I just received this today from Jim Olson in Minot, ND. Being the true radio geek that I am, I wanted to get it “on-the-air” as quickly as possible. Jim writes:
“Here’s the aircheck of me when I was known as Kelly Stone at KELO-AM in Sioux Falls.
The name was given to me by Neil Shurtz, who was the PD when I started in June of 1976. He soon left for Colorado, leaving Harley Worthit as the PD (he also worked a lot in the Twin Cities I believe). I did PM drive for over a year before moving to KKLS in Rapid City. This was my first radio job outside my father’s station in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, KTRF. This audio came from a reel tape I had from back then – unfortunately it was the only aircheck I saved from my days in Sioux Falls.”
KELO sounded much bigger than Sioux Falls was at the time. Their jocks, music rotation, and audio processing made them sound like they were in a substantially larger market. Our annual family vacation ritual often took us from the Twin Cities to the Black Hills, so I’d get my chance to hear them during the summer months. Unfortunately, we never stopped near Sioux Falls, so I was never able to roll tape. Thanks, Jim for sharing this with us!
Note: There is approximately 7 seconds silence at the beginning of the audio file. Since this was already a compressed file, I didn’t want to degrade the audio by trimming and thus adding another layer of compression. Besides, you get to hear the cool startup hum of the reel-to-reel skimmer this way!