WKMK and WTHJ (106.3 and 106.5 FM, "Thunder 106") are two radio stations simulcasting a country music format. The stations are licensed to Eatontown and Bass River Township, New Jersey, respectively. The station is owned by Press Communications. WKMK's transmitter is located at exit 105 of the Garden State Parkway in Tinton Falls. WTHJ's transmitter is located on the tower of Philadelphia television station WWSI/62 located in Tuckerton in extreme southern Ocean County. The studios are located in Neptune, New Jersey.
The 106.3 WKMK signal reaches Staten Island to the north, Toms River to the south and Hightstown to the west. The 106.5 WTHJ signal reaches Brick Township to the north, Ocean City to the south and Philadelphia to the west.
History
WTHJ history
This facility was originally allocated to Ocean City and broadcast from that city as WSLT-FM on 106.3 MHz, beginning around 1970. The station broadcast with beautiful music, adult contemporary and classical formats until a local marketing agreement led to a country format and the new call sign of WKOE. More format changes ensued, but none of them made much of an impact on the Atlantic City market and the owners eventually applied to move the station to its present location and frequency. On July 6, 2006, WKOE swapped frequencies with WBBO, which had been simulcasting WHTG-FM on 98.5 FM and was known as B98.5 prior to that. From August 2005 to January 2009 it simulcasted G 106.3 in Ocean County and South Jersey. On January 19, 2009, the format switched to Top 40 along with WHTG-FM. On December 8, 2010, the WBBO call letters reverted to the FM station on 98.5 MHz licensed to Ocean Acres, NJ, near Manahawkin, NJ. Concurrently the station on 106.5 MHz in bass River Township, NJ, became WTHJ.
WHTG history
WHTG-FM first signed on at the 105.5 MHz frequency on October 11, 1961, as the sister station of WHTG (1410 AM). The station was named for Harold and Theo Gade, its first owners and operators. Eventually, the Gades' daughter Faye became general manager of the station. Faye Gade assumed ownership of the station in 1985.
Interference with WDHA in northern New Jersey resulted in the move to its current 106.3 MHz frequency in 1965, which had been vacated in 1963 when WFHA in Red Bank, NJ, discontinued operations.
Primarily a Beautiful Music station, it also broadcast Adult Standards (e.g. popular vocalists like Frank Sinatra) and big bands in the evenings alongside its sister station until 1983, then Adult Contemporary music up to the switch to Alternative rock in August, 1984. The AM station officially split off from the FM station in the summer of 1984 Kevin Dunn was named Program Director for the AM station. WHTG-AM began offering its own format of adult contemporary, and eventually, oldies music, using many of the personalities from its beautiful music days as a new airstaff was assembled to take over the rock music now the norm on the FM. The station started to play emerging local bands such as Red House, Dramarama, the Blases and the Whirling Dervishes along with national alternative sounds from artists such as Bolshoi, Flesh for Lulu, the Del-Lords, Social Distortion and Hüsker Dü.
Air personalities on WHTG at this time included Jack Scott, Kevin Dunn, Don Brennan, Ray Knight, Jeff Michaels (now known as Jeff Rafter), Vince Hartnett, James Theadoracopulous (who used the air name "J.T. Copulous"), Chuck Weigel, Phil Matthews, Rich Robinson, Drew Williamson, Rich O'Reilly, Dave Mackey, Chuck Rossi, Mike Marrone, and Matt Pinfield.
WHTG-AM still broadcasts on 1410-AM
Freeform
In the very early FM 106–3 days, the station had somewhat of a free-form approach, with DJs who were alternative rock fans picking what music they played, from Pixies to Prince. During the mid-1980s, The Smiths and other Manchester Sound artists were especially favored by the station's jocks. By that time Rich Robinson had become program director and was slowly nudging ownership into a more contemporary format. DJ Matt Pinfield, who started at the station in 1984 and had, by the early nineties, become Program Director, was noted for being extremely knowledgeable of alternative and independent artist information when introducing tracks. He later was seen spouting that knowledge as the 2nd host of MTV's "120 Minutes".
In the 1980s, the station referred to itself as, Your Rock Alternative, FM 106.3. For a brief period in the early nineties, the station used a slogan of "Real Rock Radio, FM 106.3." In the nineties, its signature copy became, FM 106.3, Modern Rock at the Jersey Shore.