790 Alum.

The 790 sale makes me feel old. I remember listening to 790 in the 1970’s when on leave from the Air Force or during college breaks visiting my parents. Both have passed in the last 18 months.

I wonder how many DJ’s went on to the big time via WQXI. I am not sure of the market rankings during the 1960 and early 1970’s but IMHO Atlanta was really a big mid-market due to the lack of 24 hour AM signals. I believe there was only WPLO, WSB, WQXI, WGST, 1380, 1340 and 680(?) with decent night time signals.

The folks I remember:

It was wild listening to Scott Shannon on 1300 WMAK Nashville during high school then on 790. He’s on CBS FM NYC.
I missed Bobby Harper on 790 but was lucky enough to catch him on WGST.

Gary McKee IMHO made 790/94.1 a big time station.

I am sure there are lots of folks that worked 790 then moved on.

The 1970's? I remember the 1950's!

Memories …
The original "Open Line" call in program
The "Little Round Man" Earl Mann (think Mr. Carlson on WKRP)
Red Jone, "your Tallapoosa Pally"
Paul Drew with his Beatles exclusives
Tony "The Tiger" Taylor (who later went to NYC)
The "Tiger Twins", I think it was Phil and Tom Collins
Sam Hale
their "war" with WPLO (590 AM)
their studios on Matheison Drive, across the street from the Presbyterian Church, then later their "palatial" space at 2970 Peachtree
Rod Roddy

Ah, things were so different then!

WRNG 680 didn't get a night signal until 1980. I have an aircheck of Boortz signing off Ring Radio for the night from 1979.

Don't forget Dr Don Rose. There's a Crusin' LP out there from 66 or 67.

"Jist ast ya'se'f....."

kf4rca said:

Don't forget Dr Don Rose. There's a Crusin' LP out there from 66 or 67.

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Dr. Don was one of the greatest ever. But I thought he was at his best at WFIL and KFRC.

Of the other signals:

WPLO 590's night signal off of North Druid Hills was primarily east-west before moving out to Powder Springs.
WSB, of course, is a class A clear.
WQXI has the trilobal night pattern with NE and NW nulls.
WGST 920 was (and WGKA still is) nondirectional.
WAOK 1380 is similar to Quixie but with more power and a weaker dial position.
WAKE/WIGO 1340 was, and still is as WIFN, a little nondirectional local signal (1000W) that had and still has difficulty getting OTP.

jabba17 said:

Of the other signals:

WPLO 590's night signal off of North Druid Hills was primarily east-west before moving out to Powder Springs.
WSB, of course, is a class A clear.
WQXI has the trilobal night pattern with NE and NW nulls.
WGST 920 was (and WGKA still is) nondirectional.
WAOK 1380 is similar to Quixie but with more power and a weaker dial position.
WAKE/WIGO 1340 was, and still is as WIFN, a little nondirectional local signal (1000W) that had and still has difficulty getting OTP.

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1340's transmitter is in the corner of an old parking lot with a street behind it. It is the same parking lot and location that I visited regularly 40 years ago... When I was 16 and 17 I spent a lot of time at the then co-located WRFG transmitter. The ground system has to be non-existant. The engineers can speak better of it, but the street side probably has the radials stop before the road right-of-way and the rest of it has been under parking lot pavement for 40+ years.

Whatever happened to...

Yetta Levitt, that nice Jewish girl from...Buckhead?

trusty said:

It was one of the first stations to simulate baseball games [in the Southeast; they did it for years in the Northeast and on the West Coast] from the newsroom on Matheson when the Crackers were playing away games. [ And that was Hank "The Prank" Morgan who did that. Had a little bat hanging by the mike and he cracked it with a dowel rewhen there was a hit. Took the running description off the Western Union teletype. He used to talk about how when they had a line go down, they suddently had a rain delay or a player injury.]

...and the free concerts in the Lindburgh shopping center parking lot.
Paul Drew would come in for the evening shift with a spray can. He would completely clean the headphones after Pat Hughes' (with his greasy hair) afternoon drive.
Memories...

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And I actually saw that one time! Got so that eventually Drew would bring in his own headphones.

You were close. It was Tom and Paul Collins. I have two or three unscoped airchecks from their days at WQXI going back to December 1964.