There are two 45 minute unscoped KMJK airchecks (both sides of a 90 minute cassette) up on Divshare. They were recorded during Pat Clarke's shift on June 30, 1981. The files are wma encoded at 128kbps so they're pretty big...about 40mb apiece. But they sound great!

http://www.divshare.com/download/1380504-1ed
http://www.divshare.com/download/1380439-fee

thanks for posting these...brings backs some great memories of majik 107

For those hearing KMJK here for the first time, the format had evolved from straight top 40 towards AC by the time this was recorded. I recall a subdued Andy Barber at KMJK in '81.

>>But they sound great!

Which goes to show cassettes at their best are still a decent format. They may well age more gracefully than the home burned CDs we are all transferring our stuff to these days.

Randy - The record deck was a Sony TC-186 and the tape stock was Maxell UDXLII. I wonder if my CDRs will still play 26 years from now?

1981 was an interesting period in radio history. This was really when FM was starting to become integral for music stations in the Northwest. (It started earlier in other areas due to less hilly terrain.) In the early 80's you saw KUBE in Seattle start to become a factor, Z100 came on with a bang, and the older established FM's, like KINK, KZOK-Seattle, and KVI-FM, later KPLZ, and countless others found a need to re-position due to the new competition. Nobody really noticed it at the the time, but this was a very historical period for NW radio. Look how many big AM's started to lose audience duriing this time, and forced many to change direction. One example, perhaps not the best, was KING-AM in Seattle, once a very competitive Top40, tried to do AC, then finally gave up and went all-news in '82. A few AM's survived for many years after, KIRO, KOMO, and in Portland KEX and KXL, but in all those cases, their news/info images were well-established.

Wow! If I hadn't known that these airchecks were recorded on cassette, I would have sworn that they had to be on reel-to-reel! UDXLII was a CrO2 tape, correct?

UDXLII was not real CrO2, but a "Type II" chrome substitute (similar to TDK SA) that was superior to CrO2.

On the subject of CDRs, we may well find out about the longevity in less than 26 years. I am hesitant to toss out my cassettes after transferring them. Gold CDRs may be the most promising, but are hard to find and cost around $1 each. Some say Taiyo Yuden CDRs and DVD-Rs are the best bet for longer term storage. To be on the safe side I don't use stick-on labels other than small hub labels that avoid the playing surface altogether.

I dig the Christopher Cross and Pablo Cruise! I'd love to hear a station pull that playlist today. I'd tune in!

randy sez: "I am hesitant to toss out my cassettes after transferring them."

I recorded quite a few stuff on CDXLII too, and I, too, also wonder if the CDs are gonna be up to snuff down the road. So I just save them both.

Type II was really pretty good! I used to use it all the time to transfer from CDs.

Many of the Grateful Dead "Dicks Picks" CD's were originally recorded on metal oxide cassette tape!

I was shocked when i read that in the liner notes.

I did all my airchecks on Cro2 cassettes back in the day, and have not transferred any of them to digital (yet!)

The in studio aircheck machines (Tascam cassette decks) at the stations I worked at in PDX (KMJK/KKRZ mid 80's) were of very high quality. They were fed from a tuner so you got the real over the air sound with processing.

if anyone knows where i can find one of these let me know.