden Alabama. WPFM-FM was AOR "in the beginning" but by 79-80 was pretty close to Top 40. Didn't play much "disco" but unless you were into AM at the time, it was the ONLY place to get the tunes...as Pensacola / TK101 and even Dothan / Tallahassee were a bit out of our reach...