WQMR and WGAY Radio Memories

Pictured above the stations' letterhead on the left, Washington's FIRST 50,000 watt stereo station had to be revised - originally the south-facing World Building sign said Washington's ONLY 50,000 watt stereo station, but as the 1960's progressed, we ended up with several stations with that much Effective Radiated Power (I'm told WGAY-FM was a 20,000 watt RCA transmitter equipped with multiplex capability but that combined with HAAT (Height Above Average Terrain) with the tower 10 stories up on top of the World Building, the ERP was 50,000 watts. I just know it had a great signal in Montgomery County. To the right, the 1950s with the original art-deco building at 11306 Kemp Mill Road (built in 1947) depicted with a car, I'm not sure of the make, painted brightly with the WGAY calls/frequency/etc.

5/17/2017 I fixed (I think) the great photogallery of the World Building installation, pictures provided (and the story) by Tom DeBray, click the link here to read, picture gallery link at top right of Tom's article:

FILE STREAMING WORKS - a total surprise for me - 5/2020 - you do need to associate .wmv and .wma files to launch with Windows Media Player (not sure if the newer stuff works, that also came with Windows 10, I think?). You can always download files using "right click/save as" if you have a slow connection. Not sure when this was fixed or anything about it, but it works! 25 year old websites need all the help they can get.

Washington and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs had the greatest in radio talent. Here's Gordon Peterson with a series about Washington radio, and you'll recognize many of the stars, though it's a nostalgia piece, radio of today is "pretty lame" (per me). From 1981, thanks to Mark Rockman for the research!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=firkgGi7lGk#t=0

I'm very sorry to announce that DCRTV Dave (Dave Hughes) died on December 27, 2021. Early in the days when telcos also offered USENET and WEB space, Dave and I were going to have dinner, I don't remember where, to discuss radio, TV and web sites. WEB SITES. We did not call them blogs. The amplitude modulation part of radio is WORTHLESS and I remember when moving being very angry about WTOP taking up 103.5 FM. But who cares what I think. The blowtorch Wheaton station could be heard in Florida, I often heard, but Montgomery County was spotty in coverage. Was that why it ended up on FM? I don't remember any newscasts being broadcast in multiplex stereo!

I have lived 1,100 miles from DC for 17 years or so, but now and then tuned in to DCRTV to try to read through all the pissing contests and needless posturing to try to keep a little bit of what I used to enjoy to the fullest, the radio dial in the DC area. Yes, it was often a world of needless verbal scrums, rumors, and - sometimes - good information; Dave kept up with the radio dial, poked fun at the wizard of all radio (you know who I mean) and sometimes I enjoyed it! Fake names, sometimes the real people writing under pseudonyms and people writing messages mainly mean and hateful; yet Dave CARED about the radio/tv lineups, ratings, format changes, personnel at stations in your part of the country. Sadly radio became "just hostile" - and I don't know how Dave put up with all that... but I'm glad he did. He didn't let the wizard of former Wheaton blowtorch station get away with all their braggadocios behavior. I guess that's showbiz, in some minds. I used to enjoy WAVA myself, when reception was possible. My late mother used to tell me that long, long ago (WJSV?) Arthur Godfrey used to call this particular station "the rut at the butt of your dial."

I remember Ed and Willard calling Godfrey "Arthur Codfish."

4/4/2017, from DCRTV relayed to me by Bob Bell, a note on DCRTV from Bob Gotkin comes the sad news that Dave Deforest, heard for years on WGAY (and WEZR) has died at age 64; he had been with Voice of America for twenty years. Wow, it really brings back memories of hearing his name, I believe that at least on the half-hour news the announcer gave his or her name. I don't have any airchecks of "live WQMR/WGAY" except what's already here, but I certainly remember his name and voice.

I've been told that a lot of announcers at "non-rock" radio stations went to VOA as rock obliterated everything else. The fond memories are still there, I listened to WQMR on my first transistor radio circa 1960 (it wasn't very good, but I had an All-American 5 (tube) radio (Made In Japan) as well. It was always great to be able to have a radio station you could always tune in and hear "quality music" and the headlines on the hour, with a few actual minutes of news on the half-hour, the station really was a great service to the community. They even ran a sort of community bulletin board thing (I think it was about 5 minutes, at about 6am... I was rarely awake that early, but I did often hear "The Breakfast Table Edition of WQMR News" - I think that was 10 or 15 minutes of news at 8am... those were the days, great albums of beautiful music from the Connie B. Gay station(s) for Washington... (they played tracks, not albums, of course, but the meaning is still there; I used to have some mid 1950's WASH-FM listings where they DID play records straight through (Faith, Fiedler, Broadway,etc., I believe they did this a few hours a day but were classical the rest of the time. I just remember my father setting up an AM and FM radio for "simulcast stereo" experimental broadcasts on WASH and WDON. Memories!

Scroll down a way and see newly discovered Christmas WGAY-AM pix from (I think) 1951 9/3/2013

Detective Bell sent the above referenced Christmas card, as well as the letter that was a well-written "we want more business" promotional effort by Joe Brechner from 1954 (admittedly, at around a year and a half old, as old as I am, I was not listening to the station at that point... this isn't interesting but I notice in 1954 the phone number was 589-1050 so it got dialtone from the Silver Spring central office a short distance north on Georgia Avenue; by 1959 it was 946-1050 meaning it was "rehomed" to the "new" Wheaton #5 Crossbar office (or was it a #1 Crossbar? I don't remember... (now a #5 ESS, a digital switch of course). Still quite a distance in another direction. Ah, the wireline days... going away soon, it seems.

12/17/2014 - an email from Joe Brechner's son Berl. It is quite an honor to hear from Berl -

Hello Bill,

I came across your Percy Faith site, as I was looking up something on
WGAY, and thus found the WGAY/WQMR subsection.

Near the top of that section there's a scan of a letter from Joseph
Brechner, owner/GM of WGAY at the time, 1954. I'm his son, and you may be
interested to know that the definitive story of the creation and first
months of operations of WGAY is found in a Saturday Evening Post Magazine
article:

You, Too, Can Own a Radio Station
AUTHOR(S)Brechner, Joseph L.
PUB. DATEJanuary 1947
SOURCESaturday Evening Post;1/25/1947, Vol. 219 Issue 30, p26
SOURCE TYPEPeriodical
DOC. TYPEArticle
ABSTRACTThe author discusses how he and his partner received their license
to operate a radio station in Silver Spring, Maryland. In addition to what
his partner told to a prospective applicant that he needs nerve, capital,
patience, persistence, and intuitive understanding of radio, engineering,
law, business management, and human nature, the author adds that a person
who seeks to apply for a license needs a good deal of luck too.

My father wrote a followup article, also published, about a year later, in
the same publication, published Feb. 23, 1948, and titled "Radio, What a
Business".

By the way, the station went on the air in or around the last week of
November, 1946….My parents remembered that week well…. It was the same week
I was born.

Joe Brechner died in 1990, and Marion Brechner, who was also critical to
the creation of WGAY and involved with Joe in their continuing broadcast
interests, died in 2011 at age 98. The little television station, now
WFTV, that Joe and Marion established in Orlando after leaving WGAY, was
a pacesetter in local news and broadcast editorials, and Joe Brechner took
a leadership role in working with the central Florida community on key
issues such as civil rights, growth and development, and many other
matters. The station is now one of the most dominant ABC Network
affiliates in the country.

I took over the businesses in the late '80s and ultimately had two TVs,
three radio stations, and outdoor advertising company. But I still have
recollections from early childhood of going to the art deco WGAY building
in Silver Spring.

The Central Florida Regional History Center has a major collection of Joe
Brechner's materials and writings, and our family has established at the
University of Florida the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information,
http://www.brechner.org

as well as the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project,
http://firstamendment.jou.ufl.edu

Thanks for your work in putting these pages together.

Regards,
Berl Brechner, December 2014

A great, comprehensive article by Dick O'Connor that details the origins of the Beautiful Music format and it's development! This is a must read; it details how the format came to be and those responsible for its creation across the country. Click the link to see the .pdf file!

The Christmas card shown below appears to be postmarked 1951. The station began operations as WGAY AM 1050 in November 1946 and appeared to have a "generalist" format (a little bit of everything). I can tell you first-hand, that in the early 1960's (Connie B. Gay bought the station in 1959) my family drove by the station on Kemp Mill Road in Wheaton every weekend. Though a very distant memory they still had a Christmas wreath on the front door at Christmas; it's a great find by Bob Bell and caused me (gasp) to UPDATE, finally, the WQMR/WGAY section. I got quite a kick out seeing the idealized (who knows, in 1951 maybe the stars sparkled, snow adorned the grass and trees, etc. I was born in 1952 so let's just say the combination of snow and Christmas was on the rare side, and even in the early 1960's the building... er... didn't look quite so ideal. But on a Christmas card given out by the talent of a little station in Wheaton, glass bricks and all (a full sized studio for live radio too, I was told by the late Doug Bailey who ran an ad agency in Rockville, and for about two years had a daily broadcast on WGAY in the late 1950's where he'd use piano, electronic organ (a Hammond) and often vocal accompaniment. It was, no doubt, one of the last "live" musical daily shows done at the station.

Before his death, Doug Bailey had intended to write a detailed book about Washington area radio and television stations, their studio facilities, and talent. I believe it would have told us the story of broadcasting in the area from the late 1930's through about 1960.

In the spring of 1960 WGAY-AM became WQMR-AM, Washington's Quality Music Radio, one of the pioneering stations in the country with back-to-back music in quarter hour segments (less if they were well sponsored :)

I'm not sure what went on with FM in the early days. Art MacDougall (who died many years ago) told me of a low-power experimental FM broadcast, and when CBG bought the station (of course) he played country-western music on it. Hours were limited, and so was fidelity; I was told that it was often fed music from - yes - a jukebox. FM was still "experimental." In early 1962 the 20,000 watt FM transmitter was added (same building, sharing the same tower) and now both WQMR and WGAY played "quality music" - AM signed off at sundown as always, but FM carried on until 9pm and eventually until midnight. A shiny new transmitter which was lifted to the "Top of the World Building" by helicopter - twice - the wrong model was delivered the first time. Now WGAY-FM was broadcasting "quality music" (great albums of beautiful music to be exact) 24/7 in S T E R E O, this was in the spring of 1965. WQMR remained the daytimer favorite (lots of people didn't have FM in their homes/offices/cars in 1965, but quickly adopted them). As the 1960's got toward 1968 or so, WGAY-FM was the highly promoted hi-fidelity stereo station. Elsewhere on this website you'll see pictures of WQMR-AM's tower/remote controlled (from the World Building) transmitter located at Sligo Golf Course not far from where Georgia Avenue underpass is located below; and the World Building was close to the District Line at 8121 Georgia Avenue.

I believe "Fiddlin'" Curly Smith was heard on the "classic" WGAY; they seemed to have segments of many kinds of music; Music In The Air was a really early "quality music" show though I don't know when it began to appear on WGAY-AM. I know that in the late 1950's other stations were taking notice of the Percy Faith/Andre Kostelanetz/Ray Conniff sounds, WASH (then purely classical) began to broadcast entire "mood music" Lp's and even had a "narrated" show that used the Original Cast albums (a lot of credit for that goes to Goddard Leiberson of Columbia Records - he was THE pioneer of the OC album.

These were the days that radio was a "must listen" - and it meant a lot to those of us "aging boomers."

I think the postmark is 1951 on this card from "Fiddlin' Curly Smith" in the "generalist" format days of WGAY-AM. Detective Bob Bell found this on Ebay. Now you know what the call letters stood for.

I remember in the early 1960's at Christmas that wreath as depicted in the artwork below was indeed put on the door, but honestly the little building didn't look quite so much in the holiday spirit. Most Christmas days or eves/weekends were bereft of snow and I never saw and twinkling stars. I'm sure that it must be Christmas eve, because there was likely no one at the station hence no footprints, much less the sidewalk cleared (yes, I know, it's an ARTIST'S DEPICTION. There was another art-deco building not too far away, for the original WTOP-1500AM blowtorch station. I remember it didn't look good outside, the sign was rusted, who would care anyway. WQMR was gone (the building seen here) not long after the AM transmitter and tower had to be moved to Sligo; but I guess WTOP is still there, I dunno, I don't live there anymore. When Connie B. Gay and "great albums of beautiful music" came to town, I remember dimly that the call letters for WQMR and WGAY were shown, but not on the same facia. Evidently they couldn't find two "W's" because one W was red while the other letters matched, a kind of dark blue. I can't remember if the red W was for QMR or GAY. Trivia, maybe there's a photo somewhere...

Memories? Do you remember the Bernie Harrison Show? How about way back in the pre-stereo days, The Secret Sound Game? I'm not sure when the feature ran, but remember never coming close to recognizing the "secret sounds." Must have been 1963 or 1964-ish. Notice in the newspaper ad (above) (for Bernie Harrison's show) WQMR was mentioned as both AM and FM, a tad misleading, FM was WGAY. This was all a long time ago, and though I'd like more details on the WQMR "flip" when CBG bought the station, the information is not easy to find and memories conflict (especially mine). Back to Bernie Harrison for a second - though this ad is from the WaPo, wasn't his newspaper column in the long-forgotten Washington Star?

click to see more SIGHTS and hear some SOUNDS of our beloved WQMR and WGAY (in fine print, but it was there for those who wanted static-free listening after SUNSET) ... and WMAL clips

Pictured at the top of the page, WGAY in its Wheaton, Maryland post-war building (1947 I think, here pictured in the early 50's with the WGAY-mobile) that was largely untouched until the move to Silver Spring, which began in 1965... 11306 Kemp Mill Road, Wheaton, Maryland, phone WHitehall6-1050! In 1960 the WGAY calls in the picture became WQMR (WGAY was put back on the building on another angle, see the brochure picture in the "sights" link). This site is all about a radio station from long ago that existed in an entirely different environment. Radio used to be an exciting medium. Radio now is talk shows and shock jocks. I prefer to live in the past, so join me during your visit here!

WQMR with WGAY-FM - circa 1965 - KEMP MILL ROAD studio in the white art-deco building (top of the page), that brought the Washington area the Quality Music Radio sound - Tom DeBray at the controls, Tom designed the studios and equipment that were to bring the station into a new stereo era in the spring of 1966, the World Building, shown below. This picture is the first time I've seen the "insides" of WQMR on Kemp Mill Road, and I'm most grateful to Tom for letting us all see it. Yes, the quarter hour clusters, not back-titled then, and the WQMR themed harp played between EVERY selection which provided continuity and continual station identification. In the SOUNDS section of this site you can hear a few of the "original" circa 1960 harps. I'm not sure if the "new" harps, tape-delayed for a stereo effect, were introduced prior to the move to the World Building or if they may have been used for a time in the 1964-65 time frame.

Starting in 1965, the station began the move to larger, modern (beautiful studio with the finest equipment) quarters at 8121 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, as seen on the right. I believe the "WGAY 99.5 STEREO" was a revision, somewhere in the dusty recesses of my brain I recall something like "WGAY 50,000 WATTS STEREO" but don't have a picture. Below, another shot looking northward from the DC direction, and a couple shots looking southward from the Silver Spring direction. Originally, the southbound traffic saw "WQMR 1050" on the side of the building. It was changed, late as I recall, to WGAY 1050 when the 'QMR calls were dropped for AM 1050, and eventually to just "WGAY 99.5" as the AM side was sold.

Many thanks to Arthur McDougall (engineer at the station in the 50's), Mark Rockman, Dave Schweikart, and Tom Buckley for the photographs!

Robert Morris was at WGAY in 1972 - and he indicates Bob Gotkin was there as well, and I've added them to the announcers list. He also reminded me that Bob Chandler, the boss, should be in that list as well! By the way, my caption in the upper right side of the picture above is HUGE because it has to be, the picture is a composite of two originals submitted by Robert Morris and enhanced by Bob Bell as one composite picture. Shown at the top of the above picture is the multicolored (sepia toned here, sorry), backlit "control panel" that allowed the board operator to easily discern important information - I think the dark panel bottom right flashed for the telephone "ringing" - I think one was E.B.S., one for FM Transmitter On, one for AM Transmitter on (or was it off, which it was a lot since it was a daytimer). To the right one of the two Fisher speakers, the GATES stereo board, a C&P Telephone (AT&T) 1A2 6-button key set (hey, no * or # keys - just a 10 digit keypad... how did they survive?) and the monstrous EMT Gotham turntables - fascinating devices (somewhere I have another picture from a hi-fi collector's site). They used a plastic disc that rode atop a VERY heavy "capstan" - the sub-turntable weighed 30 pounds, I believe. The platter on top of this massive capstan provided instant start and stop as it "slipped" with a solenoid pushing it from the side in the "off" position. The commercials, ID's, harps, came from the very high quality stereo carts you see on top (Cartmasters, made locally, high quality). On the right is a picture of Larry Lambrose at the controls, cart tapes behind him, and the controls that appear to be above the tapes are really the top of a floor mounted cabinet that served as remote transmitter controls for FM up on the roof and AM at Sligo (when it came time to turn off WQMR at sunset, I believe one cart was able to be "split" to AM only and the WQMR signoff was played, and once that finished he'd have to "push the button" on the transmitter remote control cabinet to put the AM transmitter at Sligo Golf Course to bed at sunset. The signoff, done over the WQMR concerto, held the optimism that you either had an FM radio and were too dumb to have it turned on already, or now that WQMR was saying saynonara, you'd make the change (actually it was a clever way to remind the audience that the great albums of beautiful music could be heard on WGAY until midnight (then 24 hours a day after 1966)... (signoff played over AM only - 'At this time, WQMR's programming of quality music switches exclusively to WGAY, at 99.5 on the FM band...) These great photos are vintage 1972. If you look closely beneath the volume POTS on the board, there is a row of clear plastic buttons. One very cool custom feature of this studio was that the spots, harps, records, everything, could be tightly queued without reaching around, as these start/stop switches led to a relay rack then back to the equipment. All this was designed, I believe, by Tom DeBray in 1965-66. Robert points out the devices seen in the picture on the left at the top right are transmitter logging devices, and behind this door to the left were the teletypes for the rip 'n read headlines on the hour and a few minutes of news on the half-hour.

In this picture circa 1966-1967, Mr. Reynolds has his photo taken at a sharp angle looking down from the front left of the board. It holds some details that I was delighted to see, especially the row of pushbuttons to start/stop everything, including a NAB-hub console Ampex open reel that can be seen hiding at the far right of the picture. Lee Reynolds? Aging boomers will remember him from children's programs in the 50's and early 60's on WTTG-TV, most notably perhaps as Captain Tugg! Mr. Reynolds spent a short time at WQMR/WGAY, then went to the Mutual Radio Network before becoming THE voice of WETA Television for a quarter-century!

It is with great sadness that I learned from Mark Rockman, who sent me notification from Dave's DCRTV web pages, that we have lost Lee Reynolds, Captain Tugg to me as a kid and the voice of WETA Television and WETA-FM as I grew up. Sad news and a great talent we will miss. (1/28/2014)

Jules Henry and Mike Handley allowed me to visit the studios to watch in fascination the precision, often lightning pace at which they could work with "live turntables" and load carts for spots and harps, flash edit rip 'n read news, answer the phone, and never (well, almost never) miss a beat. Jules died a few years ago, and I recently heard from Mike Handley who moved to Iceland and did voiceovers and voice projects, then moved back to the States; Mike died not long after returning to the USA. Mike gave the eulogies at the funerals of both Connie B. Gay and Bob Chandler.

(just to clarify, Bob Chandler did not pioneer the WQMR/WGAY format of beautiful music, that dates back to 1960 with Ed Winton, but when Ed left for sunny Florida, Bob Chandler, who joined the station in 1965, maintained the sophisticated sound of the beautiful music format that Ed had started, and all the changes he made to the "format" of the station were always gradually introduced, and carefully crafted for the listeners!)

At some point in the tower "at the top o' the World Building" became semi-symbolic as WGAY-FM hopped over to the WDCA/WETA/etc. tower on River Road; the signal got there via microwave from a dish mounted on the "then symbolic" tower. I believe the transmitter remained for backup purposes, though it didn't help during one of the fires in the studio, rather WKYS loaned a tape deck or two and some studio space so Bob Chandler could get back on the air quickly. I do remember vividly (but not THAT vividly because I don't know what year it was) awakening in shock hearing wonderful music and even the HARPS that had gone missing for several years. I was pretty sure that I had lost my mind. Somehow I was put through to a rather hyper Bob Chandler, see what in the heck was going on, and he told me of the fire and WKYS favor, and that he had grabbed some of those old 12-6am Sunday night/Monday morning tapes when the board was bypassed for maintenance and that was what I was hearing. The WQMR calls are now in use by a Maryland Eastern Shore talk-formatted radio station.

Speaking of symbolic: time whitewashes everything - even the World Building. A 2006 photo by Mark Rockman of our non-broadcasting World Building (unless you count cell phones and the like as true broadcasting)

When I was at WGAY in 1972, much in response to WRC-FM going beautiful
music, the station installed a new beam-tilt antenna on top of the
World Building.

Regrettably, when they powered it up, the feed cable to the antenna
burnt. It took three days to get a new one, and the station was off the
air for the entire time.

Just after it happened, Bob Gotkin walked by Bob Chandler and said,
"Well, I guess this is really a lucky break for RC-FM." I thought
Chandler was going to strike him dead on the spot.

When the got the station back on the air I will admit that the
beam-tilt antenna did improve the signal in the suburbs. And of
course (we) know what happened to beautiful music on WRC-FM. And then
eventually WGAY-FM transmitter was moved to the Channel 20 tower on
River Road.

Bill notes in a postscript to the above - if I'm not mistaken, WRC-FM went to beautiful music - locally very well done and soon gave up local programming for Syndicated Shulke (SRP) which forced a call letter change to WKYS and the music was not the result of a library or programming talent in-house initially used, rather it was a SHULKE client - syndicated, packaged programming for a new generation of radio stations that had no ability, knowledge or desire to program beautiful music themselves. Programming was provided on NAB open reels, and Washington DC also had another major syndicator (Bonneville, providing music for WJMD). You have to respect the fact that WQMR/WGAY were one of the pioneers, bringing us what became known as the "beautiful music" format in 1960, NOT 1972! So I can well understand Bob Chandler's reaction as noted above!

Bernie Harrison, Radio-TV columnist for the Washington Star, notes the move to the "resplendent new studios atop the world building..." Bernie had a daily 5-minute broadcast, I believe it was at 4:55 Monday-Friday on WQMR-WGAY until his death. The picture on the right depicts the real view of the block where the World Building is located (OK, not quite real, it's a perfect Mr. Bill view and you can see Mr. Hands on the rooftop of ... is that... the fire station? Ohhhh Nnnooooo!!! Anyway, photo sent to me by Dave Statter, of a model RR setup crafted by Nick Sklias. Courtesy of Bob Bell, we now know eggzactly where Giffords was located! In fact... here's a picture from 30 odd years prior! Note that only aging boomers are likely to remember the Mr. Bill Show on Saturday Night Live...

Clip-Clop along Georgia Ave, Silver Spring MD; early ad that suggests WGAY AM (before quality music) was a "top 40" station (I think they did a little of everything... recipe shows, remotes but I have seen newspaper articles but have never heard a tape of the late 40's or the entire decade of the 1950's - darn it. I know it's not legible but one of the announcers shown is Chuck DuLane - who could have beenthe originator? of Music In The Air...??? Quality Music before it's time after CBG bought the stations. Damn, I want to hear an air check.

THE CLOCK - Pat Marinari captured this vintage clock from Dietle's in Montgomery Hills... I hear some drinking went on there. Anyway this clock has to go way back, WGAY-AM at 1050 began in 1947 - and the 102.3 "frequency modulated" FM (which of course later moved to 99.5) must have been - well - low power experimental? This is long before Connie B. Gay and his quality music! Thanks to Pat Marinari and Bob Bell (radio detective). Then a remote, I guess, SANTA'S HIDEAWAY

We have lost Art McDougall, pictured below, he died of cancer on Sunday, July 9, 2006 at 2:30 am. I am very grateful for the emails and photos he sent via email over the last couple of years, and my condolences to all who will miss him. - Bill

ART McDOUGALL provided the classic "bubblemobile" Plymouth? or Dodge? picture at the top of this page, in front of our (snif) long-gone WQMR/WGAY art-deco building, with those ever-cool glass bricks... and here's a picture of Art - at WGAY-AM, long before mood music, and it would be another decade before Connie B. Gay became the station owner! Many thanks to Art for a classic picture!

Hi Bill,
FYI, I just came across this photo which was taken of me in front of
the 1KW Collins AM transmitter, probably about 1949. God, I was young
then!
Art

Art follows this with another picture he just found, another glimpse into the pre-Connie B. Gay WGAY-AM (I believe Art is working on a log as the station engineer). check out the mono board, with the ?RCA? ribbon mike on the left with the WGAY calls.

"You're tuned to WQMR, 1050 on Standard Radio - with WGAY, at 99.5 on the FM Band"