Memories of John Garabedian and V-66...

[Eli Polonsky]

Yes, WGTR came on in 1972. From late 1969 to early 1971 there
was a strong pirate called "WEGN" on 1060 AM, some guys in a
Waltham basement with an old converted shortwave transmitter
playing progressive free-form album rock with horrible audio
fidelity. It was heard all over the western suburbs, weakly
into Boston, and was reported DX'ed as far as Nashua, NH and
Worcester. Because the frequency calibration on the old unit
was unstable, there were horrible heterodynes with KYW at
night which varied in tone depending on how long that their
transmitter had been running and how warm it was getting.

They went off the air the year before WGTR came on, claimed
that their transmitter died. I'm sure they would've gotten
in trouble if John H. had found them still on the air in '72.

My high school friends and I dropped by and visited John H.
on the air at WGTR in the house he converted to studios in
1972. He was very friendly. He claimed we were "behind the
times" because we were still hippie kids into jamming out
to the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. He claimed
that progressive orchestrated rock such as the Moody Blues,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes (all of which I also enjoyed)
were what was happening in AOR at the time.

EP


> > From: Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>
> CC: boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org
> To: "A. Joseph Ross" <joe@attorneyross.com>,
>     "Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>
> Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:12:23 -0400
> Subject: Re: Memories of John Garabedian and V-66...
> 
> Yes, in a Boston Globe interview in 1985, Garabedian said
> that WGTR went on the air in 1972, so Dan has a good memory!!!
> I checked back in all of the North America TV & Radio Station
> Guides that I own, and found no listing for it in 1966, but it
> did show up in the 1970 edition. I don't recall it being on the
> air in 1970, however-- John H. was still with WMEX, if I recall
> correctly.