What you are about to hear are stations I recorded myself back in 1967,1968 and 1969. I had enlisted in the US Navy after being fired from my first radio job at a small daytime station in Windsor, CT.  I found myself stationed in Sidi Yahia, Morocco and, after that, the NATO base at Keflavik, Iceland.  Both were boring duty stations for a kid of about 20, so I managed to get permission to string wire on the roofs of the barracks I lived in , and rather than listen to some unknown language on the radio, I spent the nights listening to stations from stateside.  And listen I did! By the way, the radio I used was the one in the top Keflavik picture. I still have it today.

Spend some times listening to the clips. Listen to the songs, the commercials, the news and listen to the formats. You'll hear something called MOR (Middle of the Road) on the 50kw blowtorches that now bring you news-talk radio. Radio has changed...some say for the better. But many of us say for the worse. You judge.

Be advised that the quality of these clips varies according to the reception conditions prevailing at the time of their recording.  This type of reception is called DX Reception. These samples were all recorded off-air on reel to reel tape and then transferred years later to cassette tape. These were then re-recorded as Realaudio files and now changed to .mp3 files.
HEARD IN MOROCCO 1967...

WKBW  1520 Buffalo. It's a KB Exclusive! The Mon-kees new record "Sleepy Jean."  KB had it first in Buffalo and they let you know it!  And they know you kids  (and the competition) would be trying to record it for yourselves, so they fixed that problem.

WNEW 1130 New York. Duh bull you, N-E-W, eleven three oh in New York! A Tony Bennet song, Sunoco give away game and Giants/Green Bay promo and of course, the WNEW Jingle!

WKBW 1520 Buffalo. It's evening in Buffalo but sunrise in Russia, and the Russians always woke up to exericse on the radio in the mornings. What's the connection?  This clip has two stations on 1520 and one isn't KB. Listen!

WINS 1010 New York. Remember the '67 Arab-Israeli War? Listen to this Public Service Announcement. LBJ wants a 10% tax hike. Ancr: Henry Marcot.

WKBW 1520 Buffalo. The Four Tops are coming to Buffalo! Bud Ballou is the DJ.

WKBW 1520 Buffalo with a Life Savers spot you haven't heard in 40 years!

WABC 770 New York.  It's Cousin Brucie. Here we Go-Go...

WABC 770 New York. The Greatest Station in the whole, wide world!

CHUM 1050 Toronto, very corny jokes, classic ID jingle, weather and static!

HEARD IN ICELAND 1968-9

KMOX 1120 St. Louis.  Here we have the end of the St. Louis Blues game with many local advertisements followed by a KMOX ID. This is followed by dancing from the Steeplechase Room of the Chase Park Plaza in St. Louis featuring music by "Mr. Show Business, Harry Fedderman".  The first program of this type I ever heard was on KFI in Los Angeles back in the early '60s. It came on at midnight.

WABC 770 New York. The Beatles double white album had just arrived and WABC was playing cuts from the album. Here we have the end of the Beatles Savoy Truffle followed by the famous WABC ID, then into O.C. Smith's Little Green Apples and then into O Bla Dee, O Blah Da by the Beatles.

WHN 1050 New York.  Do stations still tell you the pollen count? I don't think so.

KJR 950 Seattle. Back when Top 40 was king.  ID and music...too cool.

WDGY 1130 Minneapolis. A great rock station. Here's an ID, time check and the 1910 Fruit Gum Company with Chewy Chewy...

KNX 1070 Los Angeles. CBS newsradio. This is probably the most distant station from the continental US I heard in Iceland.

WENE 1430 Endicott, NY. OK...you never heard of Endicott, but this was one heck of a rock station. Here's a WENE Golden...the Sir Douglas Quintet with She's about a Mover...

AFN Thule, Greenland(1425). The station voted #1 by  tourists who flock to Greenland in the summer months. Seriously, there aren't very many places more remote than the air force base at Thule, but the base had it's own radio station on a split frequency back in the 60s. Here's a lucky ID with weather report I caught one night.