Before online streaming, podcasting, or YouTube videos, radio ruled as the free, or least expensive entertainment portal. Today, radio still survives. Competition grows. Television expands. TV lives on despite the cord cutters. However, modern technical innovation hasn't eliminated the oldest person in the group, our friendly super centenarian known as radio.

Despite this, bypassing legacy distribution systems is easy for song discovery in the 21st century. Musical performers can go directly to their fan base by offering free songs for download from their own website real estate. Bands and solo acts use social media to spread the word. 

Let's look back at a time when radio actively promoted music by capturing audiences, identifying the songs played, and by connecting listeners and performers with their community.

Hearing is believing

I have lots of topic authority on this subject thanks to my many decades working in the industry as an announcer, music host, music director, production director, program director, and network broadcast executive.

Radio airchecks are telescoped recordings of a specific program with the focus on talk segments. My archive includes my own airchecks on all the audio media formats. Technology leaped forward, so did I. These airchecks are on reel-to-reel, cassettes, DAT (digital audio tape), and digital broadcast automation systems (captured by download to MP3 or WAV files).

In the broadcast studio, turn on your microphone, the recording begins. Turn off your microphone, the recording automatically stops. That's an aircheck. It's a record of everything happening while you talk live.

I recorded virtually every show I did, and listened back to everyone I recorded. That was my recipe for growth and improvement. Yes, my supervisor would sometimes listen back with me to offer comments.

Here are three airchecks from the 1980s featuring a few, but not all of the radio stops that I made in Philadelphia, PA. In order, spanning four years, you'll hear WIFI 92, WSNI 104.5, and WZGO Z106.

All clips are brand new digitized segments never before featured.

The audio cassette fix is real. You can find the complete version in the much longer WIFI 92 aircheck posted in the website aircheck section. For the original version, I had to fix the split tape for the cassette to play!

Get nostalgic, and soak in a small part of my experiences that contributed to my Powerhouse Radio Book. It is the 2025 Readers' Favorite gold award winner for the best non-fiction - Music/Entertainment book.

You can listen to the audiobook which I read, or get the paperback or eBook. This is a memoir you will love.

The slice of history radio aircheck video is short. 3 minutes. Enjoy!

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