ARCANE RADIO TRIVIA

KDKA Group photo

2026-04-27T10:00:00.005-04:00

1950s? group KDKA image

The prettier postcard style image below lacks a list of names but the Pittsburgh Press published every name. I've seen the original, it's an 8x10 glossy promotional photo they put in their press kit. There's one on Ebay right now actually. [LINK] and [LINK] Sources generally date it to the 1950s but lets see if we can improve that. But let's list off all the names first:

TOP ROW: Homer Martz, Al Azzaro, Kenny Newton, Slim Bryant, Loppy Bryant, Jerry Wallace and Neal Wallace.

CENTER ROW: Bill Newsbit, Johnny Boyer, Janet Ross, John Stewart, and Ed Schaughency.

BOTTOM ROW: Bernie Armstrong, Paul Shannon, Elaine Beverly, Aneurin Bodycombe, Evelyn Gardiner, and Jim Westover

The text clearly states that this is an enlarged photograph of 1020 KDKA-AM's staff of entertainers and that listeners who donate to the old newsboys fund will get one. It is sometimes labeled as their "TV Team" which is not accurate. That is probably based on one of two errors of assumption. Slim Bryant and the Wildcats did have a TV show (later) but also that staff were wholly separate between TV and radio, which they were not.

What I'd like you to understand most is that this isn't even the entire staff. There were also engineers and transcription staff, librarians, and management. Today a whole station cluster in a major market has fewer staff than is pictured just here.

TOP ROW

Homer Martz - Martz was the Farm Director and hosted the Home and Farm Hour. It's editor was E.S. Bayard as late as 1946. [SOURCE] KDKA was broadcasting farm market reports from Washington and the Chicago hog and feed markets as early as 1921. [SOURCE] He was still producing farm marketing programming as late as 1951. He appears a few time in the book Farm Broadcasting by John C. Baker.

Al Azzaro - Azzaro was a member of Slim Bryant and his Wild Cats. Don't let the accordion fool you. That was absolutely standard kit in a country band back then. He's credited on some Majestic 78s with Slim Bryant's group, and some Italian dance music LPs. In 1947 he copyrighted two songs, the PIttzburgh Polka and one named "Echo Polka" which tells us that Azzaro did pen some of the groups songs. A 1945 issue of the Warren Times Mirror reported that "...the wildcats Are heard daily on KDKA during the farm hour 6-7 AM." His name disappears from the trades in the early 1950s, a mention that he was vacationing in Ocean City.

Kenny Newton - Newton was the fiddle player for the original Georgia Wildcats under Clayton "Pappy" McMichen in 1937. Newton joined Slim Bryant and his Wild Cats in 1937 [SOURCE] A 1947 issue of Billboard described him as a "singing violinist from the hills of Pennsylvania." The last time I found his name in print was the Radio Television Daily of 1952 on a road trip through the Midewest while the band was taking time off.

Thomas Hoyt "Slim" Bryant - Slim Bryant was the vocalist and lead guitarist for the Wild cats. They performed on the Farm Hour weekdays 6:15 to 6:30 Monday Wednesday and Friday in the mid 1940s. He died in 2010 at the age of 101. Slim really was from Georgia, and really was 6' 4". His band played regularly on KDKA for 19 years starting in 1941 running through about 1959. He and his wire ran a gift shop starting in the 1960s, then later taught guitar lessons.

Raymond "Loppy" Bryant - Brother of Slim and founding member of the Wildcats. One of the last recordings for the Wild cats was a Square Dance mono LP on MGM/Lion released in 1958. Loppy is credited as the dance caller. He retired to DormontPa and became a city councilman.

Jerry Wallace - Jerry played guitar backing up slim. In their more iconic photos he played an amplified Gibson L-5, where Slim usually played a Gibson L-5. He has virtually no press aside from the Wildcats. I should note he is not the same Jerry Wallace who recorded as "Jerry Wallace With The Jewels" in the late fifties, though with that guitar work you might think so.

Neal Wallace - A March 1946 issue of Broadcasting describes him as the "Chief Announcer on KFBC. Neal next appears in and Billboard 1946-1947 Encyclopedia of music as as announcing two shows: The Benny Goodman show and Musical Showcase both on KFBC, Cheyenne, WY. A June, 1951 issue of Broadcasting, has him leaving KFBC in for KDKA to replace Bud Powell. A February, 1953 issue of Cashbox still lists Neal as a DJ at KDKA. It appears he left the station in 1955. Cash Box states "Neal Wallace, All Nite guy at KDKA-Pittsburegh, Pa.; taking a vacation from his 50,000 watts and platters."

CENTER ROW

Bill Nesbitt - This name is more common than you might think. There was our Nesbitt at KDKA, the announcer for the DCSA Organ Melodies (Dairyman's Cooperative Sales Organization). Variety has him taking over the night time "Party Line program in June of 1956. Then Broadcasting magazine reports that he joined the WCAE staff in 1957 to host "Easy Listenin'". In 1958 Variety records him still on staff at WCAE but on vacation, then in March of 1959 switching to nights.

Johnny Boyer - A 1942 Movie and Radio Guide lists him on KDKA at 10:00 PM as "Jolly Johnny Boyer." In the 1946 KDKA Station Album Johnny Boyer appears on the news schedule at 11:15 PM after Bill Stern. Elsewhere in that same pamphlet he's described as a sportscaster. He had that slow at least a year earlier per Broadcasting magazine, [SOURCE] which they called a "Whirl Around the World of Sports." The same print ad was running with Boyer on it through at least 1950. I did find a Farm Hour glossy promo photo with Boyer and Homer Martz as floating heads on the Wildcats. it implies that Boyer did some announcing on that program as well. A 1958 issue of Variety puts him on WCAE but still doing sports.

Janet Ross - In 1946 Ross is listed in a KDKA album as the host of "Shopping Circle" Mon - Sat mornings. The program started before 1938 and ran until at last 1953. A 1943 issue of "The Beam" trade journal of the Association of Women Directors of NAB, (AWD) records that she spoke at one of their events with a bevy of other women directors working in radio. [SOURCE] She was named Advertising Woman of the Year by the Pittsburgh Adclum for her 25th anniversary with KDKA in 1956. That puts her start around 1931. She remained with the station until at least 1957.

John Stewart - He has his own show Program PM which ran from 8:00 to 10:00 PM and he was the announcer on Party Line. The hosts of that show were Ed and Windy King. The trio worked together through at least 1957. But a 1965 issue of Billboard lists Stewart on KDKA 9:00-10:00 M-Sat hosting "Program PM" doing interviews and reports. Sounds like a News Magazine program.

Ed Schaughency - The Uncle Ed Shaughency Show was launched in 1932 and continued until 1980. He also hosted the Starlets on Parade program in the 1940s. Uncle Ed was with KDKA radio for 48 years. He was survived by his widow Gertrude and his brother Paul. [LINK] TV show 1957

BOTTOM ROW

Bernie Armstrong - Bernie was the bandmaster on the Musical Clock, a program hosted by Bill Hinds who's not pictured. He was also the conductor on The Duquene Show, a vocal ensemble with an orchestra and Singing Strings a 30 minute string ensemble program. Armstrong and Bodycombe chose the music and arrangements for programs.

Paul Shannon - Host of Adventuress in Research, a program co-host with Dr. Phillips Thomas of Westinghouse. He also read poetry on a program called "The Dreamweaver." The show has been compared to Moon River on WLW. He also hosted the syndicated science-focused program Adventures in Research with Thomas Phillips. [SOURCE] He went to WTAE-TV in 1958 to host a children's program "Adventuretime" which ran until 1979. He retired in 1975, and died in 1990.

Elaine Beverly - Born in Akron, OH she attended Duquesne University and began singing and dancing on a KDKA variety show named "Brunch." She and her husband Joe Mann married in 1946 and together why co-hosted a live daily half hour variety show "Meet Your Neighbor on KDKA-TV from 1951 to 1957. Her name change from Fierman to Mann helps date this image to before 1946. The couple moved on to performing on cruise ships. Joe died in 1971. Elaine got a straight job managing a retirement home in 1979. She died in 2004.

Aneurin "Red" Bodycombe - A composer and organist at the First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh. He worked at Pittsburgh radio station KDKA starting in 1926. (some sources say 1929) He was born in 1899 in Wales and immigrated to the US after WWI. IN 1938 he directed the Stainless Steel Singers. KDKA gave up live programs in the late 1950s and he switched to sales. He retired from KDKA in 1964 and died in 1951. [SOURCE] He is known to have only recorded on one 78 rpm record with vocalist Bob carter. More here.

Radio Digest May 1930

Evelyn Gardiner - Radio Digest puts Gardiner on KDKA as early as 1930. She was KDKA's resident Home Economist and host of The Home Forum and often made appearances with Janet Ross as she did with the AWD. A 1937 issue of Motion Picture Daily Dorothy Allen was hired to assist her in her "Home Forum" broadcasts. A 1944 NAB report places her at KDKA running a Home Prize contest with Ross. A 1955 issue of Variety reports her resignation from KDKA after 25 years. She and her husband, composer Victor Saudek relocated to San Diego. A 1956 issue of Variety puts her at La Jolla High School teaching English and Journalism. Saudek directed the KDKA Little Symphony Orchestra beginning in 1922.

Jim Westover - In 1947 he's mentioned among the staff of the comedy program "King for a Minute." In 1949 he was selected as the announcer for the show "Americans, Speak Up! In 1951 he emceed Cinderella Weekend on KDKA. In 1962 he's mentioned in a US Steelworkers program on KDKA in passing. 1961 another passing reference narrating part of a special on Pearl Harbor. He was still with the station in 1958. In 1960 Radio TV Mirror describes him "Noted for one of the finest voices in broadcasting, Jim Westover gathers and writes news as well." There was also Jim Westover on WGL in Ft. Wayne IN. He was promoted to Chief announcer in 1945. They might be the same gentleman. (But the one on WEEI in the late sixties can't be him.)

The Hebrew Christian Hour

2026-04-20T10:00:00.003-04:00

This radio program is much more obscure than it probably should be. The first information I found was in the form of a promotional postcard or flyer. The back is stamped "Gospel Crusaders, P.O. Box 845, Allentown, PA" Below that is a second stamp for the Bethlehem Revival Center on West Broad Street in Bethlehem, PA. The card is undated. That postcard, whatever it's vintage, lists only 6 radio stations.

CALLS	FREQ	CITY	State
WVCH	740	Chester	PA
WIBG	990	Philadelphia	PA
WKAP	1320	Allentown	PA
WPIT	730	Pittsburgh	PA
WGCB	1440	Red Lion	PA
WWVA	1170	Wheeling	WV

There were many singing groups who were named Gospel Crusaders. Notably the Nyack Gospel Crusaders which were formed in 1944. There was one in Rhode Island founded by W. Robert Garlock around 1938. Yet another Gospel Crusaders played at 1550 WRHC-AM in Jacksonville, FL in 1957. In the late 1960s Brother John Phillips organized a Gospel Crusaders with a spot on 1580 KDAY-AM.

None of those groups fit the time and place. I even found a Gospel Crusaders of Chester PA, but active in the 1990s. Right place, wrong time. The closest I found was a reference in the Gospel Herald [SOURCE] of 1950. It mentions The Wayside Gospel Crusaders of Lancaster, PA. It's a possibility in a stack of wrong answers. In another section it puts them less specifically in Eastern, PA. This appears to have been a short-lived group, only peripherally related to Michelson. The Bethlehem Revival Center was also not much of a clue. It appears in newspapers into the 1970s. Google Maps images go back to 2008 and that year the signage read W.N. Serfass & Co, public accountants. It is no more.

1948 Radio Annual

All of this is ancillary to the question of Dr. Arthur Urrah Michelson. At the bottom it gives his address at P.O. Box 707 Los Angeles, 53, CA. That "53" is a big hint. Five digit zip codes debuted in 1963. But starting in 1943 some cities began using two digit local zone numbers. This is our first bracket for dates. Also from that address I found a February 1952 issue [SOURCE] of The Jewish Hope linking the address to Dr. Arthur U. Michelson, editor of that very monthly publication. Michelson published an autobiography in 1943 which tells us he was born Kronach, Germany in 1886 and died in 1968.

His autobiography is heavy on the theology and short on actual biographical facts but newspaper clippings put him at US revival events as early as 1932. His references to the 1922 German currency crisis give us a 10 year window for immigration. The book Studies in Contemporary Jewry: Volume XIV by Peter Y. Medding confirmed this general date but Jewish Social Studies Vol. 10 (1938) gave his arrival as 1931 in LA coming from Chicago, so late 1920s fits. His page on ancestry.com differs slightly, it cites Krone, Germany and his death in 1969... but it has other errors as well. (Note, Krone was part of Prussia from 1772 to 1945, it's been part of Poland since 1945.)

From My Life Story from 1943. A. Michelson (R)

That 1952 issue of the Jewish Hope does have references to radio. "I am grateful to the Lord that he has revealed himself to me and has given me the privilege of proclaiming the Gospel over the radio, which is the best method of reaching the Jews. Our radio broadcasts reach a potential audience of many millions every day." Most of it reads like that. It's all ministry and very little radio outside of his schedule.

Similarly, most print references to him are in sermons where he might be called "gallant soul" without telling us anything about the man's life. A newspaper will record that he spoke 3 churches in Sarasota FL in 1959, but not if he had a family. The one article I found that mentioned his wife did not even mention her name, only that she was Catholic. The Rocky Mountain News of August 31st, 1938 reported that he was formerly a judge in imperial German courts and attended the University of Berlin. But back to that radio schedule in Jewish Hope. This one was from 1952. [SOURCE] A surprising number of affiliates are Canadian. A newspaper account reported that it was sold through a regular ad agency, apparently Tom Westwood. (see above) There was also a 1945 lawsuit corroborating that. [SOURCE].

CALLS	FREQ	CITY	State
CKPC	1380	Brantford	ON
CFCN	1060	Calgary	AB
WLXW	1380	Carlisle	PA
WVCH	740	Chester	PA
CHWK	1270	Chilliwack	BC
WDOK	1260	Cleveland	OH
KXXX	790	Colby	KS
KJSK	900	Columbus	NE
KROX	1260	Crookston	MN
KWDM	1150	Des Moines	IA
KGDE	1230	Fergus Falls	MN
WMRP	1510	Flint	MI
KWBC	970	Fort Worth	TX
KMMJ	750	Grand Island	NE
WFUR	1570	Grand Rapids	MI
CJCH	920	Halifax	NS
KGRI	1000	Henderson	TX
KLEE	610	Houston	TX
CFJC	910	Kamloops	BC
CKWS	960	Kingston	ON
CKCR	1490	Kitchener	ON
KCVR	1570	Lodi	CA
KGER	1390	Los Angeles	CA
WMBW	800	Miami Beach	FL
KEYD	1440	Minneapolis	MN
WKBZ	850	Muskegon	MI
CHVC	1600	Niagara Falls	ON
CJNB	1240	North Battleford	SK
WIBG	990	Philadelphia	PA
WPGH	1080	Pittsburgh	PA
KXL	750	Portland	OR
WSAY	1370	Rochester	NY
CKTB	620	St. Catherines	ON
KXA	770	Seattle	WA
KFNF	920	Shenandoa	IA
KSPO	1230	Spokane	WA
CKFH	1400	Toronto	ON
CKMO	1410	Vancouver	BC
CJVI	900	Victoria	BC
KBOK	1090	Waterloo	IA

I even eventually discovered that there are transcriptions of his sermons from radio broadcasts in the early 1950s, like this one recorded in December of 1952. (below) That card which gave his PO Box as in Los Angeles seems to predate his move to Minnesota.

It appears he started making 1440 KEYD-AM his primary home in radioland after 1945 and before 1952. Multiple weekly issues of Radio Life list him on different stations; sometimes as the Hebrew Christian Hour and sometimes just by his name Dr. A.U. Michelson. [SOURCE] But I also found him on a KEYD schedule in October of 1954 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Issues of Radio Life from 1941 into 1944 of Radio Life puts his program on 570 KMTR-AM and no other listed stations. I believe that L.A. station was his original home base starting before February of 1942. Some 1941 issues list him as splitting his 60 minute spot with music from 7-7:15 then Clifford E. Clinton until 7:30 and Michelson taking the balance of the hour. January and September 1945 issues puts him on KFOX. More here and here. I have not resolved a time gap between 1945 and 1952, but he remained on air until at least 1958. [SOURCE]

Eventually I discovered a possible reason that Michelson dissapeared from radioland. He was doing crime, though it's unclear if he went to prison. The book The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America by Wilber R. Miller spells out that he committed multiple felonies as the head of Jewish Hope. His crimes include false representations, mail fraud and embezzling. The book is a hefty five volume set so you'll have to settle for the cliff notes. He was investigated by the Federal Post office and the Better Business Bureau and his operation was found to be unsatisfactory. The language is academic and gentle but the charges were felonies.

Michelson was the executive head of Jewish Hope and received funds from his radio broadcasts, and through the mail with the Jewish Hope magazine, circulars and evangelistic trips. His salary was $17,418 per year which is $403k in today's dollars. Above that salary he and/or his family collected another $9,023, or another $209k in 2026 dollars which were all excluded from the books of Jewish Hope. Miller cites FBI Memorandum as his source and I corroborated this in the Jewish Social Studies journal where they describe the doings of Arthur Michelson as "nefarious" and "unethical." In 1949 the Indianapolis Jewish Post reported that Michelson took 2 out of every 3 dollars in donations and took home a million dollars a year.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia

2026-04-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

Delmarva is interesting enough on it's own geographically. but the Eastern Shore of Virginia has some real radio oddities. (It also has some colorful town names like central PA, but that's not a radio thing. ) But why is that shore part of Virginia anyway? It's only connected to Virginia by bridge, by land it's adjacent to Maryland. Well per the original 1609 land grant Virginia consisted of the North American coast stretching 200 miles north and south of what we now call Hampton, VA. the real question is why does Maryland exist? An English nobleman, By way of his father George, Cecil Calvert managed to lobby King Charles I to carve a land grant from Virginia in 1642. Anyway, that's all ancient history. It's less strange than what happened to East and West New Jersey.

Because of the Chesapeake Bay many shoreline stations have unexpectedly large and asymmetrical coverage areas. The local big MSA is #37: Virginia Beach–Norfolk–Newport News, VA–NC, with an estimated 2023 population of 1,787,169. That part of the Delmarva peninsula is broken into two counties: Accomack and Northampton. They are both technically part of the Norfolk MSA, but many of these stations have little coverage in the metro center because of that geography.

But outside of that orbit, many stations serve their communities in the greater bay area. You might try the map in the dxtra.com website visualizing that geography. It you look up the lat/long of the antennas you will also see how rural this area is, with most towers surrounded by farm land.

88.9 WMVA - The station has no relation to the former WMVA-AM in Martinsville, VA. That was cancelled in 2019. This one is in Painter, VA and was only first licensed in June of 2023. The original 2021 CP was with Friendship Cathedral who still operate the station today.

89.1 WHAR - These calls were previously on 105.1 in Havelock, NC from 2018 to 2024 and that station was also broadcasting Air-1 satcast christian music. WHAR signed on in 2005 in Cheriton, VA and in being in Cape Charles, it signal does cross the bay and reach into the metro center. Air-1 generally shuffles call letters often, which complicates the history. But I think it's always been a religious satcaster. Print sources confirm that 89.1 Cheriton was formerly WWIP. Those calls go back to it's start in 1998. The original CP lists the Delmarva Educational Association which still owns the license today. In April of 2024 they flipped calls to WHAR. If you go looking please remember that from about 1993 - 1998 there was a CHR station with the WWIP calls on 105.9 in Wabash, IN. Not them.

90.1 WHRX - This 46,000 watt stick is a simulcast of WHRV, out of Nassawadox, and it's coverage doesn't each much further south than Cape Charles. Oddly it's been through several call sign changes. The station was launched as WJCN in 2002, became WHRE in 2010, then WHRJ in 2011 and the WHRX later that same year. I'm not sure why all the shuffling. But those calls intimate an acquisition, and the tower is Nandua High School intimating a connection, but that was not the case. Prior to 2010 the stick was owned by Positive alternative Radio inc and aired Spirit FM. The original 1998 CP lists only Nassawadox FM Inc. Only in the 2002 Assignment of Authorization does that change to CSN international. Both M Street and VARTV corroborate this [LINK] that CP so it's not an entry error. The corporation was real. It was incorporated in 1998 in Boca Raton, FL. [SOURCE] Radio Business magazine [SOURCE] reported that they sold the CP to CSN Int'l for 80k. It smells like a shell company. Anyway also read that the WHRO format flip started with an all-Christmas format stunt which is more fun.

90.7 WZLV - Being situated on the tip of the peninsula, this station penetrates into Norfolk and Virginia Beach. It's a shame the signal is wasted on K-love. The station signed on as WAZP in 1998 owned by Delmarva Educational Association. It changed calls to WZLV only in 2010. The Broadcasting yearbook of 2007 claims the station signed on in 2000 with K-love which confirms. Back then it was the only stick in Cape Charles too. What a waste.

91.5 W218CQ - This is a simulcast of WYFQ, a AM/FM station duo out of Charlotte, NC. That station has no earthly business operating a repeater in the Chesapeake, about 280 miles away... but it does. It's another example of religious satcaster obeying no earthly laws. It's operated by the Bible Broadcasting Network. The FCC lists it as silent today due to a fire on April 7th 2026. Hey, that was last week!

91.9 WHRE - This 4,400 watt stick is a simulcast of WHRV, who's coverage doesn't each much further north than Cape Charles. Per the FCC it signed on in December of 2010 with the call sign WHRJ, then changed to WHRE in January of 2011. This stick broadcasts from the grounds of Northampton High School in Eastville, VA. The original 2007 CP lists the applicant as Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications so I think it's safe to say that this has always been a WHRO/WHRV public radio property.

96.1 WROX - Technically in Exmore, this is basically in Cape Charles. This station signed on in 1986 as WIAV, "Wave 96" with a CHR format. A lightning strike took them off air in 1987 and it was sold to Bishop L.E. Willis and co-owned 1550 WVAB-AM but spinning off the AM stick. By the end of 1988 the calls where changed to WKSV,and in 1989 WXRI with a Christian AC format. In 1991 they tried an Urban Contemporary format and changed calls to WMYK. Sinclair bought the stick in 1993 and flipped the format to rock. then in 1998 it became WROX. In the 1990 Broadcasting yearbook they're listed under Virginia Beach instead of Cape Charles. They had a repeater on 106.1 downtown for years but lost is to the full service WUSH-FM in 2004. But back to WVAB-AM for a moment, they had a very interesting history. 1550 WVAB broadcast from 1954 to 2018, and after an FCC investigation Birach Broadcasting surrendered the license for it and 1450 WBVA-AM. WVAB had been off air since 2008 due to "vandalism" at that time. Birach only bought the station from the very politically connected Kellam family that same year. Hmmmm

96.9 WCCZ - The station signed on in 2005 as WFAJ, in Nassawadox owned by Hispanic Target Media, Inc. They are a well known operator, which currently owns 22 stations, though they've deleted at least another 5 in recent years. Even at at 13,500 watts, this station reaches Newport News but only the very shores of Norfolk; a glancing blow on the metro center. When it was airing the Radio Amigo format it was a huge Reg Mex station. In 2024 it was sold to GSB Media who flipped the format to Classic Hits.

98.3 WHRF - This 6,000 watt stick is a simulcast of WHRO, who's coverage doesn't each much further South than Cape Charles. The original 2009 CP was filed by Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications so very little has changed for this stick in the last 15+ years.

99.3 WOWZ - Like WCCZ, this is a GSB Media property today. The station was founded in 1987, by Eastern Shore Broadcasting but DBA the Chincoteague Broadcasting Corporation. That was a Stephen Marks company like The Marks Group. They entered radio in 1983 in a big way acquiring 51% of Thunder Bay Broadcasting. Then it owned only WKBKB-TV in Alpena, MI. But under Marks they went into acquisition mode. In 2022, Marks died and his window began selling off their radio properties. WOWZ signed on in 1990 as WVES, the WOWZ calls only began in 2017, six years before WOWZ was sold to GSB Media. The station has been playing country as far back as I can confirm, at least 20 years.

103.3 WESR - This station signed on in 1068, 10 years after their AM sister station. Initially a simulcast, as a Vernon Baker station it was acquired by Eastern Shore Radio in 1987 and the FM stick split off to broadcast MOR. More here.

105.7 W289CE - This little translator broadcasts WESR-AM. Both W289CE and 103.3 WESR-FM we're knocked off air recently, April 7th by a transmitter fire. That's surely the same fire that took out W218CQ. In the daytime it's pretty redundant to that AM signal on 1330, but at night WESR-AM powers down from 5,000 watts to 51 so it doubles the coverage area with just 250 watts. I notice the tower is across the street from an Elks Lodge (BPOE 1766). ...A lot of lodges have a bar inside, I'll bet some of the staff are members.

1330 WESR-AM - This is the only AM stick in either Accomack or Northampton county; so that also makes it the only one in the Virginia section of the Delmarva Peninsula. This AM stick is the original local station for the Eastern Shore. They signed on in January of 1958, the product of a meeting between a hotel owner, Charles F. Russell and Vernon Baker, a Virginia tech professor who founded many radio stations. It is audible miles out to sea, and due to it's coverage pattern, it covers parts to both the Washington D.C. market and Norfolk, though more of the former. I listened to it this evening and Coastal Country was Darius Rucker while the FM stick was playing the Pointer Sisters "Neutron Dance."

A Yugoslavian Radio Archive (Part 2)

2026-04-06T10:00:00.002-04:00

Radio NB map from their 2002 site

First, a foot note from Part 1. The radio format "folk" in this region is going to be music most Americans would call Polka. But the usage here is more like ethnic, thought there are multiple ethnicities at play... hence the break-up really. I will say that the more you listen, the more you can hear other cultural influences that take the music somewhere distinctly different than a Polish Polka. But still.. like Reg Mex... there's a lot of Polka in there.

As I browse the sites for information I keep finding references to NATO bombings and it's not lost on me how bloody the break up was. This was not an amicable separation. This was a collapse driven by nationalistic rivalries and multiple wars of independence. If you are looking for more in that history I recommend the BBC documentary series The Death of Yugoslavia. It's on Youtube here.

RADIO LASAREVAC [LINK] The Radio L website was loaded with Flash so it's content is mostly lost. The landing page gives the frequencies 103.6, 89.3 and 648 ST. The about section is blank. According to Streema today the station is based in Lazarevac, Serbia and the station Airs Adult Contemporary and Top 40/Pop music.

RADIO LESKOVAC [LINK] There was a short blurb on this site: "Radio Leskovac broadcasts thirteen hours of programming every day. Only two hours of programming are rebroadcast: Radio Belgrade - "Vesti", "Novosti dana", Radio Free Europe - "Jutarnji dnevnik", Radio B92 - "Dnevnik"." Then it also had 11 hours of it's own local programming. The site stopped updating in 2005.

RADIO MADONA [LINK] This pop station broadcast on 101.00 and 104.9. It had some connection to a disco of the same name. It's hard to know if that was metaphorical or literal. The website says that it had only two shows: Hit Needle - Saturdays from 3:00 - 9:00 PM and DJ Time & Top 20 - Sundays from 9:00 to Midnight. Their transmitter was on Crni Vrh, a mountain in eastern Serbia between towns of Bor and Žagubica.

RADIO MARIJA [LINK] This was a religious station with the motto "God's voice in every house" The name means Radio Maria. It broadcast on 102.9 in Novi Sad. The station signed on in 1987 and is still on air today [LINK] The new site uses the TLD .cr indicating a home in the modern boarders of Croatia. That modern site explains:

"The Radio Marija Association is a non-profit, non-governmental and non-political civil society organization, founded in Croatia in 1995. The first initiative committee was created within the framework of the Rosary Movement for Conversion and Peace, and on the eve of its foundation, cooperation was established with Radio Maria of Italy. The idea of Radio Marija and the first program originated in 1983 in a parish in Erba in northern Italy."

RADIO MORAVA [LINK] Radio Morava signed on July 1st 1996. on 98.4 broadcasting folk music. It was based in Jagodina in central Serbia. The site information suggests they had live music as well. The .rs TLD of their new site [LINK] indicates their domain is hosted Romania though they are still physically in Jagodina.

RADIO NB [LINK] Located in Novi Becej, at the center of Vojvodina, This station was founded in 1998 by the Novi Bečej Municipal Assembly and broadcast programs in Hungarian and Serbian. It's signal was on 106.1 and the map was cached and pictured at top. These municipal stations seem to be akin to a community station in some ways.

RADIONICA [LINK] This is not a radio station but I included it because it's the only website I found which actually addressed the dissolution of the .yu domain. It describes the process for transferring .yu websites which would very messy and bureaucratic "I hope that this whole campaign about the National Internet domain will have some results and as soon as possible, because this current situation is unsustainable and unacceptable.." I think this was a web host. Radionica means workshop in Croatian but I'm keeping it here for it's ICANN commentary which is lengthy and detailed.

RADIO NOVI SAD [LINK] This station was founded in 1949, possibly the oldest in the set if not the region. It broadcast in Derbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Ruthenian, Romanian, Ukrainian and Romanian. It operated Radio Stotka on 100 Mhz and Radio Novi Sad on UKT 89.5 MHz and 93.7 MHz, St 1485 kHz which operated 13 hours a day. It describes the programming as "The basic purpose of this City Radio service has been reporting from the City Assembly meetings, the government and all the other city authority body. It also means covering the work of public utilities and services under city control." But it was also home to the Tamburitza Orchestra and had robust music programming.

RADIO NOVOSTI [LINK] Some of the flash survived on this one. Novosti means news, and this is an all news station which broadcast on 104.4 in Begrade, Serbia. It operated today on 104.7 on a .com TLD. [SOURCE] That news site confirms they signed on in 1993 and today broadcasts with 10 digital channels.

RADIO ORION [LINK] This station signed on April 24th 2001 with a mix if music and news. The menu is broken and parts of the site lost. Today it operates on 91.7 in Romania broadcasting 24 hour a day. When I tuned in today it was pop music.

RADIO PALIC [LINK] This station broadcast on 103.0 starting in 1998 from Subotica, Serbia. The site is mostly text. But the a staff list survived. I found a news article which suggested a radio tower in Palic was bombed by NATO in 1999. It may have been destroyed. The station does not exist today. There is another station Radio 103 which seems to occupy the same frequency. [SOURCE]

RADIO PEK [LINK] Pek signed on March 13th 1996 on 93.9 FM broadcasting to Kučevo and the surrounding area of eastern Serbia. The station move3d to 94.0 by 2006 and was broadcasting a mix of folk, pop, dance and rock music with a second signal on 98.3.

RADIO PINGVIN [LINK] Pingvin means Penguin. It signed on November 23rd 1991 broadcasting in Belgrade on 90.9. The description confirms it had several different owners before 2006 and different names but that it's basic policy of no politics and no populists had remained constant. That logo is great and they are still on air today. [LINK]

RADIO PLANETA [LINK] This station broadcast on 102.2 Mhz in Novi Sad beginning in 2003. Their studio was located in the Planeta Shopping Center. The site makes a point of directing listeners to the Fontana restaurant where the staff hang out. Someone was getting free drinks.

RADIO POZAREVAC [LINK] This station, founded in 1977, has a really good history page which I'll quote "The solid roots of Radio Požarevac were established in the early seventies through the so-called "Radio LJ K I", a program that, in cooperation with the Organizing Committee of the Ljubičevo Games, ran every summer before and during this tourist and sports event... The first program of this type was broadcast from the premises of the KPD Zabela, while it was later moved to the premises of the Požarevac Municipal Assembly. The program consisted of news, specialized programs dedicated to the Ljubičevo Games, a news program, music programs, as well as listeners' wishes.In the summer of the same year, the experimental program of Radio Požarevac began, which lasted from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM. The ceremonial start of the broadcasting of the Radio Požarevac program followed on October 12. The program was broadcast on medium waves of 240 m and ultra-short wave area of 92.1 Mhz.This significant undertaking was started by Bogran Živanović, Jovan Rajković, Ljubiša Dobrosavljević, Siniša Ristić and Zoran Vasić as journalists, Novica Mišić and Radenko Ristić as sound engineers, and Petar Crnobrnja and Gordana Kuzmanović as announcers. "

RADIO PULS [LINK] Puls (which means pulse) broadcast news, music, sports and had call in programs from 91.1 FM. I think this is the same station which today broadcasts on 96.0 from Despotovac, Serbia. If so it was founded December 19th 1997. [SOURCE] A 2003 cache tells me the station was founded in September 2002 and their original frequency was 91.1 and that they carry music and information programs.

RADIO S [LINK] Radio S had multiple signals 104.7 in Beolgrade, 94.3 in Kragujevac and 96.9 in - Novi Sad. Their stick in Belgrade was the first and signed on August 17th 1994. The had a very fancy site of all flash which was cached.

RADIO SAFIR [LINK] Safir signed on in 1995 and their "about" section brags that they have over 70,000 songs in their library. I think there were two more stations in the group from the line "your Gold 013 FM 106.4 MHz"Their studio was based in Pancevo across the river from Belgrade, Serbia.

RADIO SECANJ [LINK] The landing page reads "Public Enterprise of Broadcasting Activities" This public station started broadcasting on July 9th 1999 on 96.3. As of 2005 it employed 13 workers. and planned to launch a cable television channel and establish a local radio and television stations.

RADIO SOMBOR [LINK] Surely the oldest station in this list, Sombor started broadcasting on July 31st 1972. It reads "On medium and ultra-short waves, the program was broadcast on weekdays from 1 to 6 p.m. Among the first shows were "Chronicle of the Day", "Pop Studio", "Twice Forty" and others. The program was prepared by the journalists of "Somborski novina" and the newly formed editorial staff of Radio Sombor. Today, Radio Sombor broadcasts its program on two frequencies, 90.9 MHz and 97.5 MHz. On 90.9 MHz, 11 journalists - nine in the Serbian-language newsroom and two in the Hungarian-language newsroom prepare a daily program that lasts 24 hours."

RADIO SPEKTAR [LINK] The Spektar group was founded on November 11th 1995. The station broadcast on 107.7 from Pancevo 24 hours a day with a mix of news, education and music programming. Their about section emphasized a number of local programs:" The Businessman's Club, Every Word, Evergreen Club, Danube flows into Tamis, Top Kiss, a Quiz show, a Nostalgia program and Happy Turnips (Veseli repici) which purports to be about pets... Google thinks the name is Slovenian.

RADIO STARA CARSIJA [LINK] This station broadcast ion 99.1 from Cuprija Serbia. There's not much info on the programming but it says that "According to some of our internal research, conducted in Cuprija, Radio Stara Carsi is mainly listened to by the intellectual class of the population." They're still broadcasting today [LINK]

RADIO SUBOTIKA [LINK] This website was available in Magyar, Croatian and Serbian. The station was founded by the Subotica Municipal Assembly on November 29th 1968, and was broadcasting on 91.5 in 2006. Their history notes that broadcasting on Medium wave was interrupted by NATO
bombing on May 22nd 1999. [SOURCE] The station broadcast programs in Serbian and Hungarian for six hours a day, and in Croatian for one hour. They actually have a Wikipedia page which reports they launched a German program in 1998, which is the first radio show in German since 1944... ahem.

RADIO TOCAK [LINK] Instead of an about page they post a mission where they report that Radio "Točak" was the first Roma electronic media in the region of Western Serbia broadcasting on 104.2 FM. The station broadcast news and educational programs for Roma minority groups. The station was founded April 28th 2003 and served an ethnic minority of 40,000 Roma. Točak means wheel in English

RADIO TREND [LINK] This station was based in Baèka Topola in Vojvodina, 65 miles from Novi Sad. The community had about 15,000 citizens consisting mostly of Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks and Ruthenians. The station broadcast on 95.2 FM. A 2018 report listed them as one of a handful of stations broadcasting Hungarian programming. [SOURCE]

RADIO X [LINK] Broadcasting from Požarevac on 100.5 this station broadcast folk music. Not just folk, it clarifies "folk music - songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s" So that's the Adult AC of Folk. Their signal covered Pozarevac and the entire Branicevski district, Smederevo and surrounding towns. Their biggest program was Željoteka Live which inenglish means disco with live folk music groups.

RADIO ZENIT [LINK] This station covered the municipalities of Kula and Vrbas and broadcast 24 hours a day mostly in Bosnian. The site has a great animated .gif of the coverage area. Their name translates to Radio Zenith. The station was founded on December 26th, 1998, and broadcasts on 100.7. The station is still on air today. [LINK] Their new site has a .ba TLD for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

RADIO ZVEZDARA [LINK] The cache is very fragmented. Zvezdara is a city in Belgrade, presumably it's locality. This station broadcast on 106.2, information only preserved in page title. The station still exists today [SOURCE] on the same frequency.

VOICE OF AMERICA, SERBIAN SERVICE [LINK] The history on this site has nothing specific to Yugoslavia, not even in 1999. It's very generic info that describes the whole global VOA network. Locally it was called Glas Amerike, this service was started in 1942 during WWII. All programming originates in the USA, but if broadcast 24/7, 365. It purports to be objective and accurate but it's Western propaganda initially created to combat Nazi propaganda. But it's still on air today and depending on where you live, it might be a better news source than you have otherwise. The cache goes back to 1998. It's still operating in Serbia and Macedonia today of course. [LINK] and [LINK] They ended their Croatia service in 2011. More here and here.

A Yugoslavian Radio Archive (Part 1)

2026-03-30T10:00:00.035-04:00

Yugoslavia [LINK] is no more. Yugoslavia only existed from existed from 1918 to 1992 and in many ways it was Josip Broz Tito though force of will, (and every other kind of force) which allowed it to survive that long. Slobodan Milosevic was able to get more sovereignty for Serbia at the cost of unity and without that majority stake, the states separated. But let's move on from the big political story to our side quest.

As an unexpected side-effect, this break up led ICANN to retire the .yu top level domain (TLD) in March of 2010. [SOURCE] (This is well explained by Jacob Filipp.) [SOURCE] So in 2010, the majority of Yugoslavian websites dissapeared, or migrated to other TLDs, including every radio station website. That would be the end of it, nothing but human memory and magnetic decay. Except that the Wayback Machine exists...

With thanks to the miracle of the Wayback Machine, we have cached copies of many of these radio stations websites just as they were prior to 2010, though many ceased updates as early as 2002. There were lots of animated .gifs. This is not a complete list of radio sites of course, Yugoslvia was almost 99k square miles in size. That's about the size of Wyoming in American terms. Consider this a highlight reel.

RADIO 106 [LINK] - Radio 016 began operating on March 29, 1993. It was the first radio station in southern Serbia and the third in Serbia after Radio "PINGVIN from Belgrade and Radio 34 from Kragujevac). It operated on the frequency 101.60 MHz and with a 250 watt transmitter.

RADIO 021 [LINK] The earliest capture is from 1999 and mysteriously reports "On Thursday, March 25, the Federal Ministry of Telecommunications temporarily confiscated the transmitter of Radio 021, which has not yet been returned." They appear to have returned to broadcasting and the website continued to be updated through early 2007 referring to a new domain outside of Yugoslavia [LINK] perhaps not feeling very confident about the future of the new local TLDs.

RADIO 101 [LINK] Music Radio 101 claimed to be the first and oldest music radio in the country, but only began broadcasting on May 3, 1989. So this is about 30 years too late for that to be true. It broadcast on 101.4 and 98.5 MHz. Though the resume of EIC Zarko Obradović I found the station came from the Radio Belgrade "EKO Program" in the 1980s. This may trace back earlier. This source confirms Radio 101 stopped broadcasting in 2006. [SOURCE]

RADIO 103 [LINK] Radio 103 is a radio station located in Subotica, and covers the area of North Backa and part of the area of West Banat in Serbia near the Hungarian border. It first signed on in 1989 and had been on air for 17 years when the website ceased updates.

Radio 31 [LINK] Radio 31 broadcast from Uzice in what is now Western Serbia. It began operating on April 1, 1993. It was block formatted in that era, playing pop and rock but with robust new programming. It seems to be primarily folk music now. They exist today as Radio 31+ which an internet-only station on a Russian TLD. [LINK]

RADIO 5 [LINK] Radio 5 had a fun anthropomorphic bio. It described itself as a Leo born on August 10, 2001 in Novi Sad. It first broadcast on 107.5 MHz and signed on formally on 20 at 11.55 AM.

RADIO 90 [LINK] Radio 90 is still using the same yunord email they had on their site in 2005. They are still on air and have been broadcasting since August 11, 2000.

RADIO ADA [LINK] Their 2009 site was just a .pls file an an animated gif. Earlier versions had a little more information. The station was based on Vojvodina on 107.7. They are still on air but have no website that I can fine.

RADIO ANTENA [LINK] In Novi Sad on 106.0 Mhz this station described it self as "folk radio." Older versions have little info aside from broadcast schedules. The images show kids which made me think it was a college station.

RADIO AS [LINK] This station broadcast on 101.2 starting on October 26th 2000 in Novi Sad. It mised music and talk radio programming. Their coverage map confirms they also broadcast on 101.6 in Subotica with some signal clearly receivable in Hungary.

RADIO BARAJEVO [LINK] Broadcasting from 105.9 this station broadcast from Barajevo in Belgrade, Serbia. It appears to be some kind of municipal service. The site was taken down before 2003 and had not been updated since 1999.

RADIO BEOGRAD [LINK] This was also known as Radio Yugoslavia. Versions of the page exist from 2007 which reveal a third draft of the site. Another cache exists on a .com domain here. No cache of Beograde 2 survives. The station still exists today operating 8 channels: Radio Belgrade 1, Radio Belgrade 2, Radio Belgrade 3, Radio Belgrade 202, Radio (RTS) Vrteshka, Radio (RTS) Rockenroller, Radio (RTS) Jukebox, and Radio (RTS) Pletenica. Vrteška, Rokenroler, Jukebox and Pletenica only signed on in 2019.

RADIO BISER [LINK] Radio Biser was a folk station operating on 105.8 first signing on 05-08-1995 in Orovnik in what is now Macedonia. In 1998 they added Biser Plus on 87.9 Mhz and starting in 2002 UHF channel 53 as Television Biser. The site stopped updating around 2002.

RADIO BIS [LINK] Radio Bis was another folk music station. In 2005 boat that it aired original national music "devoid of kitsch and Islamization." Oh my. Their motto was "Sumadija radio for generations from two to one hundred and two years old" Sumadija was presumably it's city of license, probably near it's capital, Kragujevac in Serbia.

RADIO BUBA MARA [LINK] This cache is mostly a history of broken gifs. There is one bright yellow incarnation from 2004 which mysteriously says to click on the Ladybug. All links beyond are broken. The station still exists on 105.2. They are self-described as Macedonia's favorite online radio station.[LINK] The new site has a history page which traces the station back to April 1994 as the most listened to station in Skopje.

RADIO BRAVO [LINK] Very little of this site was cached. It broadcast on 103.5 from Pokrivamo Croatia. The motto "good music lovers club" implies it was a music station.

RADIO BUM [LINK] The page was constructed entirely of gifs carefully positioned. One cache from 2002 yielded the below logo. A 2007 cache yielded a station history. It signed on April 26th 2001. broadcasting music and news from Boljevac, Timocka Krajina, Serbia.

RADIO BUCA [LINK] Radio Buca was founded on November 20, 2000 as a folk music station. It was on 89.0 Mhz broadcasting out of Novi Sad.

RADIO BUS [LINK] Bus appears to be a community station of some kind. The history gives no start date but reports "The main mission of BUS radio is to inform, entertain and educate the target group of citizens in the wide area where BUS can be heard." They broadcast on 94.1 in Novi Sad.

RADIO B92 [LINK] This station was the leading independent pro-democracy station in Yugoslavia. It was shut down by the Serbian government in April 1999. The site moved freeb92.net by 2000. That year their about section became mostly about their survival. " Information and contributions from a number of associates will also be published on the Free B92 site. These will throw more light on the bombing of Yugoslavia and the consequences of this. The common aim of these projects is to preserve the spirit of professionalism which has been stripped from everyday communication in Yugoslavia through the Belgrade regime’s banning and takeover of Radio B92."

RADIO CITY [LINK] This site was built in flash so most of the content was lost. From the one surviving line of text I gather is was a news station. There are multiple stations with that brand today in the region. It appears that They expended into TV based on their current site. [LINK] But way back in 2004 Dragan Belajac, an engineer at Radio City posted on a forum:

"I see that you are talking about radio here, I happen to be the owner of a local radio station and I deal with the production and assembly of broadcast and studio equipment. At the moment, there is general madness in our country on radio frequencies, you don't know who drinks and who pays and it is very difficult to find a so-called free frequency, because today people think that if you have a radio, you will be successful like Zeljko Mitrovic with Pink. As for the music on the radio, it must be on original Wav discs, which will be sent to your address as soon as you sign a contract with one of the productions, free of charge, because this is the material that you need to present to the listeners. As for broadcast equipment (excavator, amplifier, stereo encoder), I personally make it, but when the new law comes out, each device will have to have a certificate, but for now, nothing, so just start a company and enjoy your work. I could talk about this until tomorrow because I've been doing this since I was 10 years old..."

RADIO DAK [LINK] Another folk station. This one was 9 years old in 2006 meaning it was founded around 1997. The station broadcast on 106.3 from Ćuprija. Their logo includes what is surely an unlicensed image of Daffy duck so I'm not going to post it. This may be a pun. Dak does not mean duck, it means station. These are english letters in a nation which mostly uses Cyrillic letter. So Radio Dak means radio station. (радио дак is Duck Radio)

RADIO DELFIN [LINK] According to the website Radio Delfin is the most listened to radio station in Uzice. It plays all commercial music except folk, which might be a relief by now. It also has no news. Their signal covered an area which included Ovčar Banja and Zlatibor in Serbia.

RADIO DOINA [LINK] Radio D 96 actually had an English version. This station was based hear the Romanian border in Grabovica, Serbia.They had little information posted but a small pology for their home brew HTML page " We have not abandoned the updating of the presentation, but at the moment the connection to the Internet is quite bad, so a lot of effort is put into updating it." There are three station with that brand now in the region but none on 96.

RADIO DUGA [LINK] This station operated on 100.2 in Pozarevac in the Braničevo District in eastern Serbia. They were the third private station in Serbia and broadcast live in the style of Radio Luxembourg. It began broadcasting April 28th 1992. This site was last updated in 2006.

RADIO DUNAV [LINK] Dunav broadcast on 98.8 in Novi sad and 99.5 in Belgrade. The website had no info beyond that and the heart-like logo. A station with that brand operated today on 101.5 [LINK] It purports to have been using the brand since May 18th, 1998 from Vukovar in Croatia. It also reports that over the years they have broadcast locla programs in the languages of "Hungarian, Ukrainian and Ruthenian national minorities." That's only the second time I've ever read the word Ruthenian but we will get to Dorothy Thompson another time. It describes the music mix as (50% folk-folk , 25% local pop-rock and 25% foreign music). That's how Canada does it right?

RADIO DZENARIKA [LINK] This station broadcast on 103.8. Dzenzarika just means plum. Modern streaming sites describe it as a Serbian folk station. It signed on in 1992 and is based in Cack, Serbia. [SOURCE]

RADIO GAGA [LINK] Radio GAGA was the first private radio station in the Jablaničko Okrug, which started broadcasting in 1994. It operated on 105.0 Mhz broadcasting mostly news.

RADIO GALEB [LINK] Broadcasting on 104.6 this station covered the municipalities of Veliko Gradište, Golubac, Požarevac and parts of the municipalities of Smederevo, Majdanpek, Petrovac na Mlavi, Kucevo, Bela Crkva, Vršac, Kovin, Žagubic. They first began broadcasting on February 14th 1995. Their motto means "Fly On Wings of Radio - The Seagull"

RADIO HORREUM MARGI [LINK] Aka Radio Margi, this station broadcast from Ćuprija, on 95.1 MHz. It signed on in 1992 as the first local radio station in the city. It added a second signal on 100.3 as a simulcast. They advertised a 100 km coverage area. The Romans founded the town as a fort Horreum Margi, and the station is named for it. (It means Marava River Granary)

RADIO INDEX [LINK] This website cache is covered in news blurbs from 2001. There is an English version of the page with a history! [LINK] It was founded in June of 1992 as a college radio station by Nenad Cekic and a group of enthusiastic Belgrade University students, over the years Radio Index grew into a major player on 99.8 FM in Serbia's media landscape. Their media coverage included protests against Milosevic. The station was banned by Milosevic in 1998, and it's EIC Nenad Cekic arrested. After NATO bombing ended in 1999, Radio Index returned after 9 months of silence.

RADIO JAT [LINK] Radio Jat was established on March 21st, 1999 on 95.7 MHz in the Belgrade area. It aired a mix of popular music and news. Station manager Momcilo Kostic might be the same one who teaches engineering at U. of Sarajevo today.

RADIO KNEZ [LINK] Every cache version of this site is all broken image links. A couple Top 10s survive. There is no information online. The word Knez means Duke or Prince in both Serbian and Croatian. A DX log from 2001 confirms the station was real and on 91.2. [SOURCE] It may have been located in Knez Selo, Serbia. KNEZ in Lompoc, CA has no relation of course.

RADIO KULA [LINK] Radio Kula broadcast on UKT 89.2 Mhz for 6-24 hours and programs are in broadcast in three languages: Serbian, Hungarian and Ruthenian. They operated out of the Information and Propaganda Center KULA (IPC Kula) and printed a newspaper called the Kula Commune. It appears to have been liquidated in 2007. [SOURCE]

RADIO KRAJINA [LINK] - No info here, just links to other sites. The incomplete site was retired before it was finished. The station is still around today on a new domain.[LINK] Unfortunately the new station about section has no history. But their new site dopes have a 24/7 folk music stream. Krajina is a quasi city-state in Croatia, with little other information I believe this was a station in that area which no longer exists.

XE2MH

2026-03-23T10:11:00.001-04:00

I found this (above) nicely designed QSL card on eBay. [SOURCE] The image was very eye catching so I wanted to look into it. It confirms a radio reception window between February 12th, 1947 to the following March 12th. It gives the frequency as 3.5 megacycles and noted 569 CW. CW is continuous Wave. But that "569 "is RST signal reporting code for Readability, Signal Strength and Tone. Suffice it to say reception was quite good. [SOURCE] The writer closes with 73 which is “Best Regards." But cursive being cursive, I can't read the signature very well. More here.

Enrique Lobo y Lobo Jr.

Thankfully there are many resources for identifying old ham radio calls. The Summer 1946 Radio Amateur Callbook links the calls on the back to Enrique Lobo y Lobo, 8816 Morelos Ave in Monterrey, N.L Mexico. That Nuevo León address appears to be a clothing store now. That's when I noticed the address in the Callbook doesn't match the QSL card. It gives the address as 870 Abasolo in Monterrey NL which is now a restaurant called Trece Lunas. [LINK] That turns out not to be important but the restaurant looks like my kind of joint.

Samuel Pang Barajas

In 1947 Enrique Lobo y Lobo appears in the 1947 816 Morelos. I found a obituary that reports his daughter, Josefina Lobo Quiroga died in 2020 at the age of 94. She founded the Girl Guides of Mexico. It looks something like the girl scouts. [SOURCE]. Enrique compiled a family history in 1972. (The blog as it stands, seems to be incomplete.) [LINK] My first good source is when Enrique won a DX contest in 1952 from which we finally see an image. [SOURCE] I suspect he is Enrique Jr. because there is no way this is a picture of a man who had a daughter 25 years earlier. Josefina has to be his mother, an Aunt or a much older sibling.

Enrique also appears in the book Breve Historia de La Radioafición Mexicana or A Brief History of Mexican Amateur Radio by Pablo A. Mooser XE1SR. [SOURCE] That book confirms there was a Jr. and Sr. It has an image of Sr. at XE2W in 1937. Mr. Mooser was the president of the Liga Mexicao de Radio Experimentores. [SOURCE] That was not his only book on radio. He also wrote Apuntes Sobre La Historia De La Radio Aficion En Mexico or Notes on the History of Amateur Radio in Mexico. in 2021. I would love to find copies of either of these, physical or virtual.

Ralph Held (L), Mooser at center and Leland Smith (R) from World Radio 1987

But then in 1949 the XE2MH calls are assigned to someone else, Samuel Pang Barajas. He's at 301 Linares Pte, in Monterey NL. The current Google maps image (2022) is from a less than glamorous moment. The building is being renovated and a toilet sits on the sidewalk. There is also no obvious connection between Lobo y Lobo and Barajas. But working in the same area, with the same hobby they probably at least knew of each other.

Anyway, Pang holds onto those calls until 1953 and then they stop appearing... until 1989. I did find his obituary [LINK] and from that we know he died in 2004 at the age of 87. Mr. Barajas was a real true radio man, not just a hobbyist. He was a radio engineer at XEW and founder of XER. He was also an engineering professor at the University of Nuevo Leon. [SOURCE] I translated his obituary below.

Born in Linares on April 29, 1917, he was the son of Samuel Pang Lim—of Chinese descent—and Ines Barajas, a native of Galeana. He pursued his university studies at the IPN (National Polytechnic Institute) in Mexico City, earning a degree in Electrical Communications Engineering. He worked at station XEW, and later at *Radio Programas de México*, a broadcasting enterprise owned by Clemente Serna Martínez. In Linares, he established station XER—among other stations located throughout the Mexican Republic. On April 28, 1954, he married Alma Gallardo Cázarez, with whom he raised a family; their children were Alma, Leticia, Cristina, and Samuel. He was a member of the founding faculty at Preparatoria 4 (High School No. 4) in Linares, where he taught Physics. It is worth noting that during the high school's early years, none of the teachers received any remuneration for their services. He was the proprietor of the *La Estrella* bakery. In Linares, he also installed the city's first Christmas lighting display, its first ice factory, and its first electric power plant; furthermore, he was the individual responsible for installing the first electric power plant for the Villaseca Fair. Samuel Pang and his family resided in Linares until 1965, when they relocated to Monterrey, where he passed away on November 31, 2004.

In 1989 the XE2MH calls reappear in the hands of Jose Simeon Ramirez Solis in Tamulipas and he held it until at least 1997. The funny thing I never figured out about the post card is that there's a Mexico City PO box on the front of the card. It was preprinted with two different calls, and two different addresses. That's 900 miles away from Monterrey. At first the connection was unclear. So let's get back to that signature.

It looks like Juan Lobo y Lobo, not Enrique. I think it's safe to assume they are relatives. I did eventually find Juan Lobo y Lobo. He too turns out to be very accomplished radio man. In 1957 he's listed in CQ magazine as Juan Lobo y Lobo, Rodriguez Saro 308, Mexico but the call sign is XE1A. Eureka! I had misread the call sign on the front of the QST card because of the graphic; the A isn't just decorative. It's the last letter of the call sign.

Juan Lobo y Lobo appears regularly in the Radio Amateur Callbook for decades usually with the PO Box, 339 Mexico D.F. He's often in the same issues as Enrique. It may have been competitive. In Radio magazine of January 1940 Juan wrote in to let readers know that his 5-meter transmitter and HF100s were moving to Mexico City. It notes two call signs: XE1A and XE2N. Sure enough, when I found him in an earlier 1934 issue of Radio Amateur Callbook he was listed at 188 Bolivar in Monterrey NL.

But it turns out that Juan Lobo y Lobo is an all-time DX record holder. He appears in an Amperex Electronics ad like a celebrity endorsement in a 1937 issue of QST magazine. [SOURCE]. I would guess Juan is a brother to Enrique and Uncle to Enrique Jr. He also appears in the May 1937 issue [SOURCE] a member of a very accomplished radio family.

In 1937 Juan got his WAC, a certificate which confirmed he had already Worked All Continents. He set a DX record as XE2N, with 566 QSOs and 39 multipliers on 1.7, 3.9, 14 and 28 MHz. He operated for 50 hours and 50 minutes. A November 1948 issue of QST notes Top CW score among contestants outside W/VE has been made each year since 1938 by Juan Lobo y Lobo of Mexico under the calls XE1A, XE2N or XF1A.

"...And each year his total has grown greater. Juan’s 41-QSOs-per-hour record of last year seemed like all it was humanly possible for one operator to accomplish. Imagine our amazement when XFlA’s 1948 log showed 55.5 QSOs/hour — an even 3000 QSOs, multiplier of 85 and final score of 765,000 points in 54 hours of operation!! Juan’s most successful hour brought contacts with 70 stations and his best minute of operation resulted in 4 QSOs! His multiplier of 85 also set a new record, topping last year’s high figure by 10 points. Working on 3.5, 7, 14, 27 and 28 Me., XF1A missed only VE5 on 3.5 Me., VE8 on 3.5, 7, 27 and 28, to fall 5 points short of the perfect multiplier. We again salute you, Juan, on as commendable a demonstration of operating ability as it has ever been our pleasure to acknowledge!"

There were literally still Hams talking about his accomplishments in issues of World Radio in the 1980s. [SOURCE] To my knowledge his record QSO record still stands. In 1956 he came back and QST magazine reported that "Juan Lobo y Lobo has probably established more firsts in ARRL DX contests than anyone. He was an enthusiastic regular under the calls XElA, XFlA or XE2N from the thirties until 1950."

The First Female DJ in Los Angeles

2026-03-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

In the November 12th, 1977 issue of Billboard you will find the feature "Women Emerging as Format DJs." It's an important reference article in the history of radio, and one of those rare occasions where women DJs get multiple pages of ink in a trade magazine. Unfortunately it's author is unaccredited.
"At one point in the history of modern radio a female air personality was almost unheard of, and this is quite an interesting psychological aspect of the medium since early radio featured some excellent female entertainers such as Jinx Falkenberg, Jane Ace, Jane Webb, Harriet Nelson, June Foray, Janet Waldo, Molly Jordan (of Fibber McGee & Molly fame) Lillian Randolph, and Alice Reinhart for example."

This week I'm looking into just one of those DJs histories. Cherie Sannes worked as a registered nurse for six years before she went into broadcasting. None of these primary sources cite her original surname. Originally from Ohio, she got the surname Sannes from her first husband, a doctor at Carmel Community Hospital where she worked as a nurse. In 1975 she began hosting a weekend public-service interview show on 101.7 KLRB-FM. More here.

Monterey Peninsula Herald - August 1974

KLRB (FM102) was a progressive, free-form FM station in the same vein as 106.7 KPPC in Pasadena and 106.9 KMPX-FM in San Francisco. The station originally signed on in 1971. The Monterey Peninsula Herald reported that Cherie joined the staff in October 1973, as "a registered nurse with no broadcasting background." In May 1983 it flipped to country and the call letters changed...to KWST but Cherie was already long gone. Several of the staffers went on to work at KMBY, like Cherie.

Cherie moved to the Top-40 station 1240 KMBY-AM in 1975 and there she became “Cherie the Midnight Lady” where she worked overnights. One of her listeners was Sonny Melendez of KMPC. He invited her up to Los Angeles to audition on his show. The Billboard article confuses this story a bit but she did not get an offer from 710 KMPC-AM. But perhaps it gave her higher aspirations. When she was told that KFMB in San Diego was looking for a new female voice she flew down to do a live audition for B-100 Program Director Bobby Rich. Cherie became their first female DJ. [SOURCE]

100.7 KFMB-FM had only dropped it's Easy Listening format in 1975. In the late 1960s their slogan was"Music Only For A Woman." [I can't imagine actually saying that into a microphone.] Suffice it to say that it's Rock format was a huge change. KFMB was competing directly with 1170 KCBQ-AM. In 1975 the B100 original line up was Rob Landree, Dave Conley, Rocketman (aka Scott Wright), Willie B Goode, Jimi Fox, Gary Kelley, Kevin Anderson, Phil Flowers and Billy Martin. Terri Lynn was the news person and the only woman on the air staff. A year later Fox departed taking some staff with him and the playlist was reformulated with more Top-40. When Cherie was hired about then and the new line up was Gene Knight, Gary Kelley, Danny Wilde, Christopher Lance, Cherie Sannes, Jimmy Rogers, Glen McCartney and Uncle Fred Stemen. [SOURCE]

In the Fall 1977 Arbitron ratings, KFMB became the first FM station to be number 1 in a major market. At the time of that "Women Emerging" Billboard article in 1977, Cherie was doing a 2:00 - 6:00 weekday shift and a 7-11 shift on Saturdays. The article also made a point to say she was the oldest DJ on the station at 30 years old. So we know she was born around 1977 and is around 79 today. [The authors need to reveal this detail is how I the piece was written by a man.]

Less than a year later, in 1978 Cherie joined Brian Berne and Brother John Rydgren at 101.1 KRTH (K-Earth) in Los Angeles as their first female jock. R&R announced it in their December 8 issue [SOURCE] with one economical sentence: "Cherie Sannes has joined the staff at KRTH/Los Angeles from B100/San Diego." Their she worked nights and hosted Spotlight, a celebrity interview program. Air staff at the time included Shotgun Tom Kelley who also tenured at KFMB. She stayed with K-Earth for five years, her longest run at any one station. (Alex Cosper lists Cherie at KHJ in 1979 - 1982. This is because 101.1 KRTH was KHJ-FM from 1943–1972.) [SOURCE]

The peak of her popularity was probably at KRTH. Ed Harrison wrote a half-page feature on her for Billboard in June of 1981. In an interview quoted in that article she considered the importance of her role as a feminist trailblazer. she said:

"Things have changed today to a certain degree, and women deejays are much less of a novelty. My KLRB experience was an exciting opportunity to change attitudes about women disk jockeys. ... Five years ago, we had few female role models and therefore many women, including myself, found it frustrating, but rewarding, to be the so-called 'pioneers' in a traditionally male-dominated field..."
According to most sources, Cherie left KRTH in about 1982. The Carmel Pine Cone [SOURCE] describes her moving directly to "Power 106" KPWR but this is not exactly accurate. Omitted is her short tenure at KOST doing weekends. This is noted in the Dec 4th, 1982 issue of Billboard. Cherie also was at 105.9 before it was KPWR, when it was still KMGG (Magic 106). Billboard reports in February of 1983 that she was working weekends and performing additional duties as their promotion director.

Power 106 didn't exist until 1986 when KMGG flipped from traditional Top-40 to a very 80s dance-forward, almost proto-CHR format complete with with shock jocks. Their playlist concluded disco, dance, urban and Top-40 hits and their new calls were KPWR. The station is still KPWR today but Cherie left the station around that time, probably as part of a staffing shake up.

After KMGG Cherie left radio to work in healthcare management. She had been the first female DJ in two metros and at least 3 different stations. How does anyone follow up an iconic career like that? She became Cherie Stock when she remarried in 2008. Her husband Bob Stock was a former news anchor at KSBW-TV. She retired in 2009 and took up painting. Good for her. More here and here.

The Whistling Brakeman

2026-03-09T10:00:00.001-04:00

No, not the Singing Brakeman, that's Jimmie Rodgers. This is the lesser known Whistling Brakeman, George E. Nearpass III. Sources alternately give his middle name as Edward or Edwin. His gravestone just uses the initial. Nearpass was born March 5th, 1886 in Hart, MI. He really was a railroad brakeman. reputedly, he began working for the Pennsylvania railroad in 1900 as a newsboy at the age of 12. There's a little family information here.

Overall, there isn't much information online for Nearpass. The earliest print reference I've found to Nearpass is in a 1925 issue of Traffic World, a railway journal. It reports as follows:

"The entertainment features were provided by an orchestra from Plymouth, Ind., the Broadway Quartet, composed of Pennsylvania employees in the Pittsburgh office, and George E. Nearpass, the “whistling brakeman,’ an employee of the Pennsylvania at Butler, Ind. "

The earliest radio appearance that I found documented was in a 1928 issue of Railway Age. It describes George performing on 720 WCCO-AM in St. Paul, MN on October 31st. The station was only 3 years old at the time, and had only change calls from WLAG a year earlier. Two years later it would join the NBC Red network.

I found a promotional postcard for "Mr. Geo. E. Nearpass." It's stamped KFNF, and date stamped from April of 1929. The recipient is in Kansas City, MO. This was the original 920 KFNF-AM in Shenandoah, IA and owned by the Henry Field Seed Co. It signed on in 1924. The stamped call letters suggest they were stamped for the different appearances and the same post cards shipped from each. There are some which are not stamped at all. More here and here.

In addition to the radio performances they are even more dinner performances, conventions, banquets, and other small venues. One 1930 newspaper article described him as a vaudeville entertainer which is very apt. Some articles describe him as being able to whistle three tones at the same time, impossibly imitating a banjo while playing air banjo. [There's a phrase I never thought I'd write.]

The Indianapolis Times of April 1929 describes one of these appearances.

"George E. Nearpass, 1429 East Vermont Street, known as “The Whistling Brakeman,” who recently has returned from a twenty-state radio broadcasting tour, will appear at the April dinner of the John H Holliday Jr. post, American Legion, at the First Presbyterian church, Tuesday evening.

Nearpass, who is a Pennsylvania brakeman between Indianapolis and South Bend, when he is not on broadcasting trips, has been heard over WLW, WLS, KDKA and other big stations, in his original monologue, “A Trip on the Punkin Vine Limited."

In 1930 The Railroad Brakemans' Journal published a short bio which confirmed that Nearpass was employed as a regular brakeman on a daily passenger run between Indianapolis and South Bend. It further explains that he has broadcast from nearly fifty radio stations, listing off KDKA, WLW, WCCO, WSB and WLS. But it also notes that he gained the most attention through a monologue "A Trip on the Punkin' Vine Limited." It's exact contents may be lost to time but we know from news articles that the monologue describes a real train line in Indiana which operated until 1980. [SOURCE]

Another promo postcard from 1924 puts Nearpass on KDKA at 8:30 PM doing barnyard imitations. This may be the Punkin' Vine Ltd. There are more sources that corroborate this. A 1930 issue of the Rushville Republican does explain it's contents:

"In taking his listeners on a "Trip on the Punkin Vine Limited" George describes his daily work on this train loading and unloading pigs, chickens, cows, caves, and what-not in and out of the express car. Nearpass makes with his mouth all the various noises in the car as he hustles the express."

By all appearances his radio career was short, perhaps just 6 years. But his railroad career continued for decades more. A 1947 issue of the Railroad Trainman reported that George had retired from his work on the railroad. He would have been about 61 at the time. He died September 10th, 1963. His son, George Nearpass IV, also went to work for the railroad.

It's worth noting there were more Whistling Brakemen over the years. The most well known was a Canadian man in named Roy Thoreson. [SOURCE] According to one talent guide he performed on the Tonight Show. He seems to have been active from about 1980 to 1995.He was a regular on the Calgary Stampede, a rodeo. In 1993 he even met with then president of the soviet union, Mikail Gorbechev. He died in 2015.

Kresge 1931 Catalog

2026-03-02T10:19:00.001-05:00

The rabbit hole goes deep indeed. In my personal archive I have only one of the S.S. Kresge Radio catalogs and this one is from 1931-1932. It runs 32 pages deep, chock full of resistors, batteries and tubes. You won't find the word capacitor in here. It's too early. They're still generally called condensers, mostly Mershon and Aerovox, a few from Potter and Muter. There are just two models made by Eureka I'm unfamiliar with. I do appreciate that there is no safety warning whatsoever. Anything over about 100v can do you harm and these go up to 2,000 v.

By 1931 we were growing out of the hobbyist era. Instead of lists and crude components there are now full branded kits for sale by Pilot and Philmore. Some of these kits have just 2 tubes which puts things in perspective. There is still some assembly required but the most expensive is $34.50. In 2026 dollars that's $738.24. But inflation in 2026 was so bad that numbers don't mean anything anymore.

You can download the whole catalog
HERE

Kmart Radios

2026-02-23T08:50:00.015-05:00

1924 catalog

Kmart was originally founded in 1899 as the S. S. Kresge Corporation. (Sebastian Spering Kresge) The use of the brand name "Kmart" only began in 1962, but they kept using the Kresge name on retail stores until 1987. At it's peak in 1994 Kmart had 2,486 stores globally, making it the largest retailers in the world at that time. But 1994 was already 4 years into it's first major bankruptcy. Their decline continued for decades and as of 2026, there are only three remaining Kmart locations in the world. You can imagine that with a 125 year long history, Kmart sold a lot of radios. But most antique radio journals steer clear. The only entry I found was a someone selling reprints of the 1929 Kresge radio catalog, and of course the many works of Don Kresge at the Alabama Historical Radio Society. [LINK]

The earliest radio the Radio Museum lists with a Kmart-related brand is the Kres-Tone Six Transistor radio [SOURCE]. (Kres is short for Kresge). It's a nice 1950s-style plastic chassis table radio. The earliest Kres-tone branded radio I am aware of is the 75-1 from 1948 which is a wooden table radio. Unhelpfully, the US patent office lists the first use of the Kres-tone trademark to be in 1957. So that was either filed very late, or the one below is a fraud. (I am assuming the former.)

radioatticarchives.com

The chassis is in a somewhat less ornate, art deco style similar to the RCA sets of the era. For those big wooden radios, some of which were basically furniture, Kresge even sold their own Kresge Household Polish. It specifically said on the label "Cleans and polishes all radios, furniture & autos." But in the 1920s and 1930s their advertising outside of the catalog was scant. Except for those catalogs, Kresge appears in no publications I can find; except for their daily stock price in the New York Times, and that only prior to Black Thursday.

From surviving paper catalogs we know that Kresge was selling radios as early as 1924. But that 1924 catalog was mostly kits. These were parts and parts lists with instructions for hobbyists to assemble a Reinartz detector receiving set. That receiver design is named for John L. Reinartz. He started his own eponymous company and began making and selling 1-tube regenerative receivers. The name Reinartz remained attached to CW receivers through the 1920s even as the designs grew more complex and added more tubes. But early experimental stations like 5EK did use those early Reinartz receivers.

That 1924 Kresge's Radio Catalogue and Buyers Guide is definitely early. It's 31 pages long and doesn't even includes the tubes... though it did have tube sockets. I guess you were on your own to source the vacuum tubes. It's also notable that the radios are not branded and the questions arise: When did Kresge start selling branded radios and when did they start selling Kmart branded Radios? Do those dates overlap? When did it end? I can confirm that hobbyist mindset continues at Kresge through the 1929 catalog. We also know that no Kmart branded radio can exist before about 1962. So that's our time brackets.

Kmart sold many different branded transistor radios over the years, mostly portables. The site plasticradio.com has a few images. [SOURCE] I think we're all very familiar with the vintage Sears and Radioshack radios. There are legions of them. But I think Kmart is under appreciated. Take for example this little AM transistor radio. It's nice and compact, about 3" x 2.5" and less than an inch thick. That's less than half the size of my 1950s Candle 6 transistor. There is even a 1/8th headphone jack in the back. It's adorable.

This one [above] has a clear number in the middle of the CPB. It looks like 6OIA, or maybe 601A... unless that's a G and not a 6. Maybe it's not so clear. The Tuning capacitor is stamped 2A-20H1 and below that 5213. I tried to parse it but none of these seem to be date codes. This particular 1960s Kmart Radio also came in green and yellow. It's more sleek than the boxy leatherette portables carry that brand name. I've also seen that pocket model with the Emperor logo on them. The Hong Kong manufacturer clearly found another buyer. All of these models proudly bear a "Made in Hong Kong" origin imprint.

But that's not the end of the Kmart radios. In the 1960s there dual-branded portable AM/FM radios appeared. The best example I found was a series with the model numbers: 30-01, 31-60, 31-42, 30-30, 31-88, 30-62, 31-64 and 30-50. The front has a Kmart logo embossed on the surface, usually painted silver. and on the back is a paper label "S.S. Kresge Company." They all have similar materials, finishes color schemes and vary only in size and features. The 31-88 for example is a multi-band, AM/FM/AIR/Police/Weather radio. From that set the 30-02 and the 30-50 are beige instead of brown. I think it's the earlier model line.

I also found models of walkie-talkies with the dual brand, models 32-61 and 32-65 clearly from the same 1960s series. It is tempting to think that the last two digits are the year, but that does not line up chronologically. But they provide a clue as to the end of the dual brand because the next set of walkie-talkies from the 1970s is model 06-32-67 and instead of S.S. Kresge on the paper label it reads "Kmart Corporation." Luckily those have the manufacturers date stamped on the back March 1978. Also from this clearly transitional era I found a portable AM/FM Cassette recorder, model 6-33-56. Despite the numbering is is still labeled S.S. Kresge Co. So it appears that the Kresge brand was retired from radios about 10 years before the end of the retail signage.

1979 Kmart circular

By 1980, table radios were basically extinct at retail. So what we have left are car radios and different sizes of portables. How much longer did Kmart "make" radios? Those Kmart Corporation radios like the 06-31-51 and the 6-33-56 have a continuity of design which put them all in the late 70s. But there was at least one more model line. In the 80s I found the 06-44-10 which looks distinctly like a new line and new design. It's minimalist silver chassis looks vaguely 90s and eschews the ornate designs of the prior lines. This was probably their final line as the bankruptcies quickly followed.

Find That Zenith

2026-02-16T10:00:00.001-05:00

I do like it when I find a radio with identifiable presets. It means we get to play a game I call Find That Radio. It also helps that this Zenith is gorgeous, though I think it's been refinished. This looks like someone stripped it and put on a thick coat of modern polyurethane. Looks good though, nice job. It's a model 5S319 made in 1939. [SOURCE] Zenith made a few Art Deco models mostly in the late 1930s and early 1940s: 5S126, 5S218, 7S323, 7SC33R, 6R631, 6S632 and the 5F233 which this one also resembles.

The call signs on the 5 preset buttons are WJZ, WORK, WLW, WCAU and WGR. The WJZ-AM of today is on 1300 in Baltimore as it has been since 2008. But this is definitely the earlier WJZ. The original WJZ was out of Newark from 1921 - 1923 on 833 kHz. Based on the age of the radio, 1940s this is the WJZ in New York City that operated from 1923 - 1953 on 660 kHz. It's a 30-year window of time, but we can narrow that down I think.

1000 WORK-AM was a station in York, PA. They signed on March 17, 1932. After NARBA in 1941 they moved to 1350. They kept the calls until 1973 which narrows our time frame significantly on the bottom end. Despite using the call letters for over 40 years there is very little written about WORK. Most of what you will find focuses on Shorty Fincher and his Prairie Pals. This 1,000 watt station would have been mostly a local or regional station even in 1940.

Station WLW began as experimental station 8XAA around 1921. That start date is somewhat debated. More here. Putting that aside, WLW became WLW in March,1922 and operated on 833 kHz. It moved to 970 in 1923, then 710 where it stayed until 1927 when it made the move to 700 kHz where it remains today. This completely envelops the time frame and adds little to the story. Except for adding a pin to the map in Cincinnati, OH.

This WCAU is not the 98.1 WCAU-FM but the AM station which began broadcasting in 1922. It operated as WCAU from 1922–1990, almost 70 years. The frequency would have been 1170 when this radio was first plugged in. It was probably listened to before and after WCAU both the AM and FM sides were sold to The Philadelphia Record in 1946. After 1990 it became WOGL, then WGMP and is today WPTS, a news-talker on 1210.

The last station on the list is 550 WGR-AM in Buffalo, NY today. There is no debate on the frequency, they have been on 550 since 1928. It's interesting that the frequencies hop back and forth and aren't in any particular order on the presets. This 5,000 watt station would have been audible for hundreds of miles back in 1940, whereas WLW at 50,000 watts would have had it's frequency to itself across the whole east coast and been heard clear across the Mississippi river.

Looking at the pins on a map I think the radio was East of Pittsburgh, PA but north of Baltimore, MD. There are just no local station in these presets except for WORK. If it was in a major city we might see local calls from those cities like WBAL or even WKBO if it was in Harrisburg. This really has to be in some reasonable distance from York, PA probably in a square between York, Hagerstown, Lancaster and Reading. Strangely I found this radio in Georgia.

Koala vs. KSDT

2026-02-08T19:09:00.003-05:00

KSDT is still on air today. But the about section of their website lists only current staff names, no history whatsoever. The 2008 website was the same way. But the station does have history. It goes back decades. The best secondary source on those early years is the UC Guardian. [SOURCE] It describes the earliest set up in 1968, an old military building made out of corrugated steel. They ran carrier current over the university’s electrical system on 540 AM. The Guardian cites the true start in 1967

"According to these accounts, KSDT originated in 1967 in a Pacific Beach garage, from where a group of students broadcasted tunes using a low power signal. With the help of then Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Robert Topolovac, KSDT founders Don Bright and Jon Collins were awarded funding to establish a college radio station on UCSD. "

I am pleased to report we have a print reference at least as early as 1971. The Underground Guide to the College of Your Choice describes KSDT as "dynamite like an FM rock station".

KSDT is unusual in that there is a decent print record of their activity from at least the mid 1980s through today. Typically there are obvious gaps, or newspaper stories about re-starting the station. This one just has a short gap in the early 80s. It's also notable that the call letters never changed.

In February of 1974, KSDT appears in the "What's Happening" section of Billboard as a College chart reporter. It reads "KSDT-CAFM U. of California, San Diego at La Jolla, Linda Clark." No frequency is given. The most evidence we have for continuous operation is in CMJ from the mid 1980s through the 1990s. There are too many phone numbers.

In a CMJ chart from April 1984 a very fake sounding MD name Taarson Homard accompanies a top 30 which lists it as CAFM but at 95.7 so they may have moved to a leaky PM operation in that era. 619-452-3673.

In 1989 A top 30 submitted by Kicky Kia. The book Gigging also includes the station that year, but only with generic contact info still using the 3673 phone number.

1994 a metal chart issue, Jerry Radcocg phone number is (619) 534-4225.

1995 a Top 30 with two MDs: Michael Hu/Brent Turne, still 4225

In 1996 the MD is Brent Turner, solo this time, and he cranked out a few Top 30 charts.

In 1997 KSDT appears again in reporting Loud rock chart and Beatbox but not Top 30. (Beatbox was a predecessor to the RPM chart) The metal director is still Jerry Radcocg.

In 2002 MD Bryan Brick started reporting a top 30, and a new phone number shows up: 619-534-0479.

In 2011 KSDT is listed in the CMJ directory

The late 1980s look very active. They even appear in Maximum Rock N Roll in 1989. Apparently they were selling a compilation cassette: "I hear College Puke." It's very rare. [SOURCE] I want this tape so bad. It's actually one of 6 releases recorded at the station, the first and last of which both feature the punk band Sub Society. More here.

In 1990 and 1992 they again in MRNR, plugs for the shows "Hardcore Punk Etc.," "Kids on Coffee" and "Energy Control" in scene reports. It makes the connection that Chris Valle in Sub Society hosted that program. Also in 1992 they are references in Flipside magazine which is notable because it describes the broadcast situation for them and KSD. It's highly unusual but they may have been available on local CATV off campus.

"...there [are] two 24 hour alternative radio stations. KSDT on the campus of UCSD (95.7) and KCR onthe campus of SDSU (sorry, don't know the dial #). Unfortunately, both are on cable radio, so you must have a cable hookup on your stereo to receive these. Cox and Southwestern have recently changed their policy and do not charge any monthly fee to get your cable radio"

The 2000 version of the KSDT website confirms the usual local CATV arrangement. But it also lists both the AM and FM channels. It does appear all four were active at the same time.

SRTV Triton Channel 18 - SAP channel
Cox Southwestern Cable Music Choice Channel 41

Another 1992 highlight for KSDT is their inclusion in the Book Your Own Fucking Life which every band should own. It instructs the band to call Adam Eisemberg. The 2000 edition names Daniel Najera. In 1999 the KSTD call letters appear in an issue of the USCD underground newspaper named Koala and I don't even know what to say about this. It is one of the stranger things I've ever found googling call letters. In 2001 Koala thanks Pete from KSDT. They also appear in the CMJ directory that year. It appears again in 2002 minus the Koala dildo thing. It is not the only time Koala deliberately misspelled the call sign.

That is not a typo, that's personal - Koala March 2008

Around 2017 They are referred to in a poetry book Voices Bright Flags with the mention of a poetry podcast on KSDT radio. This is a frequent trajectory for carrier current stations. If they last into the 80s they usually attempt an FM conversion. If they survive that we usually see podcasts after 2010. Jen at Radio Survivor visited the station in 2019. [SOURCE] That article mentions the stations 50+ year history, by my math their 60th anniversary is next year!

Disambiguation:

From 1999 to 2006 there was a 1320 KSDT-AM in Hemet, California. It was owned by Lazer Broadcasting, and the format was "Pure Gold, rock and roll", which seemed tired at the time but I'd take it back today.
The call sign KSDT also appears in reports about the Ryukyu Islands. This is always 780 KSDT-AM in Okinawa. This is an interesting station, just not one in La Jolla.

Rev. Jack L. Neville on KVOO

2026-01-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

On the inside cover the copyright reads 1934 by Thoro Harris. That name is probably better known than Rev. Jack L. Neville or W. Fred Henry. But in tiny print at the top it reads "compiled by Thoro Harris" making the connection somewhat more clear. [SOURCE]

Harris lived from 1874 to 1955 and has been described as one of the most prolific hymn writers of the early twentieth century. He wrote literally hundreds of hymns. He was born in Washington D.C. and lived most of his adult life in Boston, MA. He was a musician and theologian but not a radioman. His connection to radio was purely through other musicians performing his works, and the one hymnal which gives the impression that he may have had something do to with the publication of a radio hymnal. There may be others, but this is the first I've found.

When Jack L. Neville died in Rancho Cucamonga, CA at the age of 81 in 2005 his obituary said nothing about his time in radio, only that he was a pastor. But we can derive some dates from his birthday. "A Pastor for 50 years, he was born on August 10, 1923 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and was a Rancho Cucamonga resident for the past 11 years. He was a Veteran of the United States Army, serving in World War II." He would have been 11 years old when that hymnal was published. So though it does not mention it, that hymnal documents a child preacher, something which was a novelty and even somewhat trendy in the 1930s. Today it'd be considered child abuse.

Neville was later known as the "Flying Parson of the Panhandle Church of the Air" and broadcast many of his revivals on his radio program from Station KGRS. A March 1938 issue of Motion Picture Daily tells us that he just left a news editor role at KVOO and "opened a series of broadcasts over KSO." Neville was one of numerous preachers to use the nickname "Flying Parson."

What makes it odd is the connection to 1170 KVOO-AM, which is in Tulsa, OK; 1,500 miles away. KVOO was founded by E. H. Rollestone and first signed on the air on June 23, 1926. (Rollestone also founded KFRU in Bristow.) At the time, it operated at 1,000 watts transmitting from Bristow, OK. Rollestone also founded KFRU in Bristow. KVOO didn't move to Tulsa until 1927 following a partial buy out by William G. Skelly, who later bought the station outright. So as you think of 1934, KVOO was relatively new in town at the time and actually younger than Mr. Neville.

W. Fred Henry at piano with (L-R) Etta, Virginia and Nevin Henry at KVOO

W. Fred Henry is a whole different character. The date on the image above is unknown, but assumed to be 1930s. The IPFHC has multiple images of him. the earliest is assumed to be from the 1920s here. There is another here with the note "a few months before Nevin was killed. The location given is in Florida. There is another image of him here from 1972. Other images are in Minnesota, Arkansas, Michigan, and Idaho. Only one image, from 1963 is in color. Mr. Henry appears to have been a traveling revivalist. He's often pictures with pianos and accordions and usually also a trombone indicating he's a multi instrumentalist. He appears in short references in a few regional periodicals, most referring to Tulsa or KVOO indicating some longer term connection. There are none mentions or images of him with Jack Neville, which indicate their connection was short-lived.

DJ DB Cooper

2026-01-19T10:00:00.054-05:00

Valley Times Newspaper 12/24/64

If you spend enough time on radio boards you will encounter quiet questions about Jim Wood, of 870 KIEV-AM. The station was located in the Glenwood Hotel and only moved to 870 from 850 in 1934. Woods wasn't a big name. Really none of those names are. Calcote put out a couple country records. At KIEV the big names were Dick Whittinghill and Don Rickles but that was in the late 1940s. (More here) In their country music era reputedly KIEV shared staff and programming with KWOW in Pomona. References are hard to find. Jim Wood was there in 1964 for certain. Reputedly Jim Woods had two adopted sons, Frank and Michael. His father owned Woods Mortuary. Maybe that's the wrong Woods. There were at least six identifiable Jim Woods' in radioland in the 1960s, and for the man in question, Jim Wood was only his on-air name. His real name was Ralph James Silkwood.

He is not the more famous Jim Woods aka "Big" Jim Wood aka "The Vanilla Gorilla", who's baritone voice hit big at KRLA and KROQ. That Jim Woods also spent time at WSPD, KILT, WIBG and even XPRS. [SOURCE] [SOURCE]. Ditto, this isn't the Jim Woods at KPOL and KZLA who later worked at Fan Club Management Services, nor the one at Midwest Broadcasting (KDMA etc) in 1960. I also doubt that he's the Jim Wood from WJR and WWJ in the late 1950s, nor the Jim Wood from KRAK-AM/FM in Stockton, CA. (That Jim Wood was the alias of Jim Smallwood.) There are actually even more Jim Woods' in the record. For some reason that name is very common in radioland in the late 1950s and it complicates the story.

Our Jim Wood is most notable for being a suspect in the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 on on November 24, 1971 under the name D.B. Cooper. Without that chance intersection he would be far more obscure. It would be prudent to point out now that the FBI eliminated him as a suspect. But they also never caught anyone...

There were literally hundreds of suspects. But only one of them was a DJ: Ralph J. Silkwood. His best known show was on 870 KIEV-AM in Los Angeles. The conspiracy folks often report that he was also a DJ in Portland, OR but the call letters are never mentioned. It turns out he was much more than a DJ and there are several FCC dockets confirming the details. In 1960, Broadcasting magazine reported that Ralph J. Silkwood filed an application to operate on 900 kHz at 1,000 watts as Jefferson Country Broadcasting in Kalamath Falls. That application never went anywhere because of a man named Hansen.

In 1964, Ralph J. Silkwood tried to transfer his ownership share in Medford, Broadcasters, Inc. to W.H. Hansen. At the time Medford Broadcasting owned 1300 KDOV-AM Medford, OR; 570 KCNO-AM Alturas, CA; and a CP on 93.7, also in Medford. But the FCC had a problem with W.H. Hansen, and to a lesser extent his son Robert. For their part the Hansens' had some messy paperwork. It was unclear who owned what. Contracts had not been filed with the FCC and the paperwork they did file was not accurate. They also filed conflicting CPs for KDAD in Weed, CA under the ownership of Shasta Cascade Broadcasting; co-owner of KWSD. W.H. Hansen had not disclosed his ownership of KCNO, leaving Robert in hot water. The FCC did not like this at all. [SOURCE] While Silkwood was innocent of the airline hijacking, there was something very shady about KDOV.

"The Shasta Petition supported by an affidavit of personal knowledge, alleges misrepresentations, undisclosed ownership, lack of candor and violations of our reporting rules at KDAD, Weed, Calif., by both the permittee of record, Jay C. Lemire, and W. H. Hansen, while he was a proposed assignee. Again, information before the Commission tends to support these allegations, not only against W. H. Hansen-Lemire at KDAD,, but also against W. H. Hansen at Stations KDOV, Medford, Oreg.,. and KCNO, Alturas, Calif."

Silkwood had only bought his 50% share of the station station from K.C. Laurence in 1958. It is not a coincidence that the tower collapsed in September of that year. The problem being that Laurance only owned 62.5 shares Hansen scammed everyone. Laurance only owned an option to buy the other 62.5 shares from Hansen. In court documents Hansen refers to Silkwood as "Jim Silkwood. The same document discloses that Hansen also owned shares in KDAN and KBOY. Silkwood spent 8 years trying to be rid of the albatross he had only bought with $5,000 Hansen "gave" him. [SOURCE]

The transfer of KDOV was dismissed as moot in 1972 by the commission indicating that something else had resolved the ownership question. The 1973 issue of the Broadcasting yearbook reveals that the station was deleted. The KDOV call letters had reappeared on 1350 in Ashland, OR operated by Faith Tabernacle, that station still exists today, albeit from Phoenix, OR as a sports talker. In 1959 The Medford Mail Tribune tells us one more thing about Silkwood and KDOV:

"Buddy Knox, western and rock and roll artist, and the Rhythm Orchids will perform from 9 to 1 o'clock tonight at Dreamland ballroom. Knox, six-foot vocalist who was born in Happy, Texas, and the musical group began their recording career with "Party Doll." Jim Silkwood, of radio station KDOV, is promoting the local dance and program."

(Buddy Knox was a passable Buddy Holly clone. More here.) The Dreamland Ballroom was located on E. Main Street in Medford, upstairs from the Isis movie theater. More here. What's relevant about this is that it indicates KDOV was playing rock n' roll in 1959, and that Silkwood was playing an active part in operating the station, as a DJ and promoter. It also confirms Hansen's contention that Silkwood at least sometimes went by his middle name. But there the trail ends. While Hansen continued to get in legal trouble regularly, Silkwood becomes a ghost.

But there is one more, very strange Robert Silkwood incident to report. Reported in the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal of July 1963 a man by that name, with the alias E. Babeaux. He managed to have a series of fits, each at a bus station, and each time getting first aid, then being rushed to a hospital. He did this twice in San Francisco, and once in Santa Rosa. He may have had Munchausen syndrome, or maybe he just liked ambulance rides.

The Bone Fone

2026-01-05T10:00:00.011-05:00

The Bone Fone makes for a cautionary tale in radio marketing. While bone-conduction headphones have a loyal following today, they have a predecessor which didn't catch on as well. William J. Hass patented the original design (US4070553A) in 1977. Hass wasn't a marketing guy. He was an actual engineer from Illinois-Chicago College of Engineering, through he later pubished a coupel books on finance and private equity. He had an intermediate design which he filed in December of 1979 (USD261511) Figure one is described as "...a perspective view of my new design" in that patent he also described it as a "ornamental design for a radio receiver." He wasn't patenting the technology, only the product design.

Hass filed his third patent (USD268675S) for the Bone Fone November of 1980, a year after he began selling it. But I need to point out that the IP stood on shaky ground. Bone conduction was discovered in the 15th century and was written about in detail by physician Jean Marc Gaspard Itard in the 1820s. In the 20th century Hugo Gernsback created a type of bone conduction hearing aid called the Osophone (US1521287) which required biting down onto a rubber "stop cushion." He he later refined this into the Phonosone [SOURCE] which awkwardly clamped to the forehead like someone wearing their headphones defiantly wrong. It's hard to say which, if any of these Hass drew on for the Bone Fone but three patents for bone anchored hearing aids were issued in 1977. [SOURCE] That roughly fits the timeline.

Radio Craft March 1934

So it came in 1979 that JS&A began direct marketing the Bone Fone. Joe Sugarman founded JS&A in 1971. It was a direct marketing business with healthy catalog sales. An October 1980 letter sent to dealers spelled out that the Bone Fone was going to be advertised in People, Time, Cosmopolitan, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Runners World and other national magazines. If you bought $546 of inventory he'd send you $42 of batteries and two "Ask me about my Bone Fone" T-shirts. I have never seen that shirt, and that sounds like a dangerous question to ask a stranger. The Neck Fone was trademarked in 1980. It's description was short "stereo sound unit for carrying on shoulders with electrical cord for coupling to stereo equipment." That sounds more like traditional bone conduction headphones.

I have examined the patents and all too many images of different Bone Fones and only ever seen two models: the BP-1 and the BP-1M. The latter is a AM-only version they marketed as "NUTS". It sold for $39.95 compared to the original AM/FM $69.95 model. It's kind of an interesting choice to go "AM-only" in 1980 but that was probably the last time anyone decided to do that. According to the ads there is also a "Neck Fone" which was only $34.95 back in 1981. [SOURCE] I have never found a picture or drawing of that model. Anyway the AM still had a conduction unit which let you tune the conductor between 5 and 16 kHz. It's tone switch only had a nigh and low setting.

All of these models were primarily sold mail order through print advertising by JS&A Group, Inc, lead by Joe Sugarman. They sold pocket calculators, electronic games, digital watches, sunglasses, and later got into Infomercials and even slots on QVC. JS&A sold over 100,000 Bone Fones. But according to an FTC document, they manufactured 30,000 of the AM model and only initially sold 60. They lowered the price but it appears that they had saturated the market with the stereo model.

The audience for the Bone Fone was finite. By 1982 DAK Industries was offloading the AM Bone Fone for $5 each with the purchase of a few blank 90 minute cassettes. Bone Fones also appear in overstock and liquidation type electronics sales ads as early as January of 1982. It was dead. In 1988 the Neck Phone trademark was cancelled for lack of a USPTO filing. By 1994 the Bone Fone was appearing in Collector's Guides, for novelty radios. They were going for about $35 then. You can pick one up used for about $50 today on eBay.

Bone Fone BP-1M "Nuts" packaging

In the spring of 1979 the FTC began an investigation of JS&A. They had racked up 33 consumer complaints via the BBB. These were about missing products, missing refunds, slow shipments, lost orders. Their catalog was missing some required language about warranties. Honestly it was pretty mundane stuff. Today that might seem like small potatoes, but it was at least notable in the early 1980s. It was enough that they issued a subpoena for the companies records. It was a simpler time, before virtually every transaction was structured to scam the consumer in some manner. Sugarman was both surprised and offended and he decided to fight rather than pay the fine. More here.

This escalated into a Senate Subcomittee hearing to which [SOURCE] Sugarman or associates close to him coordinated a letter-writing campaign with public advertisements in his defense. The committee even remarks on this in their records "A short time later, after further unsuccessful negotiations, rather than comply with the subpoena, JS&A took its case to the public through full-page newspaper advertisements and publication of a series of battle reports and other documents." He has chutzpah I'll say that. But his interest in concealing the records in and of itself is not an admission of guilt. It sure does look bad though.

I want one of these.

Instead of compromising JS&A raised the stakes and published a comic book called "The Monster That Eats Business" attacking the FTC. Sugarman was almost Trumpian in his disdain for law and order or government oversight of any kind. He was milking the same anti-government sentiment that Regan had ridden into office after the long recession of the late 1970s. (It's worth mentioning that Sugarman is Ex CIA and that there is a conspiracy theory out there that this was all theater.) By his own accounting Sugarman still ultimately paid 300k in legal fees and was fined 275k. His original suggested fine would only have been 100k. The implication is that raising a ruckus cost him about half a million dollars. More here.

The lawsuit probably had some modest deleterious affect on sales sales of the Bone Fone. While the radio did not figure prominently in the incident JS&A reports their annual sales dropped from 12M to 1.5M between 1979 and 1981. But that was not what killed the Bone Fone. The radio market in the 1970s was very different from that of the 1980s. The Bone Fone could have become the portable radio of choice, but that was not to be. Joseph Sugarman later wrote about it in an marketing text: "It was perfect timing until a product called the Walkman came out and killed our new product. Timing. It can kill a product or make it." Sony released the Walkman in March of 1979. The Walkman ultimately sold more than 250 million units worldwide.

The Bone Fone Corporation donated many records for the designs, drawings, correspondence etc to Auburn University in Alabama. [SOURCE] William Hass died in 2019. Joe Sugarman died in 2022.

Grandma Got Run Over by a DJ

2025-12-29T10:00:00.002-05:00

"Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" is a Christmas novelty song written by Randy Brooks. He's the nephew of comedian Foster Brooks. [More Here] According to Brooks, he came up with the idea for the song after seeing his "drunk" uncle in action. But later he also cited Merle Haggard as an influence. As you may know, Randy didn't record the tune. The bluegrass duo Elmo & Patsy actually recorded it a with his permission in Oakland, CA in 1978. Having seen them both play, I suspect Patsy plays guitar on the original. Elmo was a banjo man especially in the beginning.

Back in in 1979 Elmo & Patsy were playing clubs in the Bay area, but also small stages in Reno and Lake Tahoe. The surprise hit was a 98 cent 45 rpm single sold at pharmacies. They were selling it at shows. The single hit so big locally that the story made the AP wire and then into regional newspapers. The Victoria Daily Times literally quoted a Tower Records manager "It's hot. I've had to call back and order more. I'm sort of bewildered by the whole thing."

The song was originally self-released as a 45 in 1979 on their own Kim-Pat records, with the B-side titled "Christmas". Another pressing was on their own indie label, Oink. Soundwaves (NSD) re-released it in 1978 with distribution after airplay on KSFO unexpectedly sold 10,000 units. NSD sold another 250,000 copies. You can listen to that original, slightly more country version here. There were at least 6 different pressings of the original single in 1979 alone. A 1980 issue of City Arts Monthly reported:

"The novelty Christmas song sold 20,000 copies in three weeks , a surprise, I'm sure, to everyone involved . Originally released on the subsidiary Oink label, it is being reissued this year in England by Stiff records. Such good fortune doesn't happen often in the small record company business, but chance and circumstances do make it possible."

Patsy Trigg and Dr. Elmo Shropshire, were husband and wife back in 1979. But after the divorce in 1985 Elmo claimed that Patsy never sang on the record. This strikes me as dubious based on the vocal harmonies. It feels like a retcon; for a song he didn't write, Elmo takes a lot of the credit. But maybe it's a reference to the re-recording Elmo made in 2000 to get out from under the old 1984 Sony distribution deal. Possibly it was the 1982 re-recording they did after splitting from NSD and before the Sony deal. In an interview with Billboard [SOURCE] Elmo actually said "I re-recorded my own version of “Grandma.” We used all the same personnel. Even I can’t tell the difference." This is nonsense. I can definitely tell the difference between the original and later versions. But if there were 3 or 4 recordings... I'm not so sure. More here.

Elmo dressed in grandma drag for Sony

At 560 KSFO-AM it was either the Kim-Pat pressing or the Oink 45 that found its way into the hands of Gene Nelson. Patsy said it was an opera singer who performed at the Sonoma Harvestfest in '79 who gave it to Nelson. One article credits the unnamed session drummer from the 45. (That was probably Bob Scott.) Either way, Nelson played it on KSFO in December of 1979 and the requests never stopped coming. Nelson didn't get asked much about breaking the single. He once said "It was around the Christmas season and here's this record 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.' So I listened to it and I thought, 'Aw, yeah.' I just thought it was hilarious, so I played it," Purportedly other Bay area stations taped it off of KSFO. Dr. Demento even invited Elmo & Patsy to perform it on his popular radio show back when he was on KMET. More here.

What made "Grandma" big in the Bay area was the same thing that made it into a national sensation. It was huge with kids. This song is referenced in dozens of student newspapers in the early 1980s. And there were a number of DJ stunts which got it back into the press in the mid-to-late 1980s. There was a very well reported stunt in December of 1985, on 103.7 WLLR in Davenport, IA. There DJ Jack Daniels, egged on by listeners, played the song 27 times back-to-back during the morning slot before station management was able to stop him. It burned up about 3 and a half hours of airtime. Even Penthouse magazine covered the story. The Christmas Encyclopedia by William Crump reports a similar stunt:

"A disc jockey in Davenport, Iowa, once played "Grandma" 27 consecutive time on the air (after which he was fired,) while another in Godfrey, Illinois, played it 310 consecutive times and made the Guinness Book of World Records."

The latter claim I can't corroborate, and the "record" if real, is not recorded on the Guinness Book website. If the station was truly in Godfrey, IL there are only two possibilities. If it's an FM, it can only be WLCA. The Clark County Community College station. If it's AM, The only possibility is 1570 WBGZ-AM and only around 1988. I think that was also just a studio address. The city of license seems to have remained Alton, IL throughout that period. If you were curious, 310 spins of the 3 minute 24 second single would take a minimum of 17 hours and 34 minutes, excluding station IDs at the top of the hour...

In 1979, The Daily Colonialist called them "Sonoma county ranchers." Elmo was a Kentucky native, he first moved to California in 1967, after getting his DVM at Auburn University’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Alabama. In Sonora he opened his own small animal hospital. In some early interviews he refers to this as part time. He voiced numerous national radio spots and was a regular guest on KPIX's "Evening Magazine" television show. Trigg was a Tennessee native. After the divorce, Trigg taught at at Motlow College, worked as an auctioneer and worked full time as an on air DJ for 98.7/1580 WLIJ in Shelbyville, TN. She gave at talk at the Fayetteville Rotary club about the history of the song. [LINK]

But the most interesting thing that Patsy Trigg and Elmo Shropshire don't talk about in all these interviews and bios is their first bluegrass record. They released a traditional bluegrass LP in 1974 [SOURCE] and a second in 1980. [SOURCE] The former is quite collectible now. On the back cover are liner notes written by Mick Seeber who describes Pat & Elmo's origin as a group. Together they performed and hosted the Saturday afternoon program "The Great Bluegrass Experience" on KSAY with Mick Seeber as emcee. The program started in 1969 broadcasting live from a San Francisco club called The Orphanage. I have looked high and low for airchecks and found zilch.

Seeber later took the program, including Elmo & Patsy, to KNEW where it switched to nights 10:30 - 1:30 AM. I think that's when KSAY dropped their C&W format following the sale to James Gabbert in early 1974. This wasn't a standard country music program. Jerry Garcia also played the show, apparently with Old & in the Way. It's that early Grateful Dead connection which seems to have best survived today. From KNEW it was advertised as the only country station in the Bay which was true in that moment. But it's predecessor, Ray Elund's Bluegrass show on 94.1 KPFA "Pig in a Pen" was previously hosted by Al Knoth and Mick Seeber from 99.3 KRVE and continued through at least 1976. More here and here.

News and Reviews 2025

2025-12-22T10:00:00.055-05:00

2025 is the 20th anniversary of Arcane Radio Trivia. (That's MMXXV to you romanophiles.) In May of this year, the odometer rolled over 3,000 posts. It's a moment to reflect upon. I stopped writing new intros to this annual wrap up a few years ago, somewhat fixating on a sentence I willed into existence in the hazy final months of 2015... " it seems both impossible and inadvisable to have gone so far down the rabbit-hole." This blog began in April of 2005. As of this date, that works out to more than 3,025 posts.

Links to all 20 years of News & Reviews:

2025	2024	2023
2022	2021	2020
2019	2018	2017
2016	2015	2014
2013	2012	2011
2010	2009	2008
2007	2006	2005

Best Posts:
I started off 2023 with a story about WPIR, and later interviewed Jeffrey Riman who was music director back in the 1970s. I did a deep dive into the history of WLFR, Lake Fred radio and finally told the tale of why WTSR had to changed it's call letters. (Sorry about that) I also interviewed the host behind Riot Radio and found a kindred music geek. I'd like to thank Jay Allen for letting me quote him at length about inductive coupling, and Kyle Davis, the great nephew of Roy Parks who reached out to chat with me about The Skyline Boys. I still need to get back to some folks about more interviews; these articles don't write themselves.

Most Popular Posts:
On 11/23/25 some AI bot hit the blog pretty hard, about 75k hits in an afternoon from Singapore. But it didn't skew the numbers, it scraped everything equally. Anyway, the burden of time allows old posts accumulate more clicks than the new posts. So my most popular posts are always older posts, and really haven't changed in over a decade. Since 2009 the most traffic has gone to a post about Peter Tripp. This is what I call the post that Reddit built. It remains an aberration in my web-traffic with 96k+ hits. My 2007 post on the Career Academy of Famous Broadcasters continues to garner hits comments from it's legion of former students. But the articles within each year vary quite a lot. But the posts I enjoy writing the most are not always the ones that get read the most. Here's the top 5 for 2025:

Best Zine
Because of Slingshot I get to read a lot of Zines. I usually don't know what's coming in the mail, but I enjoy the mystery. This year I really liked The Scumrag and Fluke is always a great read of course. But that last issue of Restless Legs Inquirer was a revelation; that was underground lit at it's absolute finest. (I reviewed some of those in the last issue of Slingshot #141.) Radio Dies Screaming is Dynamite Hemorrhage back with a new improved name. Restless Legs and Jay Hinman unfortunately retired their zines this year. Next years list will inevitably be much different.

Radio Dies Screaming [LINK]
The Scumrag [LINK]
Restless Legs Inquirer [LINK]
Hiroshima Yeah [LINK]
Fluke [LINK]
Ear O' Corn [LINK]

Best Radio Show:
I've been back on the webcast wagon for a while. I do miss spinning the dial in new places and finding unexpected things. I did that west coast drive last year, maybe again next year.

WGXC [LINK]
WWNO [LINK]
WMSE [LINK]
Left of the Dial on WFIT [LINK]

Also on Louder Than War [LINK]

Operation XRAY on Tuff City Radio[LINK]
Dusty Finish on KCHUNG [LINK]
Downtuned Mag [LINK]
EVR East Village Radio [LINK]
Punks in the Garage on WAIF [LINK]

Top 10 Records of 2022
Usually my top 10 is comprised of full-length albums, and is format agnostic. My definition of "full-length" is utterly at my discretion. I was once a purist but ever more often, new bands don't seem to believe that LP stands for Long Play. Maybe because of the internet we are hearing bands earlier than we would have in the before time. Maybe our attention spans are irrevocably lost. But I can't abide by renting my music. (#boycottspotify) The world is changing and I don't think I'm going to change with it this time. The long play album has been a dominant audio medium for over half a century. Perhaps this is my hill to die on.

Mclusky - The world is still here and so are we [LINK]
Upchuck - Silver [LINK]
Chat Pile & Hayden Pedigo – In the Earth Again [LINK]
Melvins - Thunderball [LINK]
Pissed Jeans - Half Divorced [LINK]
Benzo Queen - No Gods No Masters No Sleeves [LINK]
The Austerity Program - Bible Songs 2 [LINK]
Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons - Live in Philadelphia [LINK]
Rats Department - Culture Shock [LINK]
V/A - Blow, the Jesus Lizard Tribute [LINK]

Notable mentions: Gaytheist - The Moustache Stays [LINK], Gans - Good for the Soul [LINK], Batwave - Klaus Warfare, Special Guest - SSRI [LINK], Blandad - Blonde Lobster [LINK], Piss - Three demos [LINK], O Zorn! - Vermillion Haze [LINK], Ash Barrett - Uncaged [LINK], Great Panic Roger - Anger Box [LINK], Inner City Witches - The Law Is Not in Heaven [LINK], Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out [LINK], Rak - Mood Killer [LINK], Common Wounds - All Night Blood [LINK], Waxx'd - self titled [LINK], The Armed - the Future is here... [LINK], Hundreds of AU - Life In Parallel [LINK], Winners - You Deserve This [LINK], Bleeth - Marionette [LINK], Empty Heaven - Swear [LINK]; Mares Of Thrace - The Loss [LINK], Die Spitz – Something to Consume, Florida Man – Plastique [LINK], Mutlee - Kick It Down, Dead Rat Society - Reflecting Light And Causing Chaos [LINK], Iran Iran - Dog Trammadol [LINK], Reds - The Truth of Impermanence [LINK], The Hammer Party - Classic American Plastic [LINK]

Epilogue: The reason I have the notable mentions is for my own future reference. The decision to pick a top 10 at a point in time is rakish and somewhat arbitrary. In ye olde radio days I made a top 30 every week. Ten seems inadequate. The albums that stick with me for the long run are very hard to predict. The Ike Reilly album Salesmen and Racists became one of my favorite rock albums of all times, but I barely noticed in 2001. Whereas a few years earlier, the Dalek album Negro Necro Nekros melted my face off immediately and was my entryway to hip-hop. It is only in retrospect that we can understand art separately from the scalar of time.

CMJ Scandal!

2025-12-15T12:26:00.119-05:00

I was reading the Wikipedia entry for CMJ and I have to share. Toward the end of CMJ's existence there was a scandal. Well not much of a scandal but that's what someone on Wikipedia called it. [SOURCE] So let's quote that passage, as it appears in Wikipedia:

Minor scandals followed. CMJ was accused of manipulating their charts in order to push their own compilation into the Top 200; however, CMJ claimed it was an accident and the compilation was only used as a placeholder. This resulted in CMJ changing the name of their New Music Report compilation from Certain Damage to On Air. In addition, the magazine was criticized at the time by many in the independent music community for focusing too much on major label acts, which resulted in Beggars Group pulling ads from the publication.

So this is partly accurate. It cites as a source, earshot-online [LINK] written by one Michael Barclay. Barclay is not a bad egg. He's a legit music journalist in Canada. (He has a substack now) Canadian college stations did report to the CMJ chart so Canada did have a horse in that race. I should disclose that Earshot also published it's own charts which is a conflict of interest, as far as criticizing other music charts but I can confirm what they reported is materially accurate.

First lets discuss how charts work. Hundreds of college radio music directors submitted top 30 reports to CMJ every week. They were mostly albums, though some singles were sprinkled in. This was by phone and fax back in the 80s, and gradually email submission became the dominant method by the mid-1990s. The problem is that Johnny can't count to 30. A surprising number of kids would submit charts of 29 records or fewer. They simply miscounted, or accidentally included duplicates. In the plain text environment of free Hotmail or Yahoo accounts it was easy to miss. Spell check and grammar check existed but the context-sensitive spell checkers that could detect a number sequence came later.

I personally knew the fellows who edited that chart. I won't name names, but in a well-intended effort to include more stations reports, i.e. net greater accuracy, they would insert the most recent Certain Damage compilation as a place-holder for the missing album. This was such a small number of corrections that they did not expect it to affect the top 200 report at all. The average week incorporated more than 1,500 charts per week, so it was a drop in the bucket. But then it did show up. Oops.

The reason some indie labels called foul, was that record labels had to pay to be included on the Certain Damage compilation. From the outside it looked kind of like payola. It wasn't, but some indie purists got indignant. I'm not picking on Beggars Banquet records. The source of the claim is un-cited, and if it happened I was unaware at the time. The Editor-in-Chief of CMJ, Kevin Boyce, wrote a nice apology letter with a full mea culpa, which was published in the March 10th 2003 issue of CMJ. [SOURCE]

“The decision to replace unverified albums with Certain Damage was a foolish one... of course, in retrospect, we should've picked a more benign placeholder. At the time it was our genuine belief that this was a temporary fix in advance of curing a larger internal technical issue.”

In the before time, when there were fewer chart reporters CMJ staff would sometimes send the top 30 back to you if it contained errors. I know this because it happened to me when I was the college kid who couldn't count to 30. But when there are 1,500 charts to collate —that is not a scalable process. The later online submission form put an end to the problem. No one, no matter how hungover, could submit partial reports anymore and no chart with unverifiable records would be accepted anymore.

This new verification process led to a second lesser scandal where real but obscure albums caused Top 30 charts to be rejected. That became the subject of the March 24th 2003 issue. [SOURCE] It was a classic over-correction error. (Earshot and CMJ describe a letter from CEO Bobby Haber addressing the issue, but the URL was not archived [LINK] and it appears to be lost)

But you may be wondering... how did a few dozen manual corrections skew the chart in the first place? Oh that's a thing even fewer people know. and since CMJ is no more, I think it is safe to share the thing that almost nobody knows... It starts with station weights.

Not all airplay is created equally. It is somewhat intuitive that airplay on a 10 watt station will generally be heard by fewer people than a 50,000 watt station. CMJ used station weights such that "big" stations charts were weighted more than "little" ones. It wasn't super scientific, but the basis was logical. Bigger markets, taller towers, more watts all added up to bigger station weights. NACC actually used a near identical set of weights. [SOURCE] A caveat before the next paragraph... this is from memory, decades later. It might not be perfect.

Anyway, every record promoter and record label had a list and the biggest weight was a 5 and the smallest was a 1. Not a huge scale but it all sounds pretty sensible so far right? That's the basis of the old CORE chart, just the airplay from the big stations: 4s and 5s. WRAS is the first 5 that comes to mind. I think KEXP, KCRW and WFMU were as well. (I wish I'd kept some of those reports.) All carrier current stations were 1s. Most stations didn't know about the weights at all, but the industry folks did, it was on all the tracking reports because that's critically important to know if you are trying to get a record to chart.

Here are 5 things you probably disn't know about the CMJ charts:

1. Station weights were not static. Industry folks could lobby for revisions to station weights. For example: I personally got CMJ to downgrade WYBC in New Haven, CT down from a 4 to a 1. They had been miss-assigned a weight based on the 3,000 watt 94.3 FM stick. But the actual reporting station was 1340 WYBC-AM with only 1,000 watts on a tower which was actually in West Haven. (Today they don't even have the AM stick, they're WYBCx. [LINK] Sorry/Not sorry.)

2. The station weights were not the actual station weights. The weights the promoters and label folks saw were actually mapped to another set of numbers. This was top secret. This was known inside CMJ to some, but considered the secret sauce of the chart so to speak. Most people did not know even inside the industry. What I remember is that a 1 was a 0.3, a 2 was a 1, a 3 was a 3 and a 4 was a 5. I think a 5 was actually a 7 or 8. My memory is a bit hazy; its been a few decades. Anyway with that kind of multiplier, you can see how even the #30 spot on a few "big" station top 30 charts might accidentally push a Certain Damage compilation onto the top 200 chart. Before you cry foul, station weighting and even more complex "momentum" formulas are standard practice in commercial charts and even in retail music sales numbers. Its always a secret formula. Don't hate the player, hate the data model.

3. There were fake records! As a prank, some promoters would ask stations to chart records which did not actually exist. Other promoters indignantly would report these ad hoc to the beleaguered editor of CMJ and they would be manually removed. This was most prevalent for the final chat of each year in December but it could happen any week of the year. In that 2003 article, CMJ called out fake records by Beach Whistle, Soccer Mom, Golden Showers and Prostate Dancer as examples. (I am leaving out the promoters names to protect the guilty.)

4. There were lots of fake Top 30 lists. Some promoters were extra dirty and reported fake top 30 charts impersonating real stations. This was surprisingly easy to do. There was no validation process with emailed charts. Every station with a subscription could report. So all you had to do was impersonate a college station who wasn't reporting... and there were many to choose from. Some had seasonal gaps, others just never reported for whatever reason.

5. Charting was mostly fake anyway. Most Top 30 reports in reality were popularity polls driven by free T-shirts, tickets and tchotchkes. It was generally not reflective of actual airplay. This was before monitoring services like RAM and Mediaguide offered data-driven alternatives and the industry largely embraced that when it came. Later, self-reported charts like Spinitron pushed college radio charts into unexpectedly egalitarian territory. I don't even know what they do now for charts. Do kids listen to the radio anymore?

Both Billboard and The Awl declared CMJ dead in 2016. It wasn't the first or the last time. [SOURCE] Vice Magazine declared CMJ dead in 2017. [SOURCE] The most recent reboot was an unexpected revival of the CMJ marathon in 2021. Their social media stopped updating after the event and the CMJ website is remains frozen in time. Ultimately the mergers, acquisitions and lawsuits probably did much more damage to the brand than any of the chart problems. More here, here and here.

You Can't Do Business With Hitler

2025-12-08T10:00:00.002-05:00

I have recently discovered an interesting sub-genre of WWII literature: Books about WWII published during WWII. The first I found was The Pocket Book of the War, edited by Quincy Howe, published in 1941 by Pocket Books. (It was published before WWII was even popularly known as WWII, that started in earnest a year later.) The second was another pocket book, pictured above, You Can't Do Business with Hitler, by Douglas Phillips Miller. Quickly I learned... it was also a radio program. Even some of the original scripts have survived, yellowed but intact. [LINK] [LINK]

The book was advertised heavily in both trade and popular periodicals, military and civilian publications: Life Magazine, the American Foreign Service Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, and many others. It was translated into French as Pas d'Affaires Avec Hitler and distributed in Canada, Europe, Asia and north Africa. One review of that edition notes "Since this edition takes cognizance of the events of 1941, the reader is impressed with a partial fulfillment of the author’s warning." In Spanish it was No Se Puede Comerciar Con Hitler and distributed to Argentina and Brazil. The OWI, Office of War Information, (a division of the Office for Emergency Management) had deep pockets.

The Daily Colonialist 01-26-1943

Douglas Miller had served as Commercial Attache to the American Embassy in Berlin for 15 years. He was a graduate of the University of Denver and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He worked in international trade and wrote dry market research which was published by the US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. His reports included barn burners like Budgets of Western European Countries, and Freight Forwarding in the United States and Abroad. But after his 1941 book Miller was no longer a random bureaucrat. He was the darling of the OWI and they helped promote his book and later produced his radio program. Miller was born in 1892, meaning he was 49 years old when his account of unethical Nazi business practices became a best seller. The book made the argument that the Nazis did not engage in fair trade, and would harm American business and our economy —and for that reason the US needed to abandon neutrality in WWII and fight Germany. In retrospect it's a strange angle to convince Americans to go to war. But it was just one piece of the greater propaganda effort. More here.

The 15-minute programs were transcribed on 16-inch discs that ran at 33 ⅓ RPM and each record carried two programs. The FREC (Federal radio Education Committee) loaned these to radio stations for free. the only caveats were that no station could have more than 4 discs at a time and keep them for no longer than 2 weeks. They were advertised in multiple FREC bulletins in 1942. According to the book This Fascinating Radio Business by Robert John Landry, the program was carried on 703 station at one point. [SOURCE] That claim was published in 1946 and is likely to be accurate as it is relatively contemporary. One OWI source claimed 790. Issues of the Movie and Radio Guide list all sorts of US and Canadian stations broadcasting the program, literally dozens in any given single issue: WAIM, WJAX, WCKY, WHYA, WIOD, WSOC, WLAK, WAIR, WRTF, WFBC, WRBL, WBT, WWNC, WCSC, WPTF, WCOS, WNYC, WTRY, WHAM, WORC, WKNE, WSYB, WRDO, WGAX, WWSR... the list goes on.

Every episode closes with the statement that it was "brought to you by the Radio Section of the Office for Emergency Management in Washington." The credits usually stated that the program was prepared and directed by Frank Telford. Miller acted as the narrator for every episode. Some episodes specify that they were written by Elwood Hoffman and directed by Telford. Some of the later episodes credit writing to Ben Kagan. The Frank Telford Papers reside in a special collection at The University of California, Los Angeles. It includes documents relevant to the program but also Chips, and Hawaii Five-O which he also wrote for.

Life Magazine January 26, 1942

Every episode of You Can't Do Business With Hitler opens with a German voice shouting the below dialog which fades in the last sentence and transitions with an ominous organ chord.

Meine Deutsche Volksgenossen-Maenner und Frauen. In diesen Schicksalsstunde zint wir von unbebeugsamen Sieges willen gefuellt. Der reichs adler flieght von Nordcap. Bis zim Griechenland und unseren Siegesreiche Truppen verfolgen

That translates to "My German compatriots—men and women. In this hour of destiny, we are filled with an unyielding will to win. The imperial eagle flies from the North Cape to Greece, and our victorious troops are pursuing the enemy." It's far from the most offensive thing Hitler might have said. But there are standards in radio. But I think the key part is Nordcap and Griechenland. that's Norway to Greece. It speaks to imperial ambitions that are contrary to free trade.

While the writers of each program are documented, the supporting case is largely unknown. A few short biographies reveal a few names. Adam Grzegorzewski was in the cast according to a short biography in The Polish Biographical Dictionary by Stanley Sokol. A set of OWI photographs of the program includes Abrasha Robofsky as the voice of Hitler. [SOURCE] Other images include, Robert Pollard, Ilona Killian, Col. Charles Ferris, Sam Lauder, Marian Harvey, Doris McWhirt, John Flynn, Virginia Moore. According to The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia by Isaac Landman, the actor Mark Schweid performed as well.

It's unusual in radio but most episodes also cite sources for some of their more scandalous claims. Those includes: France on Berlin Time by Thomas Kernan, by

According to the book Radio Goes to War by Gerd Horten, there were a total of 56 Episodes. I have not been able to corroborate that, nor does he cite a source. Despite the wealth of militaria in media, WWII propaganda radio programs are poorly documented. Today you can find scans of the original scripts for at least 34 episodes and audio for more than a dozen! At least 30 of those were further translated for use by the Foreign Language Division.Despite that I've only seen one transcription disc ever for sale.

Using the recordings and scripts online I collated a list of episodes by name, though some only from the front-sell or back-sell of an adjacent episode. Per the Jerome Cox Official War Publications list the first 16 episodes were all in circulation by June of 1942. The rest of the data is piecemeal and less certain. I also found a few titles in secondary sources but I could not confirm or sequence for these: The Nazi State of Matrimony, Education in the New Order and Origin of the Nazi Species. I've marked the "Drama" episodes with an asterisk because they appear multiple times with different episode numbers in odd sources; including this unattributed list which only partially matches the known scripts.

Episode #	Name
1	Heads They Win Tails We Lose
2	Broken Promises
3	No American Goods Wanted
4	Two For Me and One For You
5	Mass Murder
6	The Spoils of Europe
7	The Thousand Year Reich
8	The Living Dead
9	The Anti-Christ
10	The Pagan Gods
11	Swastikas Over Equator
12	Money Talks With A German Accent
13	Work or Die
14	The New Slavery
15	Women Versus Hitlerism
16	The German Mother
17	???
18	Attack From Within
19	The Sixth Column
20	Made In Berlin
21	Trial By Terror
22	The Case of Martin Neimoeller
23	Barbarians: Made to Order
24	They Sleep For Hitler
25	Suffer The Little Children
26	Hitler is My Conscience
27	No God For Poland
28	From The Cradle To The Grave
29	The Bloodbath of Europe
30	The Strategy of Starvation
31	The Beast of Burden
32	The Sell Out
??	Legalized Murder
??	Gestapo
??	The Enemy Within Our Shores
??	A Drama In German*
35	The Seeds of Destruction
36	Health by Decree
37	Herr Doktor is a Quack
??	A Drama in Italian*
??	A Drama in German*
43	Origin of the Nazi Species
44	Gestapo in Sheep's Clothing
47	The Third Horseman
48	Nazis in False Face

In June of 1942 the OWI expanded on the program and reworked the format to cover all Axis powers. That program "This is Your Enemy" ran until September 1943. It was more polished but merely expounded on the topics of You Can't Do Business With Hitler, though the latter ran concurrently for a year. Miller wrote another book Via Diplomatic Pouch published in 1944. It served as a more broad indictment of Hitlerism and fascism. None other than William L. Shirer wrote the introduction. But without the OWI, the book did not circulate as widely. He died in 1970.

Frank Telford produced the programs "Dear Adolf" with Elwood Hoffman writing, and "This Is Our Enemy" for the OWI. Both men had some success in the TV and radio after the war. Ben Kagan was hired away from the OWI in 1944 by NBC as a script writer. He later worked on "These Are Our Men", and published one script in The Jewish Veteran magazine. He also worked on a V-E day documentary in 1956. He later was involved in managing the Radio Writers Guild (RWG). The overwhelming take away is that none of these people, save perhaps Miller, was a spook. They just segued into normal broadcasting careers after the war.

The top of each script reads "Radio Bureau, Editorial Division, Office of War Information. It's was government funded propaganda. But looking back now, 83 years later it's easy to look past it. Every episode closing explained that it was "based on the experiences of Douglas Miller who was for fifteen years commercial attache to the American Embassy in Berlin." Then that it was "brought to you by the Radio Section of the Office for Emergency management in Washington." Modern propaganda is wildly more deceptive both in it's intent and its origin. This wartime program seems almost quaint by comparison.

As a propaganda piece, the efficacy of "You Can't Do Business With Hitler" remains mixed. While the public was ultimately swayed, big business took the Reichsmarks. There were many big corporations who very problematically did business with Hitler; notably Fred C. Koch through Winkler-Koch Engineering, Alcoa, Chase Bank, Dow Chemical, Ford, Prescott Bush through Union Banking Corporation (UBC), but also General Motors, IBM, and Standard Oil to name a few. [SOURCE] [SOURCE] [SOURCE].

Lil' Wally Radio Show

2025-12-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

Walter "Li'l Wally" had a lot of pseudonyms. He was also Wladyslaw E. Jagiello aka Mały Władziu and aka Mały Władzio. He became a band leader at 15 years old and quickly became a working musician. He assembled his own orchestra called the Lucky Harmony Boys. You probably gathered from the image above he played concertina and drums. He had started singing on stage at the age of 8 (Some sources say 10) for the Eddie Zima Orchestra so it seems like destiny.

There's something to be said about his "Chicago" style. Different books dance around the topic by describing it as a "peasant" or "rural" style of polka with extra emphasis on the drums. But it was also called a "honky" style because that's where the word honky comes from: working class Slavic people. T word does sometimes show up in the titles and lyrics and early ephemera. [SOURCE] Like rock n' roll, it was dance music from from the working class. This was a style of polka distinct from the more orchestral northern style.

Is that Agent 99?

Today Chicago has about 800,000 residents of Polish ancestry. So many Polish people immigrated to America that they created a pidgin called Pinglish, Polglish,Polglish or even Chicagowski. Slavic peoples began immigrating to America 1800s and worked in the industrial factories of the 19th century. Books like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle were written about the brutal conditions. So it shouldn't be shocking to read that Wally, born in 1930 to Polish immigrant parents, never went to high school. This was the great depression after all.

Instead, Jagiello founded his own record label in 1946, Amber Records, and had his first recording session that year still singing entirely in Polish. He didn't record anything in English until 1954. Polka was mostly popular with an ethnic Polish audience in Chicago who appreciated Jagiello's authenticity. Jagiello, for his part, was fully bilingual and performed English and Polish songs side by side in his sets. That Amber release is very rare. I've never even seen a picture of a copy. (No connection to the Denver-based 1968 Amber Records, or the 1950s Dallas-based AmBeR etc.)

In 1949 Jagiello signed to Columbia Records but he didn't like it. They released 8 songs but he disliked the sound of the recordings Columbia released, and he hated the loss of artistic control that came with working for the man. According to the book Immigration, Diversity, and Broadcasting in the United States by Vibert Cambridge Jagiello started his first radio show in 1950 at 1240 WCRW-AM. It aired on Mondays 5:00 - 5:30 PM. One source says he co-hosted that program with Chester A. Schafer. It looks like they had that show until about mid-1952. More here and here.

According to the book Polish Radio Broadcasting in the United States by Józef Migała he moved the show to 1490 WOPA-AM to run a full hour starting at 10:00 AM on Sundays. After just a few weeks it expanded to 3 hours. WCRW was only 100 watts and WOPA was 250, and only signed on in 1950. More than double the wattage and a nice new studio... this probably felt like an upgrade. WOPA also had an FM stick on 102.3. (I have not been able to confirm if he was simulcast on FM.)

A 1955 issue of broadcasting mentions Jagiello's program on WOPA. The "Happy Radio Program" was known in Polish as "wesoły program radiowy." Their description (below) of brokered ethnic programming and time-buys sounds like it's a foreign concept to them. That's because it was. In the early 1950s Polish and really most ethnic radio programming was quite unusual. The very first Polish radio program was probably Chet's Polka party on 1560 WTOD-AM in Toledo only a couple years earlier.

"Mr. Jagiello, a former union member, leads Little Wally's polka band, along with perhaps 10 other combos, plays dance halls and taverns. Their music is used for foreign language shows, through remote pick up by WOPA, Oak Park, a non-union station, on a paid-time basis. The musicians are not hired by that station. The bands buy time to advertise the places."

In 1956, his song, "I Wish I Was Single Again," hit the Top 40 charts. In 1951 he launched another label of his own, Jay Jay Records, the original address was 2425 South Kedzie Ave in Chicago. It was also the address for his recording studio, record pressing plant and short-lived second label: Banana records; that was circa 1957. Street numbering has changed but that location appears to be a motorcycle garage now.

Wally relocated his family to Miami around 1960. The street address NE 62nd St.; Miami, FL 33138 appears as the contact information for his label and recording studio as late as 1998. Jagiello bought the studio from Howard Warren in 1976 who was the original owner as Warren Studios going back to 1964. Paul Stanczyk, formerly of Belair Studios in Chicago oversaw the operation for decades. That address is now listed as Take-Off Records studio. I think the custom music staff metal work on the front door is original at least to Jagiello. [LINK] (The paint job is definitely new, and wow.) The Jay Jay label remained listed with a PO Box through the 2006 Billboard Buyers Guide.

Jay Jay Record & Publishing Co.
PO Box 41-4156, Miami Beach,
FL 33141, (305)758-0000, Fax:
(305) 758-0000
Pres./Owner: Walter E. Jagiello
VP/Promo: Jeanette A. Jagiello
Mktg: Dorothy Flannagan
Publicity: John Kozak
Labels: (Owned) Bonfire, Drum-Boy,
A Great Variety, Jay Jay, Polka-Tone
US Reps: Specialty Distributing Co.

During the '60s, Li'l Wally appeared three times on The Lawrence Welk Show, that's about as high-profile as polka gets. As the owner of Jay Jay he was quoted by Cashbox in 1961, complaining about the resistance among radio programmers to play Polka. It was and still largely is relegated to ethnic polish programs. Wally was booking tours, and playing concerts that attracted thousands, but couldn't get airtime outside a small number of polka programs. That's really what drove him to pay for airtime. More here.

“And yet, radio station disk jockeys, with few exceptions, practically refuse to expose polka music along the nation’s airwaves. The air exposure is sorely needed, as the average record purchaser makes his selections according to the suggestions offered by the deejay.”

A 1966 issue of Cashbox reported that since forming his Jay Jay label he had already cut over 50 albums and 200 singles. Another article that same year in Billboard reported that he sold the rights to some 200 albums to Premier Albums. But that same article confirms he will continue his Sunday three-hour broadcasts on Chicago stations 1240 WSBC-AM and 1300 WTAQ-AM. The 1993 book Passport's guide to Ethnic Chicago by Richard Lindberg lists another Jagiello program "Lil' Wally Radio Show" on 1450 WCEV-AM. He was living full time in Miami by 1970 so it's self-evident that he's prerecording his shows, probably at his own studios, and shipping out 1/4 tape reels or transcription discs. Hopefully that's in a family archive somewhere.

It's very difficult to find how long some of his polka radio programs ran. The book Polka Happiness by Charles Keil listed polka programs on only 7 Chicago radio stations in his 1992 book: WOPA, WTAQ, WSBC, WEDC, WJOB, WLOI, and WIMS and among the DJs lists Jagiello. That intimated to me that his program was still running on either WSBC and/or WTAQ that year. If that's the case, it had been running over 25 years. More here.

Over 4 decades Wally created a Chicago polka sound others emulated. In 1969, he and Frankie Yankovic were selected as the two charter members of the Polka Hall of Fame. [SOURCE] Most of his 1970s biographies claim that he sold millions of records and that he had 16 gold records. It's hard to confirm how much of that is true. But it's all very plausible. I read a comment that suggested he owned a bar in Miami in the 1970s. I could not confirm it, but it's certainly in his style. Jagiello died in 2006. By way of an epilogue, let me remind you that Jay Jay records is still operating. In 2009, the Polkaholics launched a polka rock opera "Wally" based on the life of our favorite Chicago polka pioneer. More here.

DJ Foster Brooks

2025-11-24T11:39:00.015-05:00

Foster Brooks died in 2001 at the age of 89. His talent has largely been forgotten as he spend the peak of his career type-cast into a role as a lush. Cultural attitudes toward alcoholism had changed by the 1980s such that it wasn't funny anymore. The same thing happened to Dean Martin. Brooks was was almost 70 at the time and it was late in life to re-make his image. But he still landed a reoccurring role on Mork & Mindy as Miles Sternhagen. The role was a manager at a TV station. With his background, it may have been an impersonation of someone from his own career. Brooks made do with these cameo appearances until finally retiring. Anyone born after the movie Dances with Wolves came out would likely have no idea who he was. More here.

Brooks was born in Louisville in 1912 and was one of seven brothers. His career started in radio, at WHAS-AM right there in Louisville at the age of 13 singing with his mother Edna. He remained primarily a singer at WHAS for years. The station was barely three years old at the time, having only been founded in 1922. The earliest record I have found of him at the station is from April of 1932. He would have been only 20 years old. "Foster Brooks and Jim Henry staff singers doing a prolog for Hayden Reads Organlog this week at Loew's State, Louisville." Then in September of that year another issue of Variety reports "Foster Brooks, WHAS baritone will m.c. at Seville Tavern, Louisville."

He later sang harmony with staff pianist Joe Pierson and by January 1937, he was announcing the Bulova watch time during station breaks. But this was not his first radio program. I found a 1934 issue of Variety which puts him on KSO in Des Moines, IA in 1934. It's just one sentence "Foster Brooks and Joe Plerson a new duo for KSO, Des Moines." Plerson was announcing at WQAM in Miami by March of 1935, so clearly the duo split. Plerson later landed at WFBM in 1946 and stayed at least until 1952. Brooks went back to Louisville by 1936. More here.

Breaking out of singing, Brooks did everything behind the mic he could. He announced softball games and had an oddball afternoon show called "Yellow Blank Salute" with Herbie Koch organ, Charles Hurta on violin and Brooks own recitations. Radio Daily describes it as the staff organist and a staff violinist and makes no mention of Brooks. It was sponsored by Western Union. Radio Dial confirms it was on the air from May 1937 through April of 1938. He was at WHAS for 7 years (total) and was even captain of their baseball team.

The WHAS studios were in the Courier-Journal newspaper building in downtown Louisville. Brooks became a staff announcer. In 1937 he raised his profile for his emergency reporting during a severe flood. This was broadcast on both WHAS and WSM-AM. [SOURCE] In one of the pictures he poses with equipment borrowed from WFIL-AM. Yes, that's Brooks up the pole. It looks like they were clowning, which they were, but Monroe died of an infection from an injury that occurred in that dirty water, he was a year younger than Brooks. He and Pete Monroe sent flood bulletins from Lock 41 on the Portland canal and ended up in Variety and Broadcasting magazine multiple quotes and pictures:

"At that time WHAS bulletins were spaced five minutes apart... the critical stages of the rescue work had passed. An announcer (Pete Monroe) or (Foster Brooks) said "WSM, this is WHAS calling... we will keep our transmitter open to take whatever stray bulletins come in... perhaps five minutes apart. Our transmitters now working with reduced power— go home WSM and get some sleep..."
That coverage is probably why a year later in 1938 Brooks moved to KWK-AM in St, Louis as an announcer. Trade magazines already knew who he was and reported the move. He followed WHAS alumni Allan Anthony to KWK. Even Rural Radio magazine called out the hire. (The 1978 book Golden Throats & Silver Tongues by Ray Poindexter incorrectly places this in 1931.) A 1939 issue of variety confusingly describes Brooks leaving again in 1939. [SOURCE]

In 1942 he replaced Jack Berry on WHEC-AM in Rochester, NY taking over the Musical Clock. (Those call letters come up again later.) [SOURCE] In 1946 Brooks made his first commercial record, a 78 on Continental "The Face On The Bar Room Floor" Parts 1 [LINK] and 2 [LINK]. It's oddly rare. The recording is not music or singing or comedy. It's a recitation with multiple character voices, all of which are probably Brooks. The text is old, I found a copy of the poem in the Stone Cutters Journal in 1922. It's attributed to Hugh Antoine d'Arcy who wrote it in 1887 under the original title "The Face Upon the Floor". I can't speak for the 78, but the poem was very popular for decades. He wasn't even alone in recording it. Harold Selman did a version in 1928 for Okeh, Art Leonard for Regal in 1930, Buddy Williams in 1942 for Zonophone, and that continued right into the vinyl era. Hank Snow did a version in 1968.

In 1943 550 WGR-AM & WKBW in Buffalo, where he hosted "The Musical Clock" and "Million Dollar Ballroom". In Buffalo, Brooks also performed with a country and western vocal group known as the Hi-Hatters. Foster continued to play up the zaniness and organized stunts. He co-hosted a quiz show called "Stump Bob Smith." In 1949 he coordinated a canoeing event with WKBW and WEBR. There is one picture from this even of four very soggy DJs: Clare "Butch" Allen, Al Healy, George Walker, and Foster Brooks. It's not clear who won but if that meant staying dry, everyone lost.

In 1950 went back to Louisville and got a really weird gig on WKLO. The WKLO DJ page describes his time at the station as short and says little else but there are other sources. [SOURCE] His show was on 15 minutes five nights a week, then Saturdays from 9:30 PM to 1:00 AM. The description (below) in Variety magazine sounds truly bizarre. It sounds vaguely like his old WHAS show, "Yellow Blank Salute." I wish there was a tape of this show somewhere.

"Brooks has a telephone in the studio and invites listeners to phone in their requests. One of the few air comics in this town, and by far the most versatile, Brooks intersperses vocals with the disks. Accompanied by the electric organ by Jerry Bottorff WKLO program director, Brooks vocals ballads in an excellent baritone voice. He has a gift for ad lib, and his throw-away remarks are entirely unpredictable. His timing and razor sharp zanyisms [sic] are making him a standout ad lib jock."

By 1950 Brooks was on 970 WAVE-AM. The advertised him in Broadcasting magazine with the note "A top notch MC and wit —has appeared appeared with Arthur Godfrey, Vaughn Monroe, Spade Cooley and others! ... Louisville's most colorful television personality!" In 1950 He had a "Foster Brooks Show" in 1950" which again sounds oddly like that Yellow Blank Salute again, ad-libs, card trucks and telephone gimmicks and musical accompaniment by the Mart-John Duo playing piano and bass-fiddle. He had a morning show "wake up with WAVE." H Then he had a kids show at WAVE-TV where he played mickey mouse cartoons and portrayed The Old Sheriff in a western jail set. Disambiguation Brooks father was a real sheriff in Louisville and Bhis brother was "Cactus" Tom Brooks who portrayed a cowboy clown on WHAS-TV in the 1950s

Brooks stayed at WAVE for about 5 years. In 1957 Broadcasting also reported when he jumped to WHAM-AM in Rochester, NY. Brooks moved from WHAM-AM/WHFM-FM to WHEC-AM-TV in 1959. [SOURCE] It was the same year he won a Ray-O-Vac radio announcer Top 10 contest. I wish that tape still existed.

Most short biographies report that he moved to Los Angeles in the 60s and began acting in television and doing stand up comedy. But this is glosses over the details. A Buffalo Bills press book still puts Foster Brooks on WROC-TV, Rochester in 1960, but so does the 1963 issue which seems erroneous. In 1962 KHJ schedules put him on that station in L.A. from January through at least June of that year. This seems to be his last regular radio gig and it's terminus marks the end of his radio career and the transition into character acting and television.

According to Brooks he quit drinking in 1964 on a $10 bet. "I never drew a sober breath from Friday night to Monday. Eight years ago I quit. Fellow made me a $10 bet I couldn't quit, and I haven't had a drink since. At the time I needed the $10." His first TV appearance was on Gunsmoke in 1962, and his did dozens more; clearly playing a drunk was better for his career than being one. [SOURCE] He had a 30 year career in radio and then had another 20 year career in television. In 1997 Brooks was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. He died in 2001.

The Mary Lee Taylor Show

2025-11-10T10:00:00.004-05:00

It's difficult to find information on Mary Lee Taylor which is unusual for an NBC syndicated program carried on 200 radio stations. There was a time her name was as well known as Betty Crocker. A December, 1948 issue of Billboard lists the sponsor as Pet Milk Sales Co. and the program as a renewal. The producer was Al Chance; writer, Ben Adams; Announcer, Del King; and the cast just Mary Lee Taylor... who was a fictional character. My first encounter was a KSCJ mailer from September 1950 listed Mary Lee Taylor's "Radio Recipes" which gave me some idea the program ran for at least a few years. It turned out to be one of the longest-running cooking shows in history. Yet the book Pot Roast, Politics, and Ants in the Pantry by Carol and John Fisher is one of the few sources to even describe the program in print.

"Through the decades, additional Pet Milk cookbooks came off the press in St. Louis. Erma Proetz tested recipes for Pet Milk Company and developed the radio personality Mary Lee Taylor. The “Mary Lee Taylor Program,” a fifteen-minute radio show for the homemaker, “featured Pet recipes and meal plans, promoted cookbooks and offered household hints” with the first show airing just before Thanksgiving in 1933. Her first recipe was pumpkin pie filling using Pet Milk."

Mary Lee Taylor was a fictional character created by Erma Proetz. I learned that she was not a chef but in real life, an Executive VP at Gardner and Company advertising where Pet Milk Co. was her biggest account. She graduated from Washington University in 1910, with a degree in Liberal Arts and she was first hired at Gardner Advertising in 192 as a copywriter. The marketing description of Mary Lee as a "nutritionist and home economist" was pure marketing hoopla. The real Proetz was the first woman to be inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1952 and somewhat of a feminist figure because of her success in business. More here and here.

PET Milk cook booklet 1960

PET was a brand of evaporated milk first made in Illinois in 1885. Born in 1891, Erma Proetz (née Perham) was barely any younger than the product. But the radio program, in focusing on nutrition, was hitting the mark during the Great Depression. Proetz first took on the account in 1924 for print advertising in the magazine Ladies Home Journal. In was in May 1927 that she created the "Pet Milk Test Kitchen" and began developing recipes. That's right, the recipes predate the radio program. Mrs. Susan Cost (née Lovitt) began voicing the character on CBS in 1933 and continued through the entire run of the series; all 21 years. More here. The 20th anniversary was acknowledged in an NBC trade release.

"Susan Cost, better known to her vast audience as Mary Lee Taylor has conducted the program from the Midwest since its inception for the same sponsor, the Pet Milk Company. The series has been on NBC radio since Oct. 23 , 19^8. On her program of Nov. 7, Mary Lee will be congratulated by radio and TV performers Dinah shore, Ralph Edwards, Jimmy Durante, Ted Mack, and Eddie Cantor..."

The bi-weekly radio show first launched in 1933, and the word nutrition in that era wasn't yet misused a pseudo-scientific scam. In the Great Depression nutrition was focused on getting enough calories not to literally become ill or die. Shelf-stable, affordable, calorie-dense foods were an absolute necessity for millions. [When you look at the economy in late 2025, these ideas resonate.] It's better than to think of Proetz work to be less like RFK and more like the USDA, biased about dairy products but not actually grifting per se.

In 1943 the program changed format, it was extended to 30 minutes, but the first half was a soap opera called "The Story of The Week." It featuring a young couple, Jim and Sally Carter. The show moved to NBC and KSD in 1948 and continued into 1954 outliving it's creator by a decade. Proetz died in 1944 at the age of 53 after a long illness. Susan Cost may have taken over the "Pet test kitchen" at this time. Some contemporary articles refer to her creating recipes. NBC changed the name of the program to The Pet Milk Show. More here.

The Mary Lee Taylor Show ran for 21 years on KMOX in syndication. Proetz died in 1944 which means that first advertisement I found for Radio Recipes on KSCJ is for a fictive Mary Lee Taylor, not a pseudonymous one. In the 1940s the Mary Lee Taylor show began giving away free cookbooks. Over time, dozens off different ones were created, though with some recipe repeats. The name Mary Lee Taylor and the face of Susan Cost continued to appear on cook books into the 1960s. Cost passed in 1967 at the age of 77, outliving Proetz, her own husband Walter, Erna Proetz's husband Arthur and the program itself. More here.

It is somewhat galling that there is more written about the The Pet Milk Orchestra than Cost or Proetz. In the book Radio Program Openings and Closings, 1931-1972 by author Vincent Terrace. There are detailed descriptions about the entire cast and crew of the NBC era. He records the 1948 orchestra being directed by Bob Crosby and Gus Haenschen, Warren Sweeney is host, the "star" is Vic Damone. The talent includes singer Kay Armen and the obscure Emily Coty Singers. In 1950 the program was rebooted and comedian Jack Pearl played host; the new "regulars were Mimi Benzell, Cliff Hall and Russ Emery. The new announcer was Ed Herlihy, and conductor Gus Haenschen was working without Bob Crosby. Somehow Terrace managed not to mention Cost or Proetz whatsoever. Sounds like the show took a budget cut in the revamp, but you'd hardly know it was a cooking show from the entry.

There is also very little in the usual encyclopedic sources: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by Dunning, and both the American and Women in radio Encyclopedias by Luther Sies have little more than a sentence. The book A Portrait of Progress: A Business History of Pet Milk Company by Martin Bell barely mentions Proetz. The Jay Hickerson Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming lists one recording from 1933, and a set of 49 from the NBC years. It's unusual that a 20+ year program has so little research available. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that it has something to do with it's creator being a successful feminist figure.

Bud Messner and/or The Skyline Boys

2025-11-03T10:00:00.031-05:00

I had assumed from the beginning that Norman "Bud" Messner and the Skyline Boys were a package deal. This was incorrect. I recently found a "souvenir folder" of The Skyline boys from WFMD in Frederick, MD: Zag Pennell, Lew Wade, Roy Parks, Dude Webb and Bill Bailey; No Bud Messner. Not that it's their only line up. This other image from the interwebs below still shares four members with the above list but Zag Pennell is replaced by Shorty King. Notice there's no Bud Messner there either.

I started this article about 10 years ago and in the years since then the family of Roy Parks started a Skyline Boys website which is well researched. It's very helpful as it's clear we both have discovered different material. That site has a different group image with 6 members alongside Tex Ritter. The image is reportedly from the1950 WCHA calendar but I only know Hank Silby from the WRVA Old Dominion Barn Dance. The Skyline site unexpectedly lists him among the members; likewise Alan "Slim" Roberts was a member at that time. I would have guessed earlier but I have to accept the 1950 date. Generally speaking this is all normal. WWII was actively drafting young men at time this band was founded in 1941 and the triple constraint of family, career and travel often cause turnover in membership.

The Skyline Boys website makes clear that Bud Messner was linked with The Skyline Boys based on record releases and press as early as 1947 or 1948. I found a schedule in the Southwest Times of Pulaski, VA that puts them in a 30 minutes slot on 1230 WPUV in 1947. But there was a surprising number of variations. I have also seen releases which are billed as Bill Franklin and the Skyline Boys, or The Skyliners. It theorizes they met through WWVA. The Skyline Boys formed as early as 1941 and by 1946 Bill Bailey, Roy Parks, and Dude Webb were listed among the WWVA cast along side big names like Hackshaw Hawkins.

From Wheeling their career took them to the Old Dominion barn dance on WRVA. The line up then was Hank Silby, Roy Parks, and Alan Roberts this lasted only 4-6 months, ending to do a tour with Tex Ritter. After the Tex Ritter tour began their Bud Messner Era which did produce at least 8 sides for Abbey Records and another 6 for Banner Records in 1949 and 1950. The continued to play with Messner through at least 1953. Billboard actually announced in January 1950 the inking of a contract between Abbey and Bud Messner. Bud's wife Molly Darr sings on some tracks.

Bud Messner was born in Luray, VA in 1917 and began his radio career at WJEJ in Hagerstown, MD. It's about 90 miles from Luray. Per Billboard, The Skyline Boys were performing there mornings in August of 1950, unclear if Messner was still there. Messner later had a a regular program on WCHA-AM. in Chambersburg PA. It's unclear how long Bud was there but the Skyline Boys are connected to it multiple times in 1949. The timeline is messy, that's also their time at WRVA and the Tex Ritter tour. More here. Purportedly Bud got a day job at Banner Records as their director of Folk Music. If that is true it would surely have greased the wheels for those releases with The Skyline Boys.

Their airtime at WFMD appears to be brief as well. The "folder" I scanned above make it clear they performed on the station. One DJ is also pictured, Stephen Wainer. A 1955 issue of Billboard connects them indirectly, a DJ named New Wade who merely mentions The Skyline boys are heard daily at Wayneboro, PA; no call letters. But in 1955 that would have to be 1380 WAYZ-AM, unless he meant Chambersburg. I found a single issue of The Carroll Record dated May 25th 1951 which listed off a few shows but notably "Skyline Boys from WFMD" for a gig on June 15th. A July 1951 wedding announcement for Parker-Everhart confirms Roy parks is in the Skyline Boys and that they are on WFMD at that time. The Manassas Journal still connects them to WFMD as late as August of that year. Wainer was still connected to WFMD as late as 1954. There is a short ad for him in an issue of The Carrol that year.

"8:45 to 9:15 every Thursday Morning. Listen to Steve Wainer's Sunrise Serenade. Radio Station WFMD. The 930 Spot On Your Radio Dial. Steve will bring you the Taneytown News, acknowledge Birthdays and Anniversaries and spin the best in Recorded Music, the past and present."

There's still some noise in the signal. There is a gospel group active since 1995 with the same name. There was an unrelated bluegrass band, the Skyline boys on WREL in Lexington in the late 1940s. I also found a reference to one on WKVA Lewistown and WVAM in Altoona, PA which may or may not be the same. The geography is at least more plausible. In 1952 there's a record of The Skyline Boys performing at WYVE in Wytheville, VA Dude Webb may been employed there at the time. That's probably also 1952. [SOURCE] Purportedly Webb also worked at WROM, WHIS, and WSVA. In 1960 after retiring from touring, Bud Messner and his wife Molly Darr bought Chambersburg radio station WCBG. Molly had her own program there for 20 years, "Molly and Me." More here.

That Drug Story About WLOZ

2025-10-27T10:00:00.048-04:00

When you think weird, many folks think of Austin. Rod Wassenich of Austin, TX invented the whole "keep Austin weird" thing. But Austin is far from the weirdest city in America. In that category, I think Wilmington, NC is under rated in net weirdness... and it used to be much weirder. Their local college radio station, WLOZ being possibly the weirdest of all. Sadly WLOZ, was the former student radio station of the University of North Carolina Wilmington. More here.

The rumor was that in 1981 the radio station was shut down after student DJs were caught selling marijuana over the airwaves. It sounds like an out take from the movie "Animal House." In 2001 the Student Media Board (SMB) voted unanimously to suspend operations of WLOZ indefinitely." The student paper The Seahawk opted not to say why specificity but this was not their Cheech and Chong moment. This was just the epilogue. [LINK] The issue here was the the station had been without supervision for 3 weeks following the resignation of General Manager John Bundy. The station was dying of neglect not drug sales. They became Hawkstream radio in podcast form and petered out during COVID. [SOURCE] But that Seahawk article did refer to the infamous incident...

"Prior to 1982, WLOZ broadcast on the frequency now occupied by WHQR, Wilmington’s Public Radio station. WLOZ was forced off the frequency in the wake of an on-air drug sales investigation."

Somehow I doubt this was like Scarface. I have not found any FCC actions related to this. It appears the University voluntarily sold or transferred the station to those nice quiet opera fans and made their problem go away. The erasure was so complete that even finding a WLOZ logo is difficult. Their FM era is documented in the usual radio year books. The 1982 Broadcasting & Cable yearbook lists the station on 91.3 at 10 watts: Karen Durda, GM; Angela Allen, PD; Jeff Newton, bus mgr; Carol Bella, MD; Linda Curtis news. The 1978 edition lists they as not on air (yet) but does list Dr. I.G. Ciator as advisor and Rusty Waker as GM.

Broadcasting & Cable list the 1982 info again in 1984 but it was surely wrong by then because the frequency was being transitioned to WHQR by then. To my surprise the incident is referred to even in their Wikipedia article. It reads: "With some financial and fundraising help from Friends of Public Radio, WLOZ hosted the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts during the school year from December 12, 1979, until it was forced off the air in February 1981 due to a possible drug scandal." A 1984 article confirms the supposed "drug bust" and the cable relaunch but gives the calls WSEA. Those may or may not have ever been used.

It's hard to find real hard evidence the station even existed. They appear in a handful of CMJ magazines from 1989, 1999, and 2000. The PM was TJ Blackburn in 1999. Angie Cooper in 2000. CMJ lists them on 89.3 CaFM at that time, but that may not have always been the case. The earliest citation I could find, a 1974 UNC student handbook described the station in terms that would require at least a part 15 operation, possibly more...

"WLOZ is a student operated educational radio station. With its offices in the trailer adjacent to the Physical Plant, it presently broadcasts at 91.3 FM to a listening audience within seven to ten miles of the campus. It provides valuable broadcasting and managerial experience for the staff, while also offering another means of campus communication. Interested students are always welcome to come by the studio."

It was Jen Waits at Radio Survivor who found a first-person source. [LINK] That interviewee, Michael Plumides, confirmed the story was real in all it's bong burbling glory. Different sources give different dates. One as early as 1980 Plumides put it in 1983. [SOURCE] I still have questions of course. A 1977 issue of the Seahawk reports the station has finally got it's FCC license. That means it was only an FM station from 1977 through 1983, and Cable FM from 1984 - 2000 or 1982 to 1997 depending on the source. But what was going on before 1977? We already know WLOZ goes back at least another 4 years.

A 1973 Seahawk article (above) which describes the FM debut of WLOZ and also cites a prior station: WCNU. I did find two sources which corroborate the WCNU calls. Even that same 1974 student handbook [SOURCE] describes a second station on campus. This one was in the student services building, not a trailer like WLOZ:

"WCNU is the student operated campus radio station. With its office in the Student Services building (Pub), it presently broadcasts to three buildings. It provides valuable broadcasting and managerial experience for the staff, while also offering another means of campus communication. Interested students are always welcome to join the "soft explosion in Wilmington."

The 1973 Campus Communique confirms that WCNU predates WLOZ, but notably multiple staff members have programs on WFMD. [SOURCE] The language intimates the station is new, and another 1973 issue of the Seahawk confirms this and lists Mark Silver as Station Manager. A 1975 issue still includes Rusty but also lists David Davis, Craig Sexton and Greg Larrimore as staff. Is that 1973 start date definitive? No! It appears to have broadcast as carrier current station a decade earlier. A 2008 interview with Linda Moore reveals a different studio location and operations:
"Campus radio was alive and well in the '60s and, as I remember hearing, from Doug Swank, who was an early advisor, the call letters were WCNU, UNCW backwards, that was the call letters and it was located over in Hidden James, in my office, at the time, and they broadcast with a little 10 watt station so that it just took in a very small area on campus. When I came, they were kind of on the move and we were able to get more wattage. Student government gave them more money for equipment. They had their own little place behind Hoggard. It was a little small wooden building that had been the campus police office that was very small but they took it over for the campus radio station. They flourished, on and off, until probably the early '80s when there were some very severe problems there with drugs..."
Though it's highly plausible. I found no records at all for those carrier current years. It was the 60s, so I'm sure that 1982 wasn't the first bong hit at the station if it existed.

Matinee with Bob and Ray

2025-10-13T10:00:00.003-04:00

Somehow I missed the memo on Bob and Ray. They were on the air for 50 years and I completely missed the boat, discovering them only post-mortem, in the form of a beat up paperback with an introduction by Andy Rooney. Bob and Ray were Bob Elliott (1923–2016) and Ray Goulding (1922–1990). My own mother often said "Write if you get work!" as people left the house. It took me decades to realize she was quoting Bob & Ray.

Elliott and Goulding began as radio announcers. Elliott and Goulding were both on 850 WHDH-AM in Boston. Elliot was an announcer and Goulding a DJ with a morning show. (Some biographies switch the roles and describe Elliot as a DJ and Goulding as a newscaster.) The book Bob and Ray: Keener Than Most Persons by David Pollack gives another version where Elliot presented a demo for Back Bay Matinee he based on an AFRS program. The Music Director Ken Wilson put him on air every afternoon from 2:00 to 4:00. Then Wilson paired him with Goulding to improvise banter as a fill-in when Red Sox baseball broadcasts rained out. Elliott and Goulding (not yet known as Bob and Ray) would improvise and joke around with the studio musicians. It was a comedy recipe you see to this day on late night programs; from Johnny Carson through Jimmy Kimmel. The duo started writing skits to make it work.

Their shtick was a slight twist on the old vaudeville routine. It wasn't a matter of which one was the Straight man. They were both the straight man; something Elliott conceded to Mike Sacks, for the book Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers. “We were both sort of straight men reacting against the other.” Every punchline is silly but completely deadpan, prefiguring Stephen Wright but without the irony. Their trademark sign-off was "This is Ray Goulding reminding you to write if you get work"; "Bob Elliott reminding you to hang by your thumbs."

After a few months WHDH gave them a morning show simply called Bob & Ray in 1946. The program started as a 15-minute slot and then expanded to half an hour. The show continued to expand. In the fall of 1947, the pair were given a daily half hour at 1:00 PM called Matinee with Bob and Ray. In 1949 WHDH increased power from 5,000 watts to 50,000 watts and wildly expanded it's coverage and the audience for the duo. After 5 years in Boston, they got a 13-week contract with NBC and started a one hour Saturday Night program in 1951. By 1952 they also had an early morning show on WNBC as well. More here.

In 1955 they signed a new contract with WBZ: Matinee with Bob and Ray but by April of 1956 they terminated their taped WBZ program because they were so busy with their network schedule. Alan Dary got the spot. Bob & ray continued to do daily shows for the Mutual network from 1955 to 1957, then CBS from 1959 to 1960, and on New York station WINS. In 1962 they moved to WHN to start an afternoon show and in 1973 WOR doing a 4-hour afternoon drive program. In their final incarnation they started a program on NPR: The Bob & Ray Public Radio Show. That ran until 1987. They won three Peabody Awards for their radio work and were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1995.

Goulding died in 1990. Born in 1922 he was 68. Many assumed the 67 year old Elliot might retire but instead he became a cast member of Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company of the Air, which briefly replaced A Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Then he started making appearances in movies, and commercials something deeply ironic for a man who had made so many fake advertisements. Ellior once said "By the time we discovered we were introverts, it was too late to do anything about it.”