Monday, November 25, 2019

Remembering WMCA Radio Home of the Good Guys in the 1960s


Today, I started a Facebook group for WMCA when it was a top 40 station in the 1960s  In the first 13 hours 56 people have already joined.  The station was at 570 on the AM dial with a signal of only 5,000 watts limiting its signal to New York City and its immediate suburbs.  Its major rival was WABC with its 50,000-watt signal.

I liked WMCA for its broader playlist while WABC's was much too restrictive for me.  When the Beatles released a record they would fight over which station played it first. Winning a WMCA Good Guy sweatshirt as seen above was a big prize for their listeners. Both stations had legendary personalities.  The major WMCA personalities included:

  • Joe O'Brien
  • Harry Harrison
  • Jack Spector
  • Dan Daniel
  • B. Mitchell Reed
  • Gary Stevens
  • Dean Anthony
  • Ed Baer
  • Frank Stickle
In September 1970 the station adopted a talk format and eventually became a religious broadcaster as it is today.  The following websites provide useful information about the station.

WMCA Page from the New York Radio Message Board authored by Allan Sniffen



2 comments:

dong said...

hmm

msmacriv or msmac said...

In the 60's there were 2 rock-n-roll stations in the NYC area WMCA and WABC, I went to sleep every night listening to WMCA, most of my friends listened to the other top Rock-n-Roll
station. WMCA seemed to have larger variety then WABC. I use to fall asleep listening to the radio, late at night there would be basically show that would talk about music, TV, thing going on around the world and maybe start with some music. If I happened to get interested in the conversation content, I would try to "will" myself to stay awake. There were a few times when the content of the conversation would prompt me to inquire, of my liberal democratic parents, what was discussed the night before. Some of my questions, at times, my questions may have appeared going against their, religious, political, moral, or ethical "controversies" going on, at that time in history, at the local, state, federal and world level. They always asked me why I was asking. My reply was always, "I heard it on the radio while I was falling asleep." They never indicated I shouldn't be listening to such things and never removed the radio from my room. I graduated from Pearl River HS in 1966, already knowing my parent's would be moving the family to our State Capital. In the next 10 years, arriving in out Nation's Capitol, for the second time I now listen to 630 WMAL on the AM dial, now on 105.9 a talk radio state. If you are asking why, because I'm doing research for some information I need form the original WRKL and through a number duckduckgo default web browser searches. I need help. Please call me at the number, I think I left on your general call-in line phone number ending in

 
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