Sunday Sticker - KDAR

98.3 KDAR is a Christian Talk/Religious Teaching station licensed to Oxnard, California.

KMEZ

KMEZ was an Urban Adult Contemporary station licensed to Belle Chase, Louisiana. In 2008 they began simulcasting on their sister station KKND which dropped its Country format. KKND then became Hip-Hop "Power 102.9" to challenge WQUE, another Rap/Urban station in the New Orleans market. The KMEZ calls and Old School R&B format now reside at 106.7 FM licensed to Port Sulphur, LA.

WKKJ

WKKJ is a Country music station licensed to Chillicothe, Ohio. In 2002 WKKJ swapped frequencies with WFCB (now WLZT, an Adult Contemporary station) and moved up the dial to 94.3 FM.

KYIS

KYIS is a Hot Adult Contemporary station from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. They've used the "Kiss" branding since 1991 after switching from "Z99" with the call letters KZBS.

WQKS

"Alice 96.1" was a Classic Hits station in Montgomery, Alabama from 2000 until 2008. WQKS is currently an Oldies station known as "Q96.1"

WVOK

WVOK was a Country music station in Birmingham, Alabama from 1977 until 1985. In the early 1980s the FCC allowed them to begin broadcasting 24 hours a day. They were a daytime-only signal all through the 60s and 70s when they were Top-40 "The Mighty 690." They are currently a Sports station "690 The Fan."

Memorial Day

WPCV (W Polk County Voice) has been a Country music station since 1973. With 100,000 watts and their central Florida transmitting site, they're one of the few stations able to reach both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts including Orlando and parts of Tampa Bay. WPCV is licensed to Winter Haven, Florida.

KCWJ

KCWJ was a Religious Teaching/Southern Gospel station in Kansas City, Missouri. The 1030 AM frequency has had a variety of formats and call letters over the years including Oldies KBST, Adult Contemporary KKJC, Hard Rock KBZR, Talk KBEQ and Classic Country KOWW. The above sticker is circa 2001 when KCWJ was Contemporary Christian Rock station. KCWJ is licensed to Blue Springs, Missouri and currently carries a Classic Country format.

WHOO

WHOO "Hits 96" was a Top-40 station licensed to Orlando, Florida. (if anyone has any information about what time period they were CHR, I'd like to know.) In 1984 they flipped to Country while retaining the WHOO calls. In 1987 they became WHTQ "Q96" with a Rock format and today they are strictly a Classic Rock station.

WHAT

AM 1340 WHAT has been broadcasting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since the mid 1920s. From the 1960s through the early 1980s they carried an R&B/Soul format and for awhile they were an Urban Talk station.


Starting in January, 2007 they became "Skin Radio" playing a blend of Alternative, Indie, Hip-Hop and Reggae as well as poetry readings and local music. It lasted less than eight months and by September they dropped it in favor of Adult Standards and changed their branding to "Martini Lounge Radio". They began this new format by playing nothing but Frank Sinatra music for a full month.

WHEN

AM 620 WHEN is currently a Sports Talk station licensed to Syracuse, New York.

In the late 1970s and early 80s the then music-based WHEN carried out one of the most successful bumper sticker campaigns in the history of radio. This sticker resembles the style of New York license plates which were in use from 1973-1986.

This one resembles the type of New York license plate used from 1986 until 2000.

WHER

WHER is a Classic Country station serving the Laurel/Hattiesburg, Mississippi area. Eagle 99 is licensed to Heidelberg, MS.

Around 1994 WHER was located up the dial at 103.7 licensed to Hattiesburg.

WHYI

WHYI is a Contemporary Hit Radio station licensed to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "Y100" has run some form of CHR continuously since 1973, making them the longest-running Top 40 station in North America that has kept the same branding and call letters. Prior to 1973 they were a Religious station as WMFP (1960-62) then a Beautiful Music station as WMJR (1962-73.)

KHOW

630 AM KHOW is a Talk station from Denver, Colorado.

Sunday Sticker - KCVS

KCVS is a Religious Teaching/Christian Music station licensed to Salina, Kansas. It is one of about 20 stations and translators in the Voice of Christian Youth America Radio Network, an evangelical Christian ministry based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

KFGO

Fargo, North Dakota's KFGO began as a Country music station in 1986 after switching from Adult Contemporary as KRRZ. During the Garth Brooks-induced "New Country" craze of the early 1990s they began using the "Moose Country" slogan. After briefly being known as "K102," by 2002 they had flipped to Classic Rock as KKBX "The Box" and now go by the highly uncreative "Rock 102" KRWK.

Places I've Lived #3 - Plainsboro, New Jersey

We moved from Pennsylvania in 1978 for the lush paradise wasteland that is New Jersey. The next year is pretty much a blur. We were waiting for a house to be built that suffered from shoddy construction and sat unworked upon for months at a time. In the meantime we lived in a rented house owned by an Indian family somewhere in or near Plainsboro. For some reason my brother and I went to two separate school districts. I remember being left alone every day at my second cousin’s house before walking to school and listening to lots of Bee Gees and Donna Summer on the kitchen radio. I wish I could remember what station it was but I was only 8 or 9 and wasn’t keeping track of these things. I was more interested in my cousin’s Star Wars action figures and discovering Pop Rocks while left alone in his room. 

Other random, fleeting memories: A creepy kid from across the street who lived in absolute filth and who didn’t go to school ; watching Super Bowl XIII at the Newark airport on a fuzzy black and white TV ; my brother running away from home ; a one-legged girl who ran (limped?) away from home (an incident which somehow also involved my brother) ; starting a stamp collection ; driving past a water tower in Grovers Mill which people mistook for an alien while listening to War of the Worlds in 1938.
Dad was a maintenance supervisor at a Johnson & Johnson factory and mom worked in the library at nearby Princeton University.  The house never got finished while we lived there and by December 1979 we had fled to rural western New York.

WPRB is a listener-supported station staffed mainly by Princeton University students. They have an eclectic format of Rock, Classical, Blues and Jazz as well as specialty shows including Greek music and children's programming. In 1955 WPRB became the first college FM station to be granted a limited broadcasting license by the FCC.

Radio Salü

Radio Salü plays a blend of Contemporary Hit Music along with 80s and 90s hits, something akin to a Hot AC station. They broadcast from Saarbrücken which is located in southwest Germany along the border with France. Radio Salü has been on the air since December 31st, 1989.

WMJY

WMJY is an Adult Contemporary station licensed to Biloxi, Mississippi. In the 1980s they were WQID, a highly-rated Top-40 station. They switched to "Magic 93.7" in 1994 playing Soft Rock tunes but have since shifted to a Hot AC format.

WANN

WANN was a pioneering Rhythm & Blues station from Annapolis, Maryland. After working as a radio officer in World War II, Morris Blum started WANN in January, 1947. The station set out broadcasting Big Band music along with Sports and News but a year later Blum decided to start playing gospel and rhythm & blues, known at that time as “race music.” Blum had observed African-Americans serving alongside whites in the Navy and was “completely colorblind at a time when it was not popular to support civil rights causes,” according to a longtime friend. The station sponsored a weekend "Bandstand at the Beach" at Carr's Beach, a segregated beach for African-Americans where James Brown and Ella Fitzgerald performed. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Blum allowed demonstrators to use WANN to vent their outrage which helped avert rioting in Annapolis. WANN was an influential black music powerhouse for almost 50 years before switching to Country in 1992. Morris Blum sold the station in 1998 and passed away in 2005 at the age of 95.

WAFL

"Eagle 97.7" WAFL is a Hot Adult contemporary station licensed to Milford, Delaware. The top sticker is from a previous Country format that they had in the early 1980s.

Happy Mother's Day!

KMOM was a Classic Rock station in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Mom started rocking in 1999 but passed away from Led Zeppelin poisoning in 2004. An autopsy also revealed heart abnormalities due to a diet consisting exclusively of Cream, Hot Tuna, Humble Pie, Meatloaf and April Wine. KMOM was licensed to Fountain, Colorado.

Mystery sticker #8

"Q106" is such a generic slogan for a station. There must be two dozen past and present Q106s in the history of radio....and this is one of them. If you have any call letter or location information about this sticker post a comment or send me an email.

KOKE

On this date in 1886 a pharmacist from Atlanta first sold Coca-Cola whose main ingredients were caffeine and cocaine. At the time he claimed it was a "patent medicine" and cured such ailments as headaches, impotence and morphine addiction. The cocaine was removed starting in 1904 but to this day Coca-Cola uses cocaine-free coco leaf extract as an ingredient. A company in New Jersey imports coco leaves from Peru, extracts the cocaine (which it sells to a Mallinckrodt, the only company in the U.S. licensed to purify cocaine for medical use) and sells the coca flavoring agent to Coca-Cola.


KOKE was a Country music station from Austin, Texas. In 1973 they developed an experimental format called "Progressive Country" which included everyone from Willie Nelson to Janis Joplin to the Rolling Stones. It earned a "Most Innovative Station" award from Billboard magazine in 1974 but struggled to earn ratings despite a fiercely loyal audience. By 1977 they had moved toward a more mainstream format billed as "Sterling Country."

KWTS

91.1 FM KWTS (K West Texas State) is an Alternative Rock station broadcasting from the campus of West Texas A&M University in Canyon, TX.  The 6,000-watt station went on the air in 1972.

World Accordion Day

On this date in 1829 the accordion received its patent. To celebrate the 180th birthday of this instrument, the Confederation Internationale des Accordéonistes mark May 6th as World Accordion Day.
I find the accordion interesting to watch being played but hard on the ears. In fact, the accordion is the main instrument for two of the most annoying musical genres ever created--Polka and Tejano (not to mention "Weird Al" Yankovic.) Having said that, If I'm flipping through channels and land on a PBS rerun of Myron Floren on the Lawrence Welk show I'm gonna watch it. The sound might be down but I'm watching (and the clothes on that show were so horrendously awful you can't not watch.) There's something oddly entertaining about the mini keyboard and the dozens of small buttons and the squeezing of the bellows. But that sound.......yech.
KRTX was a Tejano station in Houston, Texas. In December, 2008 they switched to a Spanish Contemporary Christian format. Tejano 980 was licensed to Rosenburg, Texas.

WNJO

WNJO was an Oldies station in central New Jersey that lasted from 1998 to 2001. They focused mainly on late-1950s to mid-1960s songs with an occasional tune from the 1970s. By the fall of 2001 they had switched to a Classic Hits format as WTHK "The Hawk." The station was revived in 2006 as a commercial-free internet station at wnjofm.com. WNJO was licensed to Trenton, New Jersey.

KLEM

1410 AM KLEM is a Soft Adult Contemporary station licensed to (K) LE Mars, Iowa. They are now also heard on 96.9 FM via translator station K245AM.

Sunday Sticker - KCTA

KCTA (Know Christ The Answer) is a daytime-only Religious Teaching/Christian Talk station licensed to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Actual sticker sighting #1 - WJQK

You rarely see radio stickers on car bumpers or windows anymore. There are three main reasons I can think of for this:1. People don't stick anything on their cars as much as they used to. (This could easily be untrue. I have seen an awful lot of Calvins peeing on Chevy logos and people telling me to "Fear This" and Dale Earnhardt logos with angel wings. Maybe I just live near a lot of rednecks.)
2. Nobody is so passionate about a radio station anymore that they're willing to essentially place an ad for them on their cars.
3. Stations don't have stickers to give away. I talked briefly to an employee of WSHZ Star 108 in Holland, Michigan today. He said that their station no longer had stickers because people tend to stick 'em where they're not supposed to (stop signs, postal boxes, public property etc.) He was doing a remote at the Tulip Festival in Holland and was nice enough to give me a sheet of plastic banner with the station logo on it though.

Anyway....I've decided to make a post anytime that I see a radio sticker on a vehicle (assuming I have the decal in my collection.) Local stations are exempt because otherwise this "actual sightings" series would just be a bunch of Dayton radio stickers.

Driving from Holland, Michigan towards Grand Rapids today I saw this sticker from JQ99 FM.

WJQK is a Contemporary Christian station licensed to Zeeland, Michigan.

Market #1s - Texarkana - KKYR

102.5 KKYR is a Country music station licensed to Texarkana, Texas.  They are known as "Kicker 102.5" and were #1 (easily) in the most recent listener ratings that I could find for that market.