What radio stations did you listen to growing up?

I'm a similar age to Bubbler and also grew up in suburban Milwaukee listening to WKTI. I can vouch for this and also loved Lips LaBelle and "Push 'Em Down The Stairs" as a teenager. Ah, a much simpler time and place to grow up. They had other great DJs like Dallas Cole, Danny Clayton and Woody Harrison

Their morning show was Bob Reitman and Gene Mueller, and they were just old-school radio legends. Reitman finally retired in 2006, but Mueller stuck around and switched to news on WTMJ AM.

It was an incredible station, especially for a medium-sized city like Milwaukee.

 

Project 96.1 is so, so awful. It is nice to have 99x back, although my friend and I like to joke that it's 99x for dyslexics, since it's on 97.9 instead of 99.7.

Back home in KC, it depended on who was driving the car. Mix93 (KMXV) or Q104(KBEQ) with my mom, until Q104 underwent a radical and unexpected format change my senior year of college. 101 The Fox or sometimes Oldies 95 (which drove my brother nuts) with dad. The Fox for Chiefs games and KMBZ for the Royals. The redesigned iPod Nanos have a built-in radio tuner, which I was able to use to pick up the Chiefs game at KCI while waiting for my flight home after Christmas.

 

Funny this came up. Like n_w I listen to 750 AM (and now 95.5 FM) WSB.

I think they are the only news organization I trust to bring it straight. I love the traffic reports and Capt. Herb Emery.

When Neal Boortz's engineer, Royal Marshall passed suddenly this past weekend, I mourned the loss. And so did the station. I feel like they are a close knit bunch and it comes off that way on air.

And for me all this radio business started later in life.

 

I was a 96 Rock man, too. I had to listen to a ton of 97.1 FOX also because that was the oldies station my parents loved.

Now, I haven't listen to music on the radio in years. I moved here four years ago and because all I listen to are my iPod and Sirius, I couldn't name a single local radio station except for a couple of sports talk ones that I appear on from time to time.

 

I did not know about Royal Marshall's passing. RIP.

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When I was a kid (1960s), we had country station WSM-AM (650) on in the house in the morning. They had a show called "The Waking Crew" with a live band and everything.

The first pop music station I listened to WMAK-AM (1300) out of Nashville, where Scott Shannon was the evening DJ and, eventually, program director. I also would listen to WLS-AM (John Records Landecker; yes, that's his real middle name) out of Chicago late at night.

Like most Nashville teens, I gravitated toward WKDA-FM (103.3) – which, Wikipedia informs me, switched to an album rock format in Jan. 1970, when I was a 13-year-old high school freshman. After college, I also listened to WSM-FM (95.5), which from 1976 until 1983 did some remarkable programming in what would eventually become known as "adult alternative" It was a sad day when they, without warning, switched to a hard country format.

For a long time in there, I listened to Larry King late at night. I called in and talked to him a couple of times. He was great in those days.

In D.C. (1984-98), I mainly listened to WWDC-FM (101.1), mainly to hear "the Greaseman" in the morning, and later to "Don & Mike" and the "Sports Junkies" on WJFK (106.7).

Now I'm completely ADD in my listening habits. There are no consistently good music stations in our area, so I wind up punching a lot of buttons and mixing in my own CDs. We keep NPR on as background sound at home and I listen to mix of talk and sports talk in the car. Late at night, when I'm driving home, I usually listen to "Coast to Coast" for a few minutes, check out the BBC World Service and then catch other talkers, including WSB (750) out of Atlanta.

 

Yeah, terrible loss, HH. He was a wonderful man. His funeral was this afternoon.

http://blogs.ajc.com/radio-tv-talk/2011/01/22/royal-marshall-honored-at-funeral-services-1967-2011/?cxntfid=blogs_radio_tv_talk

 

Growing up in Mansfield, Ohio — smack dab in the middle of Cleveland and Columbus — I listened to stations from both.

WGCL in Cleveland for music, with (I think the dude's name was) Dancin' Danny Wright who had an afternoon show that was *the* thing to listen to. Mixed some comedy in with the tunes.

WMMS (Cleveland)... it still doesn't really feel like the weekend without hearing its 5 p.m. Friday montage of factory whistles et al announcing the weekend.

WNCI (Columbus), another Top 40 music station... mainly listened to when you couldn't get WGCL to come in on the tuner.

WWWE (Cleveland) for Browns, Indians and Cavs games.

WMAN (Mansfield) for Indians games, Ohio State football.

I'm shocked I can recall all these call letters.

In college, I listened to a small Cincinnati station that had Imus in the morning followed by the Fabulous Sports Babe, then local sports talk guys. Also, a station out of Oxford, Ohio, that played alternative stuff (can't remember the call letters).

These days... nothing. Can't stand the current crop of sports talk guys, political talk is nothing but an asshole-fest, and here in Cincinnati, 700WLW is nothing but guys seeing if they can be the biggest asshole on the station. For a few years, I listened to Bob and Tom in the mornings, but can't stand them any longer... from their nearly illiterate bible-thumping news gal to the incessant laughter tracks... makes me want to rip my ears off.

 

WCMF still going strong, from what I gather when I'm home. You might be too young for this, but what about WBBF in Roch? That was the station I first truly embraced as a kid, the one that broke away from my parents' stuff on the radio in the kitchen.

Micropolitan Guy, thanks for the Ted Darling reminder. We used to get him on TV all the time, and even though we're Bruins fans, we LOVED us some Ted Darling.

 

I too listened to WKBW Buffalo (Chickenman "He's everywhere! He's everywhere!"); along with WMEX 1510 Boston, WPTR 1540 Albany, and WLS 890 Chicago.

And, I'd listen to the St. Louis Hawks on KMOX.

My radio would pull these great stations in at night, especially during the summer as I carried my six transistor radio.

 

I'm in my late 30s and grew up in Chicagoland.

WLS AM (aka "The Big 89") was still playing music then, with Larry Lujack and Lil' Tommy Edwards spinning their Animal Stories (they were on their last legs, though).

For FM rock stations, the Loop (WLUP) and eventually The Blaze (103.5) used to be my go-to buttons on the car stereo. I got into WXRT in the late 1980s, and it's still a good station compared to most of the corporate crap on Chicagoland radio these days.

Out in the Inland Northwest, I'm still a big radio fan, mainly because the Spokane/North Idaho region has some cool stations. Especially 95.3 KPND out of Sandpoint, Idaho ... they pretty much play anything from straight country to "punk rock" (whatever that means anymore).

Of course, keep in mind ... I'm still a guy who regularly plays vinyl records.

 

I loved "Chickenman"...."Be listening Monday...."

 

I listened mostly to WMMR and WYSP in Philly on FM and WIP on AM. I listen to them a bit online now through the magic of the internets, but it isn't the same.

In college I dated a girl from Columbus who turned me on to CD101. I don't think it's actually on 101 anymore, but I listen to that online while I'm at work if I'm not listening to a game. Here in Podunk there isn't shit for radio and my car isn't ipod accessible so I have a bunch of cds that I rotate through.