In 1966 I took my $300 total stash from graduation money given me and bought a Knight International receiver / amp. I then hooked it up to a log / periodic radio antenna on top of our farmhouse roof (our place was in the country near Woodstock, VA) where I proceeded to listen to every FM station in the Valley, plus most of the more powerful ones out of DC, such as WRC FM, and of course, WPGC FM (I could also just barely get the AM in the car).

There's where I discovered Bob Raleigh, Harv Moore, Marv Brooks, Cousin
Duffy and all of that crazy 60's frenetic sound, right down the heavy reverb
on WPGC.

I remember Cousin Duffy's debut of Harper Valley PTA one summer afternoon; and the first time I ever heard A Day In The Life by the Beatles----all on WPGC "Good Guys" Radio. Was it legal to play a song as long as McArthur Park? They proved it to be so.

I harken back to those early FM days that were so exciting to me. This website not only brought it all back....but gave me a sense of "community" with others who shared those golden, wonderful radio moments, now gone forever. Thanks to all who helped and to each and every one of us who savor the memories.

- Ron Bly

 

 

I happened to come across the WPGC website. Needless to say it is terrific. I only wish there was one for WWDC & WMAL. Great job, congratulations.

- Johnny Holliday

 

 

As a child of the '60's I grew up with the old WPGC, Harv Moore and others.
Thank you for a wonderful tribute site. I work in the biz, have seen many of these tribute sites and this is certainly the most entertaining and comprehensive I've had the pleasure to visit...Well done...as they used to say on his drop-in "Atta boy Harveeeee!"

Cheers!

- Bob Brooks
Program Director
AM 880 KIXI, Bellevue / Washington

 

 

I have just spent the better part of seven hours at the site, only scratching the surface of all the audio files. Never did we think that anyone cared enough about "our" station to preserve it such as it has been done on this site. Fifty Thousand Thanks, Fifteen Hundred and Eighty more thanks and another Ninety five and a half more. We're gonna party like it's 1965 again............

- Paul T Cerniglia

 

I've spent a lot of time on this site. What an excellent job. I'm awed.

- MSgt Frederick Scott

 

Great web site and great memories. I was very familiar with WPGC having lived in Northern VA from 1964-1968. We drove every morning into DC for school and listened to WPGC radio morning and afternoon. In looking back, Radio had a lot of personality and creativity, plus the music from that time was so good.

- Frank King

 

 

This web site is amazing. I did not even know it existed until a friend told me about it. Now its an addiction! My father worked at WPGC around the time that the Beatles came to DC. He was a weekend engineer and part time news man on the weekend only. He left WPGC and had his own morning show on a small country station in Glen Burnie, Maryland. I was a loyal listener until I moved away from the DC area in 1978. Thanks again for all the work that went in to this site.

- Dave McGrath, Bedford, Virginia

 

I remember my first transistor radio AM/FM and being able to switch when WPGC FM went on the air – my brother preferred WEAM in the daytime

Anyway, as a senior in high school in 1972 I had a chance to “work” with 'big' Wilson doing a station promotion at the DC Armory – it was a pie throwing booth – we got hit with pies while sticking face through hole in a board – I remember we had some pies stolen from the car while loading out.

I managed to get a tour of the Bladensburg studios. I went on to do radio in Roanoke for a couple of years in the early 70’s and now I am about to retire from 25 years at ABC Radio Networks in Washington.

Thanks for the memories.

I moved to the Baltimore / Washington area back in 1977, and WPGC was one of the first stations I listened to when I moved here. WPGC was a fantastic station then, and this website is on the money!!!! I remember Waylon Richards, Dave Foxx, Scott Carpenter, Elliott & Woodside, J.J. Jackson, Don Geronimo, and the list goes on. I've also listened to some of the airchecks prior to 1977. WPGC was a great station.

I lived in Kansas City prior to moving to Columbia, MD and I listened to the late Al Casey on WHB, and I enjoyed his shows very much. I didn't know he came to WPGC until I checked out this website.

Thanks and keep up the good work on this fantastic website. This is one of the best top 40 Websites available.

 

I listened to WPGC in the sixties and seventies and thought it was the greatest station in the nation. I liked all the jocks and energetic sounds of the station. I especially like "Cousin Duffy" and Bob Peyton since I had more time to listen to them because of my work schedule. I no longer live in the area and was sorry to hear that the station was sold and the format changed. I thoroughly enjoy the website. Keep up the good work.

Wow! As a baby boomer growing up in the DC area, WPGC and WEAM were the main stations I listened to on my cheap pocket transistor radio as a kid. I have bookmarked this site as there is not nearly enough time to read it all in one evening. I remember meeting Cousin Duffy on his March of Dimes walk, also winning a Kinks album from Jack Alix at the Subway, a youth nightclub near Tysons Corner who's name predated Metro. I'll be back! Thanks for honoring an exciting time in DC radio.

I grew up in Baltimore but included WPGC in my station rotation. I worked with Bill Miller (Bob Raleigh) at WPOC in the late 70's and early 80's. He moved on to sales at WFRE Frederick after being let go at WPOC. Last I heard was he was living in the Frederick area and heavily involved with his passion of model trains. Bill and I were good friends for many years.

I just tripped over your website, and just want to say thanks. I grew up in Arlington in the 60's, and trolling through your site brought back a ton of memories. It was great to see all these names again. There are even a few people I got to meet in later years, and had no idea they had done time at WPGC. Great site, great research project!! Keep up the good work.

Wow--what a great site! I grew up in Upper Marlboro and Bowie, listening to WPGC constantly, from about 1964 to 1972. My sister and I had a couple Good Guys sweatshirts from 1967, I graduated was good friends with Bob Raleigh's (Bill Miller's) stepson Don, we were ringers for the Basket Bunglers in '71 and '72. I remember playing the Washington Redskins in a game. In about two minutes on the court I managed to get called for fouling Ted Vactor, who, if I recall, was a kick returner. We also played some school faculties and the police down in, I think, Chesapeake Beach. "big" Wilson was the player-coach. There was also a guy named Harry Boomer who played on the team--I think someone told me he was the music librarian. I also remember hearing the phone call that cost Chris James his job. (I think he was arguing with his wife or girlfriend about her not being ready to go out, or somesuch.) Off the subject, back in 1971 Davy Jones had a pretty hot 1968 Corvette for sale. He gave me a ride in it, but I couldn't convince my dad to go for it. Big surprise, huh? Anyway, it's great to see the old pictures and hear the jingles and airchecks. Great work!

WOW! I love the site. It sure brings back a lot of great memories. I grew up in the DC area. I discovered radio at a VERY young age and even to this day rarely go anywhere without a radio (of some kind). From those young days in the early 60's through the "golden days" of top 40, WPGC was almost all I listened to. I (like a lot of us) used to record stuff off the radio and seeing your site makes me want to go dig through my old tapes and see what I have. I remember the old studios on Southern Ave. and I visited the Parkway Building studios once. And being a engineering type, I used to drive by the transmitter site once in a while. Its a shame that radio isn't what it used to be. Even television, which I been working in for over 20 years now, has changed a lot since then. Thank you for preserving an important part of DC radio (and my personal) history.

While I grew up in NYC, one of the highlights of going to DC (summer vacation or class trip) was listening to WPGC, Good Guys Radio. Thanks for the great website, saluting a great station.

Wow! lots of memories here. On April 1, 1967, I got to meet Harv Moore! No April fooling here. It was at a dance at the Greenbelt Armory. Harv was actually representing Channel 20, rather than WPGC, that night. He was a temporary host of the "Wing Ding" dance party show on that station. I was not a regular "Wing Ding" watcher, but I listened to Harv just about every morning, Monday through Saturday, on WPGC. Of course, I asked Harv all kinds of questions about his background and the station. Gentleman Jim Madison had just departed, so I asked what happened to him, and Harv said he had gone into the Army. The name turned up again later at the station, and this site confirms what I had thought - that it was someone else using the same name.

- Regina Litman

 

MAN!! I have died, and gone to Heaven. I can't thank you enough for putting together this awesome web site! I grew up in Seat Pleasant, and like so many others, I listened to WPGC from sun up to sun down, and finally got a FM radio and could listen until midnight. I remember going to their studios in Corral Hills and meeting Larry Justice, while Dean Griffith was on the air, working his magic with the turn tables and tape cartridges of jingles and commercials. I also remember listening the day, Larry locked himself in the control booth and played that record over and over. I also remember his last day on the air, Dean Griffith started his show with "Hat's off to Larry" by Del Shannon, funny the things you remember. Again, I thank you for the wonderful trip down memory lane. God bless you.

Wow, you brought back a bunch of memories. WPGC was "the" station...the only station when I was growing up. I remember my folks won a hundred bucks one time by having a bumpersticker on the back of their car.

I grew up in Baltimore in the '60's, and I've been a radio fanatic since junior high school. I spent a lot of years with WPGC as a radio companion. Around 1970, they used to read a headline and then say, "Stand by!" (for the news). Then they'd go into a commercial. The headline was usually a little sensational. Once I was listening and Bob Raleigh (Bill Miller) came on and said, "Murder, robbery, rape! A day of crime! Stand by!" Pretty funny. Thanks so much for the great site. It covers virtually everything about the station, most of which I remember vividly. I've spent a lot of hours here in the last few days. Anyhow, thanks again.

I grew up listening to WPGC and Harv Moore and I love this website. I am the ultimate WPGC fan. I still have surveys from the mid-70s.

Unbelievable, awesome, totally enjoyable, all that & more. The website is incredible. Thank you!

In the mid to late 60s, if you called the request line, you usually got a busy signal. But you also could hear other request line callers in between the busy beeps. Callers could talk to each other. It caught on quickly and became an AOL chatroom long before it's time. It was called the WPGC pipeline. I remember one jock even saying that a people had met on the pipeline and ended up married!

Great tribute site! I remember riding through the DC area with my folks, going from NJ where we were living, back home to NC. Funny thing was, we usually made the trip at night, and since we didn't have an FM radio, WEAM was all I knew of Washington radio. Then, we started making the journey during the day and it was on one of those trips that I discovered a Washington station that was in the same ball park with WABC, WMCA, WIBG and WFIL..Good guys radio WPGC! What a station! And this site re-affirms what I thought when I was a pint sized radio geek.. You have a TON of great stuff on here..keep it up!

Small Print Dept.: This non-profit historical site is not affiliated in any way with WPGC Radio today or CBS Radio, Inc. Use of copyrighted material is consistent with the "fair use" provisions contained in §107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 due to the following characteristics: Use of copyrighted material is of a nonprofit, educational nature, intended for the sole purposes of research and comment and does not significantly negatively affect "the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work(s)." Use of registered trademark material is not subject to civil action or injunction as outlined in §1114 and §1125 of the Trademark Act of 1946 (the Lanham Act) due to the following characteristics of this work, and the registered marks published herein: Use of reproductions of registered marks is not for the purpose of commerce, nor is the use connected with the sale, offering for sale, or advertising of any goods or services. Use of reproductions is not likely to cause confusion, mistake, or deception as to the affiliation, connection, or association of this work with owners of published registered marks, nor as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of this work by owners of published registered marks. Wherever possible, the copyright or registered mark owner's name has been noted near the copyrighted work or registered mark; however, all material used in this site, including, but not limited to, newspaper articles, syndicated themes, promos, commercials, photographs, playlists, press releases, ratings, airchecks, newscasts, traffic reports, sports reports, 'sound-offs', sweepers, bumperstickers and station logos, should be considered protected copyrighted material or registered mark with all rights reserved to the owner, named or unnamed. So there!