John Eppler:

“I was hired in 1969 to set up and engineer weekend remotes, primarily from the Holiday Inn in Meriden, a live polka show. (Bill Hart actually got me in the door; he and I worked together for a few months at Radio Shack and are still friends today)  From 1970 - 1977, I was an announcer, started doing engineering with Mark Anderson around 1971 and became Chief Engineer in 1973 when I passed my FCC first phone. In 1974 I also took on Program Director duties and held both positions until I left in summer of 1977.  One WEXT announcer, Bill Hart, aka Bill St. James, went on to become one of the premier voice over talents in the country, and has hosted the ABC radio Networks "Flashback" program for over 25 years.  He was a long time voice of  "Nick at Nite" and has done voice work for Discovery Channel, Showtime and the 2006 Winter Olympics.”

By this point in time the station had adopted a Country and Western format and used consultant Bill Hudson of Hudson and Associates of Nashville.  Bill St. James (Bill Hart) was one of the announcers.  Bill St. James joined the announcing staff in 1970.

In the early 70s the studio was moved to the third floor of the Culbro Building, 630 Oakwood Ave, in West Hartford.  The new facilities on the third floor consisted of an air and a production studio, an engineering shop, a reception area, and offices for the GM, the program director and for sales.

John Eppler recalled that the following people worked at WEXT in the period from 1970 to 1977: Michael Blumberg-General Manager, Mort Roberts-Sales Manager, Lee Kaplan-Sales, Donna Lemieux-Receptionist and announcers Del Dixon, Rollie Dumas, Duncan Fyfe, Jimmy Dayle, Bill James, Sue Lemay,  Bob Martin, Don Marshall, Art Paige, Leslie Pearlman, Ken Richters, Mark Sowalsky and Ray Taylor.  

John Ramsey:

“I started as a weekend board operator in 1972, running the board and signing the logs for the numerous religious and ethnic shows that purchased air time on Saturdays and Sundays.  I’m still friends with Henrique Ribeiro who had a Portuguese show on Saturday (still going strong after 30+ years on the air, now on WWUH).  There was also a Polish show, a Latin show and on Sunday lots of religious shows.”

According to one newspaper account, in February, 1973, former owner Grassco Corp was fined $4,000 by the FCC for "repeated violations of FCC rules on logging the duration of commercials and failure to give the required sponsor identifications of 14 commercials."  Later the fine was reduced to $3,000.

Around 1974 Executive Broadcasting sold the station to R & S Communications, owned by Harry Reiner of White Plains New York.

In 1977 R & S Communications sold to 1550 Country Radio, Inc., owned by Marylou Chaiken, Louis Alfonso and Barry Chaiken. The call letters were changed to WMLB, which represented the first letter of the first name of each of the owners.

In 1978 Mark Anderson resigned as chief engineer and John Ramsey took over the position.

Personnel between 1978 and 1986 included Leonard Ackerman, Phil Burgess (GM), Donna Cameron, Frank DePachio, Santo Failla, Mort Fega, Ken Gilbert, Bruce Kampe, Dick Isgur (78 -86), Lou Morton, Aaron Osipow, Frank Pingree CE, Tom Saler, Dick Shuey and Leslie Perlman Tucker (Leslie Ellen) (78), Lou Terry and Geoff Wilbur.

In the early eighties the Chaikens bought out Mr. Alfonso.  Donna Cameron was the receptionist.

In 1983 WMLB applied to the FCC to increase the day power from 1000 watts to 5000 watts and to add nighttime service with 2400 watts.  Close to ten acres would be needed for the six towers required by the new facility and despite an extensive search a suitable site could not be found in West Hartford.  It took two years to find a suitable site in Bloomfield due to the station being sued by one of that town’s largest businesses who alleged that the proposed towers would adversely impact their operations.  The suit was settled out of court.  The move to Bloomfield meant that the FCC had to be petitioned to change the station’s “city of license” from West Hartford to Bloomfield since the proposed nighttime coverage did not cover at 80% of West Hartford as required by the rules.

A construction permit was issued in 1984 and construction started in the fall of that same year on the new facility which required no less than six towers.

“The Wetland Commission required that we install the towers during the winter months since some of the towers were situated in or near wetlands.  This made the work extremely difficult by the spring of 1985 we began testing with full power and night service from the new location.  Over the next few months no less than 3,000 field measurements were taken to satisfy the FCC.” 

Needless to say the 5000 watt day signal was a huge improvement over the old signal with daytime coverage extending into Waterbury and Springfield.  Having night authorization meant that the station no longer had to sign off at sunset which was as early as 4:15 pm in December.