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YOUR FIRST STATION

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Zach said:
beefjerky said:
What was your first fave station in Mississippi and what are a few of the main things you remember about it?
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Heh. Well, since I just moved here last year, the first station to catch my attention was WROX in Cleveland. The fact that there's a station playing the blues is just cool. Ain't many of them around anymore. Sure, I can pull it up on the internet, but it's still more fun to snag it on the ol' Panasonic on cloudy days.

My first taste of radio came in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, listening the day "Magic 96" first came on out of Birmingham. It seemed so neat to me as a kid that I could get all these stations from so far away (okay, it was only about 35 air miles to the B'ham towers, but still. . .) Eventually I discovered "The mighty 690" doing oldies, who soon flipped to a country format, giving me my first radio-related disappointment. ::)

As I got older, my parents moved to Birmingham and I began chasing another out-of-market station, this time a 'new' oldies station out of Carrollton, AL (WZBQ). Chasing that station led to FM DX being a hobby I enjoy to this day.

Whenever my parents would go on vacation somewhere, I had to listen to the station on 102.5 out of Jasper, on the "Tuscaloosa tall tower", just to see how far it'd make it. . . And back then, it was a monster, with 77kW @ (I think) 2,062' HAAT. It was pretty solid down in Greenville, AL (135 air miles) and even decent on the west side of Atlanta on I-285 most days (185 air miles). A few times I heard it in Meridian as well as west of Starkpatch. Unfortunately Clear Channel pulled them off the tall tower due to multipath issues in the suburbs of Birmingham, so now they're just another run of the mill 100kW'er up on Red Mountain. I bet it'd have been a good catch here in Grenada on those good radio days. :(

At least "Rock 99.5" from Birmingham still makes it to Grenada some mornings. Heck, my dad's still got it preset in his car. ;D
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you should try to track down airchecks of Early Wright on WROX

I've asked around but haven't found any and sadly have lost any that I made.

There used to be a short real audio clip somewhere online but could not locate it when I just did a quick search.

Early was a quite amazing man. He was very humble and never met a stranger.


well i did find one short one
http://www.folkstreams.net/listenright/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/05 Youngs Repair Shop MP3.mp3

Early's show opened with:

“It’s the right time of nighttime, Early Wright time… Pleasant good evening, ladies and gentlemen, how do you do? This is the Soul Man, to be with you, until I get through. So stand by and don’t have no fear because the Soul Man is here.”

half way through the night he would switch persona and play gospel music as Early Wright... he'd tell you the soul man isn't here anymore....

if you drove by and honk your horn outside on third street sometimes he would cut into the song and say he was dropping this one in your back seat.
 
> By the way , If Larry Fuss reads this, Larry you were the man at Q101.

And now I'm just a crotchety old geezer!

By the way, there are no known recordings of Early Wright at WROX. If there were any, they were all taken by the previous owner when the station sold in '98. He also took all the equipment manuls for every piece of equipment in the station.

LF
 
The 1st station I remember listening to as a kid was WSJC 810 in Magee . They had Jimmy Lucky in the early mornings with something called "The Wake Up Dixie Show ". , after him was Bob Kidd ( They even had a little jingle that went " Here's Bob Kidd to play what's new , every song is just for you , our man Bob Kidd " ) In the afternoon was WSJC's
Afternoon Delight - Sandy Lee then at night was James Lavell " Coming to Ya In The Nighttime , Cause You know It's The Right Time ) WSJC had what was known as a block format so they played different types of music at different times of day . A couple others that I can remember are WKPO 1510 in Prentiss , and my grandmother loved WMLC 1270 in Monticello, and WJMB 1340 Brookhaven . WKPO played mostly country . WMLC played Southern Gospel or at least that is what grandma listened too . Ahhhhh long live the 1970's. Hope I got all these call letters right , been a long time ..LOL !
 
Growing up in Hattiesburg, my first station was Triple X (WXXX). I grew listening to Harry Nelson, Reid Reeker, Long John Stevens, Doc Steele and many more! We were close enough to New Orleans to listen to Bob Walker, Skinny Tommy Chaney and many more on WTIX. In the mid 70's WNOE took on WTIX with "REAL ROCK...WNOE." I remember listening to Jason O'Brien and of course Dr. Grady Brock (who came down from WRBC in Jackson). On those frequent trips to visit family in Jackson, it was always the big three... 62-JDX, 13-WRBC and 16-W-ONE. Since Triple X was a daytimer and the New Orleans stations went directional at night, we all listened to John Landecker on The Big 89-WLS, KAAY in Little Rock, WLAC in Nashville and WERC in Birmingham. I still remember the liner on WLS... Getting it said for Chicago...W-L-S. The ID's on KAAY were also classic...From the frozen tundra of northern Canada to the sunny beaches of the southern Florida, this is the nightime voice of Arkansas...KAAY, LIttle Rock. Those BIG 50 KW signals really covered a lot of territory!!

As for my first radio gig, it was on the little closed circuit campus station at USM (WMSU). They let me run a board shift starting at age 12!! I guess my first real station was WXXX. Marshall Magee (my radio daddy) hired me when I was 16. I joined the Navy and worked part time gigs off and on when I could for those four years. Withen a couple of years of getting out of the Navy in '82, I landed a gig at B-97 in New Orleans. I learned a lot working with some real pros. When you work with people making 6 figure incomes on the air, you figure they must be doing something right. I made friends with jocks in New Orleans which later landed me gigs at KIX 106 in Birmingham, ZOO-98 in Little Rock and WRVR in Memphis. The right contacts do pay off!!!
 
i still have an old WXXX t-shirt I won in a drawing at Peps Point water park. As a matter of fact we all "won" a t-shirt because we stuffed the box and they kept pulling out the same names. They finally said screw it and gave us all a shirt.

Doe's anyone remember WSJC's old jingle from the 70's and early 80's that had the gunshot? I also liked the fact that they signed off with "Dixie" every night.
Its a shame that that station is still cranking out 50,000 watts of seventh Day adventist radio and their are hardly no Seventh Day Adventist's around here. Plus the audio is so bad you can barely make out what anyone is saying. Sounds like they are using a misadjusted noise gate. The sound completely drops out during soft speech. Biggest AM signal in the state and no listeners. It'll never happen, but I'd love to see someone put something good on WSJC again. Magee businesses have no place to advertise since there is no local station anymore.
 
How can it be that you can pay the electric bill and maintenance on a 50 KW AM and not monitor the audio....am I missing something here? So much for corporate
or religious radio....sad....JBI
 
flytrap said:
Doe's anyone remember WSJC's old jingle from the 70's and early 80's that had the gunshot?
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The WSJC jingle went " Top Gun In Dixie (Gunshot Sound ) - WSJC ! They had another one that went like this . " It's a good ,good morning in 810 Country .A perfect day for radio listening , so stay in 810 Country for the best entertainment around - on WSJC (Gunshot Sound ) Top Gun !

Does anyone happen to have a copy of these ? Would love to hear them again !
 
WSJC was classic at sundown. They went from 50 KW non-directional to 500 watt direction!! Talk about the bottom dropping out. I remember listening one afternoon when the jock actualy announced that they were lowering power.. "At this time WSJC lowers power from 50,000 watts to 500 watts. One moment please." The jock left the mic on and you could hear the door to the transmitter room open and close. After about 30 seconds of dead air, the guy came back in the control room and gave a legal ID, then back to business. Classic small town radio!! I remember that 50 KW AM transmitter would bleed over in the FM transmitter. It was sitting right next to it. When the FM had dead air, you could hear the AM in the background. As for Magee needing a local station, you could do that with a lot less power that 50 KW on am or 100 KW on FM (as was the case). I would hate to have that power bill on my desk each month in a town of 5,000 people!!! Magee needs a little class A FM. That would do it!
 
Having grown up in Minnesota, I missed out on y'all's local favorites. However, I was a nightly listener to both WLS and KAAY.

KAAY threw a huge nighttime signal up here. One of our local Top 40 outlets was WDGY-1130. 'DGY ran a 9-tower directional array at night with an extremely tight null to protect KWKH. I was 9 miles SSE of their antenna farm. Directly in the null. Even at 25kW, that signal was so distorted and out-of-phase as to be unusable. SO, when "Weegee" dropped their power, I tuned slightly to the left and KAAY came booming in!

Since I was still in grade school and had not yet discovered FM, KAAY was where I first heard Yes, It's a Beautiful Day, Humble Pie, and several other early 70s Progressive Rock gems. And those WIND CHIMES! Thank you, Clyde Clifford! You deprived me of several hours' sleep on school nights!

As for WLS, I didn't begin listening to them until 1978. There was a 2-year-period between 1976-78 when we lost 3 of our 4 local Top 40 outlets. The one that remained (KDWB) was doing a horribly "safe" time & temp format under Doubleday. As an aspiring Top 40 DJ of the future, I needed better inspiration than this. Enter WLS with John "Records" and Jeff Davis! "Can I Get a Witness News", touchtones (5-9-1-3-0-8-9), "The WLS Final Exam", and of course "BOOGIE CHECK!"

Great radio, all of it. I consider myself fortunate to have grown up at the time that I did. Too bad radio doesn't sound like this anymore.
 
My cousin lived in Minneapolis so I would go up for my Christmas break as a teen. I remember listening to KDWB, WDGY & WCCO. My uncle took me over to Saint Paul where I got a tour of KDWB in December of 1971. I was 15 with big dreams!! I took my 3rd phone test in St. Paul also. Is the old directional array still out east of St. Paul? I remember they were 5 KW day and 500 watts night. At 6 something on the dial, they boomed day and did pretty well at night.
 
ooooh ahh boogie check... definitely WLS was my first... daytime KAAY and WHBQ
my grand parents were big WMC 79 listeners so I grew up on Aunt Eloise (sp?) in the mornings

KAAY didn't do so well at night in the MS Delta... too close and yet too far probably
 
Oh yeah, K A A Y, we heard them while parked in cowfields around Miss State in Starkville! What a cool station and Clyde was an excellent DJ! Far Out!
 
My first radio job was at WJRL, a little 250 watt AM station in Calhoun City. Had a great time learning radio there. I remember late in the afternoon we would get overpowered, I think by WLAC. We didn't have a lot of local stations to choose from in this area. WCPC was the main one. But, as a lifetime fan of country music and great, in my opinion, radio personalities, I listened at night to the trucker shows. Bill Mack at WBAP. Charlie Douglas at WWL, I believe. Then there was WHBQ in Memphis with the Geeker. And of course, Clear Channel 650, WSM. Those were my faves. I miss those days and that kind of radio.
 
yep there are several others gone from the area also over the years

WVLY in Water Valley
WSUH in Oxford
WRDS Sardis
WEPA Eupora (dark in 1998)
 
Michael. there was one in Ripley...the call escapes me...( no comments about old men and memory!) JBI
 
I remember back in the nineties hearing either WONA Winona, or WAMY Amory (don't remember which one) that could be picked up on the lower end of the shortwave band, somewhere between 2.3-3.0 mHz. It must have been caused by some transmitter problems. It could be heard clearly at night for several months. Can someone shed some light on that? At first i thought it was a legitimate broadcast but apparently its fairly common because I've also picked up another unidentified AM station bleeding in on shortwave. It wasn't my radio's fault because I heard the same thing on two seperate radio's.
 
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