aircheck of me doing nights on WHOO in 1967 Here I am on my first day on the job standing in front of the WHOO studios and transmitter building. We were located on the west side of Orlando 
just off Silver Star road in the Pine Hills section. There was a long driveway up to the building with a gate which was locked at night. If you forgot your key, it was possible to drive around the gate through the sand and trees to the driveway. Of course you had to drive around the parked teenagers. Orlando was a great place to live in the mid 60's and property was very inexpensive. I was able to buy my first house for $11,000 with monthly payments of $77. Gas was a low as 19 cents a gallon and $25 bought a BIG bag of groceries.
WHOO was locked in a big battle with WLOF "Channel 95". We were at 990 and they were at 950 AM. On a cheap transistor radio we would actually leak over on each other's signal. WHOO increased the AM power to 50,000 watts while I worked there. The signal was roughly east-west directional so we sent a great signal 100 miles out to sea but not much north-south.
On the right is a picture of the WHOO transmitter site as it appears today - 43 years after the picture above was taken. Orlando has changed a lot with the arrival of Disney and the stations have changed hands several times. Only the transmitter site and towers remain today. WHOO AM is now WDYZ broadcasting a Disney radio children's format and 96.5 WHOO FM at switched from the "beautiful music" format we ran in the 1960's to become Cox radio's WHTQ featuring classic rock.
Below are some mementos from WHOO 990 AM from 1966 to 1968.
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Below is a great picture from the "WHOO Beat" of two of our WHOO station vehicles. A Honda Motorbike and the 1967 Shelby Mustang GT "Cruise Newser" which was used for a lot of promotional activities. We even ran it at Central Florida Dragway a couple of times. This was one hot car that even had a roll bar and a fire extinguisher in the driver's compartment. The Mustang was the hottest car in America in the 60's and this was the hottest model of them all. The vehicles are parked in front of the WHOO studios/transmitter building on Silver Star road. Notice the typical Florida architecture and foilage.
There is a very interesting story about the final disposition of the awesome Cobra mustang. It was eventually sold and ended up in California where it was located in 2003 and completely restored. It still exists today as this picture shows. What a great job of restoration! It looks better today than in 1967!
Here are a couple of our WHOO music surveys showing a change from "All American Survey" to "Music Power" and a couple of blazer patches showing the change from "All American" to "Top Cat". There is a great story about the "Top Cat" logo. It was initiated by WQAM in Miami as "Tiger Radio" and our General Manager copied it and we became "Top Cat". He wanted to get those little styrofoam balls that WQAM used that are stuck on the top of car antennas called "Tenna Toppers". He called WQAM to see who supplied them and called the company and ordered 5000 "just like WQAM has". When they arrived we ripped open the boxes and found we had gotten 5000 orange balls with the top cat and the call letters W-Q-A-M ...just like WQAM!
Below is a great picture from the "WHOO Beat" of two of our WHOO station vehicles. A Honda Motorbike and the 1967 Shelby Mustang GT "Cruise Newser" which was used for a lot of promotional activities. We even ran it at Central Florida Dragway a couple of times. This was one hot car that even had a roll bar and a fire extinguisher in the driver's compartment. The Mustang was the hottest car in America in the 60's and this was the hottest model of them all. The vehicles are parked in front of the WHOO studios/transmitter building on Silver Star road. Notice the typical Florida architecture and foilage.
There is a very interesting story about the final disposition of the awesome Cobra mustang. It was eventually sold and ended up in California where it was located in 2003 and completely restored. It still exists today as this picture shows. What a great job of restoration! It looks better today than in 1967!
Here are a couple of our WHOO music surveys showing a change from "All American Survey" to "Music Power" and a couple of blazer patches showing the change from "All American" to "Top Cat". There is a great story about the "Top Cat" logo. It was initiated by WQAM in Miami as "Tiger Radio" and our General Manager copied it and we became "Top Cat". He wanted to get those little styrofoam balls that WQAM used that are stuck on the top of car antennas called "Tenna Toppers". He called WQAM to see who supplied them and called the company and ordered 5000 "just like WQAM has". When they arrived we ripped open the boxes and found we had gotten 5000 orange balls with the top cat and the call letters W-Q-A-M ...just like WQAM!
Below is a WHOO survey from December 1966.
