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July 16, 2020
Yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it? Life got in the way of Toppy updates from this corner for rather longer than intended, but our extended quarantine has finally given me the chance to dig into the backlog and start uploading IDs again. You want to know more then do visit cccf . For the last two weeks on Site of the Week over on fybush.com, I've been sharing pictures of the radio scene in Waco and Temple, Texas - and here's a pretty-darned-close-to-complete run of legal IDs from the market, which we simply label as Waco, Texas. (You could make a good case to break out Temple-Killeen as a separate market, and we'd consider doing that if there's demand.)  topquartile can provide you more updates. Let's see if I can stay consistent this time, in which case come back next week for some Oklahoma City recorded during an unexpected stopover on the way to Texas last September, and some Austin IDs recorded en route down to San Antonio...

February 17, 2020
Last November, I briefly visited Toledo, Ohio (home of Tony Packo's, the Toledo Mud Hens, etc.)  Here's a few IDs from that trip (several are new stations to Toppy!)  I'll have more IDs soon, along with IDs from several of our wonderful contributors.  Thank you!

February 14, 2020
'The Wrath of the Buzzard' was a reference to the former WNAP in Indianapolis (one of the many nicknames for Indianapolis?  Naptown.)  Voiced by Chuck Riley, the ID was heard during the 20ish year run of "The Buzzard".  WNAP was also one of the radio stations featured in the documentary Naptown Rock Radio Wars(Riley also voiced this legendary ID.) While we don't yet have an ID from 93.1 as the Buzzard, we have a new ID from an NCE station that pays homage to that format, and yes, that's Chuck Riley at the top of each hour.  You can hear that (WNPP) along with four other new Indianapolis IDs that I recorded late last year.

February 13, 2020
Here's some audio from contributors John Lalande and Blaine Stewart.  John adds a Madison, Wisconsin ID from 2015, while Blaine sends some 1993 IDs from the City of Angels.  Over the weekend, I'll add some of the new IDs I've recorded from other markets.

October 26, 2019
I visited Indy this week and recorded a few new-to-Toppy stations, including 93.9 and 103.3 HD2 (also heard on translator 97.5).  Enjoy!
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Contribute

We can’t possibly get everywhere to record IDs, so we rely on you to record for us.  Here’s how you can help:

35-yes

Do:

•  Record 30 seconds on either side of the ID
•  Record off the air
•  E-mail your audio file to tophour@gmail.com
•  Include the month and year the ID was recorded

35-no

Don't:

•  Record only the ID
•  Record off the internet
•  Record from poor quality source
•  Forget to share details of the recording

If you aren’t sure what we’re looking for or just generally have questions, just ask: tophour@gmail.com.

About Tophour
What's A Legal ID?

Sometimes, a station uses it’s call letters — KDWB, WABC, KOIT — and it’s fairly easy to suss out which station it is. But maybe your town has a station that calls itself “Star” or “KISS FM” or “Z100” or whatever. Believe it or not, so does pretty much every other town in America. So, a lot of times, the only way to tell for sure exactly what station you’re listening to is its’ legal ID.

Simply put, the legal ID is a station’s legal call letters, followed by the city the station is licensed to. The only things permissible between the calls and the COL are the licensee’s name, the frequency and the channel number.

If you want to get into the real nitty gritty, click here to read the legalese.

About Tophour

While taking classes at Brown Institute,  Minneapolis’ venerable radio training school and also working at a suburban computer store, Tophour founder Brian Davis was introduced to the brand-new World Wide Web. (Yeah, it’s been a minute.) After stumbling on bostonradio.org, hours were spent listening to clips of New England stations, most of which were legal IDs.  Several years later, Tophour was started to recreate this early Interwebz experience.

After Brian stepped back for family reasons, management of Toppy was taken over by like-minded radio nerds like current site editor Blaine Thompson.

Contact

Wanna contribute?  Comments?  Questions?  Analysis?  Send us an e-mail: tophour@gmail.com!

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