Two community radio stations — one in the United States and the other in Great Britain — are joining forces to embark on a Route 66 trip next year, with broadcasts along the way.
WRLR 98.3 FM in Chicago and Forest FM 92.3 in the United Kingdom are tentatively planning to kick off their Route 66 Radio Tour 2013 on June 6 next year from Chicago.
According to the news release:
The tour is expected to take about 4 weeks to reach its end in California. The trip will include visits to local radio stations along the route, including interviews with broadcasters of old, and live broadcasts of the weekly The Fabulous 50s radio show from tourist sites, and the occasional man-on-the-street reports from stops on the 2,500-plus-mile trip. […]
The purpose of the tour is to highlight the role local radio stations have had through the decades, and still do, in small communities strung along such an iconic roadway.
One of many stops on the tour will be Pontiac, Ill., where we will broadcast using equipment from the functional exhibit “Radio in the ‘60s”, a display at the Pontiac Route 66 Museum that replicates an AM radio station circa 1966. It includes a fully restored Gateway 5133 console from 1957. Represented as well is a first-run set of ATC Criterian cart machines that were made in Bloomington, Ill., at that time. This display is on loan from Lane Lindstrom, former owner of the Pontiac radio station and avid collector. While in Pontiac the tour will visit WJEZ (out of Dwight, IL) which is very active in its local community. It will be a perfect example of the role local radio stations have played through the decades in vibrant and small communities, past and present, that lay off the shoulders of the world’s most famous road.
The 2013 tour already is getting publicity from the BBC in England, as evidenced in this radio clip:
Dave Cash – Route 66 Radio Tour – BBC Accross The South (07.04.12)