WRCT New Year’s countdown show a little late this year
December 31, 2013
Wake up this New Year’s Day and tie a yellow ribbon around your old oak tree, cue your funky bass line and wear your widest collar. WRCT-FM (88.3) will once again celebrate the new year by returning to the golden age of glorious AM radio when it flashes back to the 1970s.
In a sickening radio tradition that’s now in its 11th stultifying year, WRCT’s resident oldies guru, Jay Thurber, will roll back the clock 40 years on Wednesday, Jan. 1, to count down the top tunes of 1973.
This year’s broadcast will air from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and also will be available online at www.wrct.org.
On January 1, 2014, Jay will fire up the six-cylinder flux capacitor in WRCT’s time-traveling AMC Hornet, speed down Forbes Avenue at 88.3 MPH, and head for Carnegie Mellon’s old student union, Skibo Hall, in 1974, when the station was still at 900 kHz AM.
Kindly Uncle Jay, Your Radio Pal™, who hosts an oldies program on WRCT on Saturday afternoons (www.jaythurbershow.com), will count down the top songs of 1973, interspersed with news reports, commercials and other announcements.
The “number one song of 1973” — as calculated by Jay from a completely scientific (ha! ha!) formula — will be unveiled just before 12 noon.
*This press release was written by Radio 9 program host Jay Thurber.
I wish I’d heard them when they were on 900 AM. I first heard WRCT on 88.3 when it was 10 watts, and I’d gotten a decent enough FM receiver to hear them in Greentree. They had an easygoing ‘slow agc’ sound quality, nicer than the aggressively processed sound of today. They were very loose, if the next DJ didn’t show up, they’d just shut the transmitter off, only to pop up a few hours later when there was a student available.
Does anyone know if any of the schools in Pittsburgh still have their AM signals? I used to hear WPPJ, Point Park (and was in their studios once) on 670, WPIT Pitt 640, and WDSR Duquesne could be heard on the Boulevard Of The Allies below the school, don’t know what the frequency was.
Boomer
Most of the schools have given up AM for FM. Some have given up FM for online-only.