It may be hard for country music fans to accept, but KWWK was a Top 40 station during the early 1980s. Mostly automated, they were the FM sister station of KOLM-AM 1520. With a power output of only 3,000 watts, KWWK’s coverage was limited to the immediate Rochester area. The upgrade to 50,000 watts @ 96.5 came several years later.
KWWK was the American Top 40 affiliate for Rochester. Since Casey Kasem wasn’t available on a Twin Cities FM station during this time, I would listen to the countdown on either KWWK, St. Cloud’s KCLD, or WIAL from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This week, I chose KWWK. I always recorded AT40, so I just happened to grab this as Casey Kasem wrapped up his countdown at 4:00PM.
It was Easter Sunday, 1982. KWWK had a remote broadcast this afternoon, which explains why they were “live” instead of running the automation. Weather, local news, Mutual News, and the remote from Autorama 8 filled out the quarter hour. I’ve edited the Mutual newscast out of this aircheck but have presented it in it’s entirety as a separate exhibit. This remote is rather humorous since it requires the jock to talk about various types of flowers. How many 20-something guys know anything at all about flowers? Very few, if any. Towards the end of the broadcast, he finally gives up and admits defeat. He says “I don’t know much about flowers” and asks the female client to take over for him!
I captured this from Apple Valley, Minnesota, using my Pioneer SX-3900 receiver. A Winegard 10-element FM yagi, Belden ultra low loss coaxial cable, and Alliance U-100 antenna rotor made reception possible from my location. My Pioneer AM/FM/cassette portable stereo unit was patched in and used as the recorder. Source tape is a TDK D90.