The WHFS Top 99.1 of the 1990s

In the late 1980s, a significant change in recording technology became available: VHS Hi-Fi. Previously if we wanted to record radio programs, an audio cassette would give you about 90 minutes, or reel-to-reel could go about two hours -- with a side change. VHS Hi-Fi could run a whopping 6, 8, or 10 hours, completely uninterrupted.

Compared to other technologies, its quality was amazing as well. The audio was actually encoded into the video signal, so it delivered "CD-Quality" performance that did not degrade as record time was increased. In short, it became possible to record long-running radio programs so that the recording was indistinguishable from the original broadcast.

Beginning in 1991, I used this technology to record the WHFS Top 99.1, an annual retrospective program that ran on New Year's Eve or sometimes on New Year's Day. The program ran somewhat over 7 hours, so I would use either an 8-hour tape or two six-hour tapes to capture the whole program. In some years I would pick up a few hours of additional programming behind the Top 99.1, as I never stopped a tape, preferring to let it fill up and then break its "Record Tab," making it read-only forever.

I kept this up through 1999 (i.e. January 1, 2000). By then, my interest in WHFS was fading as the station evolved away from the "Einstein" model, having been sold and sold again over the previous decade. Being in those years the father of a young family, my time was very limited, so the tapes sat in a box, never forgotten, always kept safe and appropriately cool and dry.

Photo Credit Gina Crash

Since then digital recording has come of age, and the VHS medium has faded in importance -- and availability of tapes and players. Concerned that the tapes could become unplayable, I purchased a used Marantz PMD-670 digital recorder on eBay and set about digitizing these old tapes, listening to some of them for the very first time as I did so. Day after day I would do a tape or two. By the time I was done, I had one hundred and five hours -- more than four days -- of WHFS 99.1 programming from the 1990s.

Then I had to process them into a form that can be posted. Having digitized them to WAV files,  figured this would be unwieldy, given the 200KB per file size limitation at ZippyShare.  So I posted them at 320KBs MP3, which allows about 85 minutes in a 200KB file. Actual file sizes vary, as I have attempted to break the recording at points that made sense from a content perspective, so that each tape can stand alone and also be merged with its brothers to re-create the original recording in its full length, up to 14 hours in some years.

Each year has been posted on its own page. Of these, the 1992 retrospective with its full Request-o-Rama with Kathryn Lauren and Aq is my runaway favorite. Check them out and let me know which year(s) you like the best.

Thanks and Feast Your Ears,
J Kilowatt