WAAF

WAAF is a Rock station in Boston, Massachusetts. Except for a brief fling with Top-40 in 1974 and a shift towards new wave/pop in 1983, WAAF has been a Rock station continuously since 1970. Their signal is now simulcast on WKAF 97.7 FM licensed to Brockton, MA while WAAF itself is licensed to Westborough, MA. All of their stickers have used the distinctive "paint strokes" logo since 1981.

KSTA

KSTA "K-Star 107.1" was a Country station from Coleman, Texas. The FM seems to be defunct but KSTA 1000 AM, also with a Country format and licensed to Coleman, has been on the air since 1951.

KKPT

"The Point 94.1" KKPT is a Classic Rock station from Little Rock, Arkansas.

The End of the World

KEBR is a Religious Teaching station licensed to Rocklin, California near Sacramento. They are one of about 160 stations and translators in the Oakland-based Family Radio network.

Last month, an unemployed Family Radio listener from Colorado Springs spent $1,200 on bus bench advertisments proclaiming THE END OF THE WORLD!!! These Armageddon ads read: "Save the date! Return of Christ May 21, 2011 wecanknow.com" along with a picture of someone writing it down in a daily planner (as if he would have otherwise forgotten that THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!) Read all about it here. Harold Camping, the president of Family Radio, previously predicted the return of Christ and subsequent Judgment Day to take place on September 6, 1994.

Yukon Discovery Day

The third Monday in August is Yukon Discovery Day which commemorates the anniversary of the discovery of gold in 1896 which started the Klondike Gold Rush.

The only items in my collection from Yukon are these stickers from CKRW in Whitehorse. CKRW AM & FM simulcasts a Hot AC format known as "The Rush," a nod to the Klondike Gold Rush.

KBRO

1490 AM KBRO is a Spanish-language Sports station licensed to Bremerton, Washington. They are one of about 30 stations in the ESPN Deportes radio network.

This sticker is from 1986 when it's unclear to me what their format was. A 1988 Broadcasting Yearbook lists them as Adult Contemporary while a Seattle radio board claims "1490 kept the country music throughout the 80s and early 90s." Anybody know for sure?

KAAK

"K99" KAAK is a Hot AC station from Great Falls, Montana.

Radio 88.6

Radio 88.6 has been broadcasting from Vienna, Austria since 1998. Starting in 2008 the station began using the motto "Wir Spielen Was Wir Wollen" ("We Play What We Want") which was inspired by the plethora of Variety Hits stations known as "JACK FM." Listening live while making this post I heard:

Hootie & the Blowfish "Only Wanna Be With You"
Bon Jovi "We Weren't Born to Follow"
Fiction Factory "Feels Like Heaven"
Deep Purple "Smoke on the Water"
OMC "How Bizarre"

This was a box of hard candy of some kind.  After many years it seemed to melt or disintegrate and ended up a sticky mess so I took a picture of it and threw it away.  The words translate to "let it melt on your tongue."

Vinyl Record Day

Today is Vinyl Record Day which is dedicated to "the preservation of the cultural influence, the recordings and the cover art of vinyl records." It also coincides with the day Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877.

WFMU is a Freeform station licensed to East Orange, New Jersey. They also run a fantastic blog and sell their supercool stickers at their online store. Another WFMU decal can be seen here.

Radio in the Movies #4 - "Talk to Me"

"Talk to Me" is a biopic of Ralph Waldo "Petey" Greene (Don Cheadle) a Korean war vet and ex-con who became a prominent DJ on WOL radio in Washington DC. He also hosted his own television show, "Petey Greene's Washington" from 1976 to 1982. The movie begins with him in prison where he works as a jailhouse DJ and later sets up a ploy to talk down a suicidal inmate earning him a reduction in sentence. Program director Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) hires him at WOL where Petey pushes the envelope by talking openly about racism, sex, drugs, religion and other provocative subjects. Howard Stern was working at DC101 at the time and was influenced by Greene calling him "way ahead of his time." Stern later made an appearance (in blackface!) on his TV show.



"Talk to Me" apparently contains many factual inaccuracies and the "Inspired by a true story" on the movie poster is telling. Disagreements among Petey Greene's family, the movie's producer and other people portrayed in the film makes you wonder if anything but the most basic facts are true. An interesting story about it can be read about it here.

WOL 1450 AM is an Urban Talk station licensed to Washington, DC. They are the flagship station of Radio One, the largest radio broadcasting company that primarily targets African-American listeners.

WEW

St. Louis Missouri's WEW (We Enlighten the World) carries Brokered Ethnic programming including a mishmash of shows like The Croatian Hour, German Talk Radio, Polka Plus and Voice of West Bosnia. Two hours each weekday morning are devoted to Adult standards and Big Band music.
WEW is the oldest radio station west of the Mississippi River and their website claims that they're the second oldest in the country, having been licensed in April of 1921.

WXEW

840 AM WXEW "Radio Victoria" is a Spanish Variety station licensed to Yabucoa, Puerto Rico.

WOMP

WOMP was a Top-40 station from Wheeling, West Virginia until 2005. 100.5 FM is currently a Variety Hits station "Jack FM" WYJK. WOMP! (they really should have included an exclamation point after their call letters) was licensed to Bellaire, Ohio.

WKES

WKES (named after the KESwick Christian School who founded the station) is a Religious broadcaster licensed to Lakeland, Florida near Tampa Bay. They are one of 5 stations in Florida operated by the Moody Broadcasting Network.

I'm Feeling Lucky

Like almost everybody else, I use Google for all of my web searches. All this time I never paid attention to the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button or even knew what it was. If you enter anything in the search box and click the "Lucky" button it bypasses all the results and sends you directly to whatever the first ranked page would have been. So I typed in "radio stickers" and was pleasantly surprised that it sent me to this very blog. I imagine this could change over time but as of today I'm the lucky "radio sticker" winner.

Let's try a few more...

"Radio decal" sent me to a place that sells water slide decals for vintage radios.
"Radio promotional items" will put your station's logo on a variety of nicknacks.
"Station sticker" sends you to a motor vehicle inspection business in Maine.

After getting your car inspected at that place you could drive up to Bar Harbor, Maine and listen to "Lucky 99" WLKE.

Actually, you can't because "Lucky 99" is now "99.1 The Bear" but they still carry a Country format. "The Bear" is actually simulcast on three stations: 99.1 WLKE, 104.7 WBFB and 103.3 WMCM.

WCZR

WCZR is a Talk station from Vero Beach, Florida. They are a simulcast of 94.3 WZZR which is licensed to Riviera Beach near West Palm Beach. Programming is aimed squarely at men with Bob & Tom in the mornings, Lex & Terry at night and Miami Dolphins football.

Coast Guard Day

The United States Revenue Cutter Service was founded on this date by Alexander Hamilton in 1790. Their job as an armed branch of the Treasury Department was to enforce import tariffs and all other maritime laws. In 1915 the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the United States Life-Saving Service to form the United States Coast Guard. The modern Coast Guard is probably best known for their search and rescue operations.

SOS is the description of a specific Morse code distress signal. It consists of three dots-three dashes-three dots (· · · — — — · · ·)
In International Morse Code three dots form the letter S while three dashes make an O. SOS later became known as "save our ship."

WSOS is a Soft Adult Contemporary station from St. Augustine, Florida and licensed to Fruit Cove FL. Sadly, they are no longer known as "The Muuuuuusic Station" but instead go by the less original but more Florida-appropriate "Sunny 94.1"

A slightly different WSOS sticker without the life saver ring:

KXIX

KXIX was a Modern Rock station from Bend, Oregon. 94.1 FM is now a Top-40 station known as "Power 94."

Colorado Day

Today is Colorado Day which is always celebrated on the first Monday in August. Colorado became the 38th US state on August 1, 1876.

The first radio station in Colorado was 560 AM KLZ which went on the air in Denver on March 10, 1922. In 1978 they switched formats from MOR to Country.

KLZ is currently a conservative-leaning Talk station known as "560 AM The Source."

Sunday Sticker - KOLU

KOLU (Keep On Looking Up) is a Religious Teaching station licensed to Pasco, Washington.