Welcome to the
NEW YORK RADIO MU
SEUM
A
virtual radio museum dedicated to this history of New York Radio
Last update July 20, 2003
Take a virtual tour of some of New York
Radio's all time greats...
September 11,
2001 Aircheck Page
Links New York Radio Message Board
Click the call letters to reach that page. Each station listed below contains a history of the station, its notable personalities over the years, and sound files from the past. Jingles, sweepers, and airchecks are included on every page!
Radio provides the
soundtrack to our lives.
My fascination with radio
began in 1977 when I was at the tender young age of five. Along with a
Pong video game and some Tonka trucks, my parents gave me an AM transistor
radio for my fifth birthday. AM radios were still the receiver of choice
back then as FM radios' bulky antennas and ability to "drift" made
them less desirable and common.
Inserting the nine-volt
battery into the back of a unit about half the size of a shoe box, I was
greeted with the "big sound" of 77 WABC--the radio station.
The first DJ I can remember hearing was Ron Lundy and the "hello,
love!" line that made him a New York radio icon.
I remember sitting on the
beach at Seaside Heights, NJ in the 1970s listening to the familiar seventy-seven
WABC blaring from
every single radio. WABC was a part of America life as much as baseball
or a Chevy. With a powerful skywave signal, WABC could be heard in most parts
of the United States after sundown.
Like many who grew up in
the New York area during the 1960s and 1970s, WABC also found its way to your
childhood. Its trademark reverb made even the tiniest transistor radio sound
like a stereo!
Since those days, I
graduated to FM, being raised and nurtured on "99X" (WXLO-FM),
97-WYNY, "92 KTU," and 102 WPIX, which seemed to change names weekly
in the 1970s.
As the 1980s progressed,
so did FM radio. WHTZ ("Z-100") reinvented top 40 radio,
attempting to recapture some of the magic WABC left behind when it went all-talk
in 1982. WQHT ("Hot 103"/"Hot
97") gave a second life to dance music. WPLJ experimented with a
variety of formats, as 102.7 WNEW remained virtually unchanged until it went
all-talk in 1999. I absolutely loved Hot 103 and later Hot 97. It
was refreshing to hear an upbeat radio station that remembered that this is New
York radio--the greatest city in the world.
By the time the 1990s
rolled around, "top 40 radio" had become fragmented. Radio stations
began moving away from all-inclusive formats and, instead, elected to cater to
specific demographics. Radio station Z-100 all but abandoned its top 40 roots
and played what was referred to by most as "alternative" in 1993 or
so. Hot 103 left the dance floor and instead turned to the streets for its
programming material. WPLJ couldn't seem to settle on a direction.
But the legacy of many
New York radio stations lives on.
Inside this site you will find a variety of features including airchecks, links, sweepers, jingles, and histories of the radio stations as best I know. Some of the sound files you'll find elsewhere on the net in the public domain; others are from other web sites (whose owners I have obtained permission from).
However, a majority are
from the tape collections I have amassed in my 31 years, as well as the tape
collection of my long-time high school friend, Alison. Some needed to be
restored; you'd be surprised what a decade will do to cheap Memorex tapes left
on the floor of the closet.
Please enjoy your visit to the site and don't be shy to send E-mail to me and Alison Tobin. --the provider of many of these great sound files. Please e mail me if you have any sound files you'd like to contribute or sell!
Some of the airchecks require the use of the Real Audio plug-in, which you can download for free by clicking this link.
Here are the radio
stations saluted on this web page. As radio is part of our lives more
than any other medium, I invite you to sit back and enjoy the memories.
WQHT "HOT 103/HOT 97
WCBS-FM (under construction)
102.7 WNEW-FM (under construction)
Other radio stations (under construction)
**This web page is dedicated to my dearest friend Alison Marie Tobin, who lost her beloved on a cold rainy September weekend in 1998. Lars Eric Eden 1970-1998
VISITORS SINCE JUNE
7, 1999. THANK YOU!