Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of August 28, 2016
Edition #900

Now in both Real Audio and MP3

Talent: ROCKIN' RON (BAPTIST)
Station: CHAM Hamilton, Ont.
Date: September 21, 1973
Time: 12:54

If listening to CHAM wasn't enough, you could also watch!

During its Top 40 era, the Hamilton station was located inside a shopping mall called the Terminal Towers. Since all the stores in the mall had glass for walls, you could actually stand outside and watch the announcers working in the control room. Among the jocks you would have seen through the glass in those days were Gil Harris, Dick Joseph, Ike Isaac, Ken Packham, Ravin' Dave Mitchell, Skip Dewling, Don Collins, Bob Wood, Ted Michaels, Don West, J.J. Clarke, Len Robinson and Dave Fisher. Also on staff was newscaster Glen Darling, the son of Canadian broadcaster Tom Darling who would later become program director of FM 108 in Burlington.

CHAM went on the air in 1959 under the call letters CHIQ. David Marsden was one of the early deejays, appearing there in 1964 after his CKEY Toronto days. The call letters were changed to CHAM after Rogers Broadcasting purchased the station in 1967. The station went Top 40 in 1970 in direct competition with CKOC, and published a weekly music chart for a time. CHAM was sold to Dancy Broadcasting in 1976, which promptly changed the call letters to CJJD and moved the broadcast facility to Lloyd D. Jackson Square, ending the days of public viewing of the deejays. The old CHAM call letters were restored in 1981 and the format changed to country when the station was purchased by Moffat Communications. In 1985, CHAM moved to 820 on the AM dial.

One of CHAM's most memorable jocks was Rockin' Ron (Baptist), who landed in Hamilton in 1973 after stops at WIST Charlotte, N.C., and WAPE Jacksonville, Fla. After leaving CHAM in 1974, he worked at WDRQ Detroit, XEROK Juarez, Mexico (as Ron Starr), WSGN Birmingham, Ala., (as Ron Roddy), WKVQ Knoxville, Tenn., WBBF Rochester, N.Y., and WDMN/WXQQ Toledo, Ohio (the latter two stations as Ron Denver). At last word he was operations manager for WDMN.
 

Hear Rockin' Ron on CHAM here.

Hear Rockin' Ron on CHAM here.


(The Bob Seed Collection)

* Sent to Rock Radio Scrapbook by Don Shuttleworth

More 1973 airchecks here!