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Engineer Bill Elliott writes from Charlotte: "I just saw the pictures of Ron Parker...I take full credit for that Control Room you see in the pictures...I rebuilt it in 1975 from the shabby studio that was in use in that room when the AM moved into the new TV building from the old studios, next to the AM towers. The console was the original board from the "new studios," which I rebuilt before placing it back into service in those pictures."
"By the way, the jocks did go back to playing 45's on the air. They had a library of carted music, but went back to spinning discs when that new control room went back on the air. The FM side also went to spinning discs when we pulled the plug on "Herman"...the automation system from hell..."
From production guru Jeff Laurence in North Carolina: "Ron Parker and I worked together at WLCY during the Bill Hennes era. A great consultant who was formerly the PD of the also great CKLW in Windsor/Detroit. The plan was in the spring of 1976, to revamp the Great 138, and shadowcast the playlist of WLCY on it's FM station that was to be known as Y-95."
"We were all hired precisely at the same time...and the AM and FM program director was hired, but noone could tell anyone else in the industry what was going on. We all met for the first time at the "Cloud 9" room of the Barclay Best Western on Kennedy Boulevard in March of 1976. At the same time, several "boss jocks" at 1380 were told they had won the "Rahall Home Game." We stayed at the hotel up until the day both stations went on the air, and both had identical playlists and identical jingles (The classic TM Shotgun)."
"We consisted of: Tom Murphy of WAPE, Howie Castle of WOLF-Syracuse, Ron Parker from WQXI-Atlanta, Johnny Stevens from Tampa and WLCY, Chuck Morgan and Ben Christopher from WNDE-Indianapolis, Chuck Stevens (one of the finest format jocks ever, now departed), Kenny Parks from WLCY (now a minister) and myself, Jeff Laurence, formerly of Syracuse... Tedd Webb was production director and weekend/fill."
"We were all young AM studs who used to pull a few choice "bits" on the FM guys...just to keep 'em in line. After all, We were the GREAT 138. Y-95's staff had to cut through the AM studios in order to go into the bathroom, so we knew when their studios were unattended. In those days we were judged on our success as a station by the number of request calls received in any given week. Each station had three lines coming into the studio...on a regular basis one of us would seize the opportunity, casually enter the FM studio, and pry out two of the little blinking lights in their phone unit. The result? Many less-answered phones for Y-95!"
"One other thing that I remember was that WLCY was in charge of Y-95's transmitter readings... and often their power was brought way waaaaaay down by "mistake"... also some of us knew about the FM settings being changed to "speech," which would roll off almost all the low end. There seemed to be a lot of squeaky-voiced jocks on Y-95, while the Real Men were cranking out the hits on the Great 138." ( Jeff Laurence previously worked at WYUU 92.5 in Tampa and is still the image voice of WCOF 107.3 FM.)
When Contests and Station Promotions Go Haywire: It looks like WKRP in Cincinnati had nothing on WLCY, based on these examples from Donald Kimberlin:
Hiding the actual key for a prize car in a crack in an old post out on Weedon Island
(when it was deserted out there), only to discover the winner had found the key and driven it away!
Having a "guess when the ice heap will melt" contest down at Central Plaza, with a boat
and trailer "chained" to a post under the ice heap. The chain was actually laying on the ground around the post under
the ice. You can guess what happened to the prize when the ice melted overnight!
"Sealing" a DJ into a car for a month with wax on all the doors and "bars" on the windows.
Some folks wondered how he accomplished certain feats while inside the car, for example, remaining rather
well-groomed. After the close of the promotion, while cleaning out the car, staffers found the rear seat cushion had
been loosened so as to be removable, giving passage to the trunk. A key from a Gibsonton motel, near where his
girlfriend lived, expanded everyone's surmises!
Here's another anecdote from Ron Parker: "Shortly after I arrived at WLCY in October, 1975, the station needed to compete better against Q-105. WLCY had a limited 5,000 watts with its highly directional pattern at night...gone from the listening area after sunset was North Tampa, Clearwater, Seminole and Dunedin...growing population areas of the Bay Area."
"At 6pm I would push the stop button on the automation of WLCY-FM 94.9, which at the time was using TM Century taped programming. The old FCC rule allowed stations in major markets to simulcast no more than twelve hours per day. And thus, for a few months between 6pm and 6am...it was WLCY St. Petersburg/WLCY-FM Tampa, doing the simulcast thing."
"There was one technical glitch, however. We simulcasted out of the old WLCY-AM mono control room, which meant the stereo 94.9 signal was now reduced to mono for those twelve hours. Oh, and one other technical thing: We should have turned off the stereo pilot. I believe it illegally stayed on and according to old FCC rules, after two or three hours of continuous mono programming...they kinda wanted the stereo pilot off. Oh well!"
