Tom Browne - Top 20 on Radio 1FM, Broadcast July 31st 1976 (Remastered)

The first record that Tom Browne played on "Solid Gold 60" at 4.00 pm on Sunday 1st October 1972 was "Honky Cat" by Elton John. The first two hours were broadcast only on Radio 1's medium wave channel, which at that time was 247 metres (1215 kHz) although occasionally local radio stations broadcasting on FM in mono such as BBC Radio London (94.9 MHz) would carry the transmission from 4 - 6pm. The previous Sunday chart show, the long running Pick of the Pops with Alan Freeman, aired between 5-7 pm and was broadcast not just on 247m but Radio 2's FM and LW frequencies for the entire show, but the axing of Pick of the Pops, brought a change to the allocation of FM and LW airtime, with Radio 1 losing one of the precious hours of valuable FM and LW for its chart show, as they reverted to Radio 2. This was bad news for the numerous parts of the country where reception of Radio 1 on 247m was poor, especially during the dark winter months when AM reception deteriorated. From the outset on 1st October 1972, Solid Gold 60's final hour was broadcast on FM and LW as well as on Radio 1 (247m). Twenty records were crammed into 60 minutes, plus a verbal countdown. Whilst many recordings of the many Top 20's aired between 6-7 survive today, there seem to be few recordings of the first two hours of Solid Gold 60 (4-6pm) which have survived.