Retro Radio - Classic radio air checks from the 70s and 80s

March 25, 1981 WLCY - Tampa

Mid-day show. It's sort of refreshing because not much was happening in news. There are clips of 1981 commercials and jingles. (Remember those?) The contest giveaways were tickets to the Gulf Coast Air Show at St. Pete Clearwater International airport. Fun fact: Back before the airline deregulation there used to be flights from St. Pete to Tampa! Copyrighted material appears under the Fair Use Doctrine.

July 12, 1984 WFLA-FM - Tampa

A rare full show (6:00 - 10:00) morning aircheck featuring, Lee Hall with news, Tedd Webb spots and Gary McHenry traffic. The big news is of Geraldine Ferraro being nominated for VP. Sports has talk of MLB possibly coming to Tampa after selling back a large share of the Minnesota Twins. Tilapia (which we don't know how to pronounce) is introduced as an invasive fish in Florida. Classic 1984 commercials include 5 cent oysters at one restaurant and loud car spots. On air listener contests for Adventure Island tickets include "Yesterday's Horoscope, Stump The Staff and What's Your Line?"

May 20,1981 WLCY Midday - Tampa

The Tampa Bay area was in a severe drought. Listeners calling in for the "Mystery Personality" contest contributed their unusual methods of conserving water. This day also includes the CBS top of the hour time tone. I took great pride in timing everything to exactly meet that every hour. Back-timing records to have a "cold" ending to hit the time tone is a lost art... as is radio network news. Copyrighted material appears under the fair use doctrine.

March 4, 1982 WQYK - Tampa

This was my first afternoon at K99 - WQYK. It was also the first (and only) country format station I ever worked for. I don't like country music, so I'd turn the monitors off when the music was playing. Then I just did my usual stuff at the breaks. Ironically I was #1 in the Tampa market and after two years I had elevated to being one of the highest rated country DJs in the country. (I still got fired... mor on that later. ) This old malfunctioning cassette doesn't have a lot of content. I was just settling in to an unfamiliar format. The circus is at the old Bayfront Arena in St. Petersburg, Rita Ciccarillo does news and I try to give away the "Cash Call" jackpot. You will hear the cassette die at the end. It's sort of prophetic. The GM argued with me about the spelling of the Howard FranklanD bridge and thought I was a smart ass, so a week later he fired me, Super Bowl weekend of 1984. (the first Tampa Super Bowl)

March 15, 1984 93FM/WFLA FM - Tampa

Friday morning and it's foggy. J. Paul Emerson has news, Brian Brewer is doing traffic for Gary McHenry and the area is under sever drought conditions. (Sounds familiar.) This demonstrates station branding at the excess. Blair Broadcasting programmer insisted on the station ID starting every break. And that meant the whole brand "93FM/WFLA FM". Telescoped like this it gets repetitive, but if you had the full song sets in place it makes sense. I announced the winner of a Circus World VIP package. (remember that theme park?) But the call to the winner doesn't go as planned. (If a strange man answers, hang up.)