and also to get the “passing traffic” between ABC RN and 3LO.
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Do you feel like an afternoon of listening to 1980s radio? Check out some of these chunky airchecks (some that last for 90 minutes) from:
Triple M: When it played music, music, music and more music
2SM: As the Rock of the 80s in 1984. It peaked at a share of over 10% as it played top 40 hits with a sense of urgency and fun.
2UW: Rik Melbourne was out of control at breakfast with the most irreverent style and daily chats with Toola, his Greek cleaning lady.
2WS: Middle of the road and proudly from the West.
2DayFM: Rarely has a commercial radio station sounded so non-commercial. 2DayFM in the 80s may have been style but it was soooooo sleepy.
2OO: Wollongong’s new station made little impact on 2WL, until they switched to FM.
3MP: From 1979
https://franksterarchives.org/?paged=4
Google: The Frankster Archives
Pages and pages of some outstanding air checks.
Frankster Archives – I love you.
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Oh the irony.
4BH lost listeners to 4KQ when they went to 24/7 sport.
Now 4KQ will lose even more listeners to 4BH now they’ve gone to 24/7 sport.
SEN have obviously never heard of Macquarie Sports Radio.
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I don’t think ratings are SEN’s priority and therefore don’t care.
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That’s like an airline saying they don’t care if they have passengers, and they’ll just get some gullible advertiser to sponsor the flight anyway.
They can spin it however they like but if nobody is listening, nobody is hearing the advertising or sponsorship. Advertisers aren’t going to pay to reach a handful of listeners.
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SEN must care somewhat about ratings as they pay to be part of the surveys.
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The differences are that SEN have advertisers that understand their product (MSR was just bonus spots/add-ons from the main stations) and live sport.
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That’s sad, but true.
SEN not caring about ratings, is like owning a Ferrari and barely taking care of it. Give it to anyone else (other than BOG) and you’ll have some passion in the product.
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I had a listen to some of them, I especially loved the 2AY Albury airchecks, country AM radio at its best! As Bart Simpson says “This stuff is GOLD!”
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Yes, the only good source for quality Australian airchecks. I downloaded a lot to a USB stick to listen in the car. They only stay up for a limited time due to hosting costs, so grab them while you can. I have actually asked Frankster whether he’d be open to subscriptions and donations; there is really nobody else doing it on a consistent basis. A service well worth a few bucks a month.
There is a DXer in Melbourne (not on the forum) who has a metric f-ton of archive radio on tape…it’s a race to save it all.
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I love that some of these air checks went for over an hour. I was playing them though the sound bar in the house over the last few days. I felt like I was back in the 80s.
- SAFM from 1984 (before it was “in your face” hit radio
- 2SM from 1984 (I had forgotten so many 80s songs, although I am sure dxnerd remembers them!)
- 2DayFM from 1983 (so boring, it almost needed resuscitation)
- Triple M in 1984 (playing Footloose and many breakdance songs as it was forced to compete with 2SM)
- 2UE’s Gary O’Callaghan (at the top of his game in 1982)
Back in the day when every shift was live and local, every DJ had a voice for radio and you had your favourites, every shift (except breakfast) focused on music and the quality of the Top 40 was better than ever.
Today I might just pretend that it’s 1984 and sit by the pool with some 80s radio, a glass of Summer Wine and my hypercolour t shirt.
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Not sure if this one was posted before, it’s a great video.
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Former Brisbane radio DJ Ron Saywell has died Redirecting...
Aircheck from 4BC, 1972:
YouTube: Joe Smith
He also featured in this Ten News story from 1991 about the end of 4IP before it became 4TAB
YouTube: RIEGS-TV
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Ron was also the music director at 2UE in the early to mid 1980s. Anyone that was in close proximity to Ron was usually smiling.
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Jaan (John) Torv has passed away.
Jaan was brother to Hans Torv, well known as the co-host of the Hans & Kayley breakfast show on WSFM for 12 years prior to leaving the show to head up the Hot Tomato venture on the Gold Coast. The brothers’ sister Anna Torv was Rupert Murdoch’s first wife who financed the purchase of the Gold Coast licence for $26 million in 2002.
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Wow now THAT was radio when listeners really aligned themselves with a brand. There was no bigger radio brand in Oz than 2SM through mid-70s to early-80s. How about Macca jumping into the white Mazda rotary and rowing the manual all the way. And the late great Gordon “Googy” O’Byrne, a true legend and gone way too soon.
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Ah great memories. I got to do some work experience with Gary O and he was amazingly to watch. Pound for pound i still reckon Gary was the greatest breakfast personality ever. A manic worker and wrote the script for legions of breakfast djs following. He was totally unassuming and incredible value for 2UE over three decades as he never demanded big bucks. Just loved what he did and incredibly good at it. Such an inspiration for me anyway.
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Thanks for the excellent share, this for me was more then an afternoon, more like three long nights. Some of those airchecks are absolute heaven.
Hearing some full airchecks of the old 2Day FM unscoped was wonderful, though as much as I brag about the old 2Day, they were definitely as sleepy as in 1980 with those July test broadcasts, I believe the music became more upbeat as soon as they started official broadcasting in August.
Listening to 2WS at it’s maxim in 1985 1986 with Dave D Whitcomb and Annie Webster reading the news was bliss, this was exactly when I was listening to the station. Though the tapes had no broadcast date, I surmise they came from March 1986, as at the time Karen raisin was doing evenings, Webster took over at the start of April when Raisin left.
THe real gold was the Triple M snippet from about July 1984, hearing those time precise Triple M promos reminded me on how 1984 saw that station at it’s peak, they played a lot of pop that year, by 1986 they were starting to drift back to rock.
the 1984 2SM airchecks reminded me why I gave that station the big flick that year, someone there was totally mad on playing the Thompson Twins “Hold me now” every two hours. That was the song that killed the station, they had a repreve in 1985 1986, but their best days were over by that stage.
Looking into contacting frank, I have spare webspace that I would love to donate to him, he’s doing a great job. May even discuss trying to get the airchecks up in flac, if we can arrange enough webspace. The sound quality from the original tapes varies from very good to poor, and some tapes may not be worth flacing, but I see his got several open reel masters there that would be great to hear lossless.
Absolutely spell bound to hear the god of radio, Ken Sparks do his Rock around the World show, this was true radio heaven.
UPDATE: Does anyone know how to contact Frankster, I checked his entire website, and can’t find any contact info.
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I think @Mechsta knows him; I could try to contact him on Facebook.
Would be great if you could contribute some airchecks to the site.
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Frankster can be contacted through Facebook or digispellsmedia@gmail.com
He runs his own audio transfer company Digi Spells Media.
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