Thanks to three contributors, here are some Miami-Fort Lauderdale IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are over 30 Rochester, New York IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush and your humble editor, here are three dozen "homebase" IDs from Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are some Lima, Ohio IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are some State College, Pennsylvania IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are some Salisbury-Ocean City, Maryland IDs
Thanks to several contributors, here are some Atlanta IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are some Central New Jersey IDs.
Thanks to Scott Fybush, here are some Tyler, Texas IDs.
Thanks to contributors Scott Fybush and Lance Venta, here are some Lake Havasu City, Arizona IDs.
We can’t possibly get everywhere to record IDs, so we rely on you to record for us. Here’s how you can help:
• 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
• 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.
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.
In the mid-’90s, Tophour founder Brian Davis was taking classes at Minneapolis’ venerable radio training school, Brown Institute and working at a suburban computer store. During some downtime at the store, a co-worker introduced Brian to the nascent World Wide Web. Eventually he stumbled on Scott Fybush and Garrett Wollman’s bostonradio.org, where he spent hours listening to clips of New England stations, many of which were legal IDs.
Several years later, Brian started Tophour to recreate his early Interwebz experience. After Brian stepped back to focus on his wife’s health issues. management of Toppy was taken over by the aforementioned Scott Fybush, followed by current site editor Blaine Thompson.