WRKT-AM 1300 
Cocoa Beach

Original Call Letters: WRKT
Originally Licensed: Jun 1959 
Original City of  License: Cocoa Beach 
Original Frequency: 1300
Origin of Call Letters: Sound like; RocKeT  tie in with Cape Canaveral
Original Power: 5,000 watts daytime/1,000 watts nighttime
Original Location: 
Original Format: MOR 

Network Affiliation(s): NBC 

Owner(s):  1959-
         1968-Bucks County Radio News
                 1977-Bostwick Management
                 1981-Cocoa Beach Broadcasting (Guy Gannett Broadcasting Services, Inc)
                 1981-Triplett Broadcasting of Florida
                 1986-Guy Gannett Publishing Co. 
                 1988-Champion Broadcasting of Florida ($325,000) 
                 1993-Rama Communications (Purchased with WOKB AM 1600) 

History Of Call Letters and Formats: WRKT-1959-MOR
                                                         WRKT-1968-Top 40
                                                         WRKT-1977-Adult Contemporary
                                                         WRKT-1980-Adult Contemporary (simulcast with WRKT-FM 104.1)
                                                         WRKT-1981-Country
                                                         WRKT-1985-Classic Hits
                                                         WRKT-1987-Oldies
                                                         WXXU-1988-Black Gospel (simulcast of WXXO 1600 AM)
                                                         WXXU-1990-Spanish
                                                         WXXU-1994-Ethnic
                                                         WXXU-1995-Travel Information
                                                         WXXU-1998-Black Gospel/Urban
                                                         WXXU-2002-Traveler Information
                                                         WTIR-2003-Traveler Information  
                                                         WTIR-2006-Spanish 
                                                         WMEL-2008-Talk

WRKT History    
In 1981 WRKT was programming country music. But by 1985 faced with mediocre ratings, and new competition from 
WWKA-FM 92.3 and WHOO-FM 96.5,  management decided to adopt a ''classic hits'' format. Classic hits is an updated oldies format, a blend of Top 20 tunes from the '50s, '60s, '70s and, occasionally, the '80s. No one else in Brevard County was doing it. ''It gets down to how you can carve out your own little area and take advantage of it,'' said program director Alan Jackson. ''You may not end up with a giant, killer-number radio station -- like in double digits -- but our whole idea is to end up with a sampling of the best of all the other radio stations.'' Jackson told the Orlando Sentinel. 

WRKT Personalities

Frank Reed-Biography






Michael W. Lowe-1975-1978-Biography


Pepper Lipsync
Jack Simpson-1967-"Jazz on the Beach" 
Jack Gale
Alan Thompson-1972
Dan Donovan-1972-Program Director/mornings                                       WRKT blazer pocket patch
Phil Stanley                                                                                                courtesy of David Vasser
Glen Hill 
Marc Elliot
JJ Derek 
Rita Michaels-Program Director
Gerald Johnson
Joe DeSantis-News
Les Robertson
Dave Vasser aka "Brother Dave"
Jim Sumpter
Dana Chapman-1987-News Director
Ted Rose-Mornings



Dave Edwards-1975-1977  Biography



Ben Hill-Program Director
Jim Sumpter-Music Director
Jim “Double Bubble” Pierce 
“Brother Dave” Vasser
“Crazy Mike” Kessler 
Bill Vermillion Biography   In Memory

Other Names in WRKT History
Chester E. "Chet" Pike-1968-Owner/Program Director--Bucks County Radio News In Memory
  Tom Morley-1968-Station Manager-Bucks County Radio News
Scott Conelley-1968-Program Director-Bucks County Radio News
Steve Jasen-1968-Program Manager-Bucks County Radio News
Glenn Hill-1968-News Director-Bucks County Radio News
Roger Kaplan-1968-Chief Engineer-Bucks County Radio News
Bob Clarke-1981-WRKT-AM and FM Vice President and General Manager-Triplett Broadcasting of Florida
Alan Jackson-Program Director  
Benjamin Hill-Program Director  
Merv Pilgrim-Music Director and mid day host
Ron Schrader-Engineer
Ron Burgess-Sales
Larry Weiss-Sales Manager 

                                                 
                                                                                 Thanks to Fred King
                                                                                   click for full sized view

WRKT Memories From Dave Vasser
I was on WRKT AM-FM from February of 1974 until October 1974 when Chet Pike owned the station.  He had a boat called the MISS WRKT.  It was a big Bertram boat. My air name on WRKT and for lots of other stations thereafter was "Brother Dave" and I started doing nights at WRKT and was production director.  I eventually moved to PM drive.  The program director at WRKT at that time was Benjamin Hill who went to KIOA in Des Moines after leaving WRKT and then moved into TV and retired a millionaire.  Music director and mid days was Merv Pilgrim who went to BIG WAYS and into record promotion after BIG WAYS before leaving the business to run a video rental and appliance store in his hometown of Cleveland, Ga. Jim Sumpter did mornings and went from WRKT to WLCY in Tampa/St. Pete where he had a very long run.
After I left WRKT I spent seven years in Charleston SC at WTMA, WWWZ, WCSC and WQSN before moving to the Charlotte NC area in 1980 where I worked at Z-100, WFOX, WROQ, WABZ, WZKY and some other stations around Charlotte before finishing my radio career with a 14 year run of the Brother Dave Show on Magic 96.1 FM in Charlotte. 
The way I got to WRKT was through Benjamin Hill who had worked part time in news at WRFC in Athens GA where I was doing nights.  Ben's dad owned the local newspaper in Cocoa and I guess that is how Ben got the WRKT PD job.  Ben hired both me and Merv Pilgrim from WRFC in Athens to join him in Florida.  
When I arrived WRKT, the FM was AOR and WRKT-AM was Top 40 with all live jocks on both stations.  Shortly after I got there they went 24 hours and began simulcasting top 40 on both stations combining the staffs from both the FM and AM, moving me to PM drive. 
I enjoyed WRKT.  I was 19 years old at the time I went there and turned 20 while working there.  Although the station was probably licensed to Cocoa Beach and we said "Cocoa Beach" on the legal ID's, the WRKT AM & FM studios were never in Cocoa Beach when I worked there.  The station was actually in Cocoa on a mostly dirt road called Pluckebaum Rd in a concrete block building I called the "Radio Ranch" because there was nothing else but cows and horses and old abandoned orange groves out there. It was so remote it was almost spooky at night.  You couldn't drink the tap water because it was loaded with sulfur. The engineering department where the transmitters were located was down the entire left side of the building where the transmitters and racks were lined up.  Engineering had video cameras set up (rarer in 1974 than today) to scan the meters on the transmitter so the station would be legal.  The camera resolution was so low that you couldn't actually read the meters off the video monitor, but the FCC rules just said you had to be able to see the meters.  
I remember Merv Pilgrim made a pot of coffee once with that awful tap water and everyone who drank coffee that morning had
the runs for a while after that. We had great Top 40 programming and did lots of remotes from right on the beach in Chet Pike's old motor home that we converted into a mobile studio.  Also at this time WRKT AM and FM had one of the most dedicated engineers I ever worked with named Ron Schrader who had worked for NASA during the booming 60's doing some sort of
electronics work.  He really knew electronics.  But he and I always disagreed over audio processing.  He was a very good
engineer though it was just preferences.  He would only buy Collins brand equipment for some reason though, probably
because he used Rockwell/Collins radio stuff in the military and at the Cape and was used to working on it.  Everything was
Collins at WRKT AM/FM except the Ampex tape recorders  which were the old 350's and the RCA 77DX mics which were everywhere except in FM control where they had a big EV665 or some such dynamic.  The channel Air/Audition switches on the Collins boards went UP AND DOWN instead of Left to Right as I was used to at about every other station where I worked during that era until slide pot boards became the fashion.  
The station did very well in the ratings the spring book that I worked there.  The area wasn't quite as booming as I expected as Apollo was over and there was no shuttle yet, the Cape was basically a ghost town and I got out of there first chance I had.  I lived in a neighborhood called College Park on South Stetson Drive in Cocoa.  The house had 3 bedrooms in a nice neighborhood and the rent was $185 a month.  Wow!  
I remember there were two salesmen at WRKT who where brothers when I got there!  One was named Ron Burgess who was your typical 1970's "Herb Tarleck-esqe" radio salesman, but his brother Rick was more of a regular Joe kind of guy and I liked
him.  Ron was the tanned good looking and popular one.  There was also a bookkeeper whose name I can't recall and she
embezzled a bunch of money from the books.  Ron Burgess and the embezzling bookkeeper ran off together with a bunch of
Chet's money!  I don't know if Chet Pike ever caught up to the sneaky duo or not, nor do I know exactly how much they stole
from him.  But it must have been a substantial amount.  Rick Burgess stayed and kept working at the station and he was there
when I left a few months after the embezzlement escapade. Nobody at the station had any idea what was going on until they
both had vaporized and Chet had the books checked. 
I'm amazed Chet Pike lived so long!  He was having some health issues with his heart back then and smoked a lot of cigarettes.  I can still see him tapping one on his watch crystal to pack the tobacco down before lighting up.  I tried to stay away from Chet - and all owners as much as possible until I got into management in Charleston.

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