My Blog about the various things I like and some of the things I discover from time to time.


60's or Sixties on 6 Sirius XM new changes

When I finally broke down 2 years ago, vowing to never pay for radio, the main reason I did it was to listen to the 50's and 60's music I grew up with.

No static, crisp, clear sound, any time of day, always there on long trips in the car or camper.

I have been quite pleased.

I like surprises, unlike an ipod where you are limited to what you have saved on it, with the satellite radio I never know what will be next, I like that. I like the "Hey Man, turn it up!" when a great tune comes on, like "back in the day."

Since the merge of the 2 companies, Sirius and XM, there of course have changes that needed to be made. Many channels changed, but this is about the 60's on 6.

So many changes.

1st and foremost is the changing of the hours of the Terry "Motormouth" Young show. He used to be on eastern 4 - 10 PM. Now he is on 7 - 11 PM eastern. So now I don't hear him at all because of the time change. I know this is good news for the west coast so they get him now in drive time.

On Fridays here did a show dedicated to one various radio station from the 60's like KHJ Los Angeles, or WABC in New York, for 4 hours. Now it is 2 hours and being eastern time zone not in my time to listen anymore.

The Top 6 songs of this day from a chosen year right before the top of the hour is gone, there were snippets of songs 6 - 2, and then the #1 song of that year would play. I really miss that, but it was repetitious as there were weeks where the number one song was the same for many weeks in a row, and just how many times a day can you hear "Hey Jude" for 6 weeks in a row?

How about just doing it twice a day, like once on the Phlash Phelps show, and once on Terry's show, for old times sake.

The top of the hour used to have the "Beatle Bell" where the XM jungle played and was followed by a Beatles song.

This is OK with me, but one of the big things I like is a really geared up top of the hour 'station ID' jingle, followed with the DJ doing a voice over into, during the 1st few seconds of the song. The new Cousin Brucie top of the hour is close, but still needs the DJ voiceover for the next song.

Gone are the Saturday night 'all request CQ show.

The Cousin Brucie show replaced that, and that is good, I used to hear him in western NY as a kid, although in Mayville New York we could only get it at night when the signal would skip, fading in and out, no more with the satellite.

See, we who love the sixties channel are creatures of habit, we like the way the channel wants to be like the way radio was in the sixties, Cleveland Wheeler, who I listened to on the Q-105 Q-Zoo back in Tampa Bay, had this idea when this channel started. I hope they can keep it going, even through the bad economy, seeing that I heard somewhere that the 60's on 6 is the #1 music channel on the platform.

The Phlash Phelps Funny Farm morning show seems to be unchanged, I like that. Even though he is not a child of the 60's, he has a good knowledge of the songs and does a good job taking calls from all over the country, making the listeners feel like one big family.

I for one will still be glad to pay for this service, as I can listen not only in the car, but have a home dock for my receiver that is hooked up to wireless headphones, so I can listen while doing my computer work, always there, always my friend, thanks.

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