DJ Marathon Records

Peter Tripp conducted what was probably the most famous DJ marathon back in 1959. I wrote a post describing the incident in 2009 here. The short version is that he stayed awake for 200 hours and went temporarily insane. Remember 200 hours is over eight straight days awake. Despite the obvious dangers the march of dimes sponsored a contest that year pushing DJs to greater depths of sleep deprivation. In most circles this is considered torture. At least it raised money to fight polio.

Below is a running list I have to DJ marathon records. There is no single canonical source, so I've tried to caveat each claim as much as I can. Some references are short on critical details. I note them anyway. They are in more-or-less chronological order. For no clear reason I found no records in the 1970s. Go figure. I blame disco.  I'll add to this list as research continues. Feel free to contribute.


1958 Loren Valentin - ???? - 175 hours Wichita
1958 Mort Crowley - KWK-AM  54 hours, 14 minutes (sometimes cited as KEK-AM)
1959 Stan Major - WIRL-AM - 180 hours  (some versions say 210 or even 215 hours)
1958 Dave Hunter - WMOP-AM - 187 hours 
1959 Red Evans - WTAL-AM - 190 hours, 43 minutes
1959 Peter Trip - WMGM-AM  - 201 hours, 10 minutes
1959 Jo Warner - KYTE-AM - 203 hours  (sometimes listed as 220 hours)
1959 Dave Hunter - WZRO-AM - 225 hours (sometimes cited as WERO)
1959 Tom Rounds - KPOI-AM - 260 hours
1959 Jim Austin - WBOW-AM  - 229 hours 30 minutes (and other incited attempts)
1959 Robert Murray - WAIK-AM - 231 11 minutes
1960 Jim Austin - WBOW-AM -231 hours
1960 Rick Michaels - WBRB-AM - 243 hours
1961 Snuff Garrett - KSYD-AM - 110 hours
1964 Khan Hamon - WKDA-AM - 124 hours
1965 Rhett Evers - WTFM-AM - 240 hours
1970 Steve Warren - WAMS-AM - 110 hours
1988 Bob Rivers - WIYY-FM - 258 hours (slept between songs)
2001 Glen Jones- WFMU-FM - 100 hours
2002 Greig Daines - Hospital Radio (UK) 73 hours
2002 Matt Fulton - 2MCR (Australia) 103 hours 14 minutes
2003 Kristian Bartos - WOW (Sweden) - 103 hours
2003 Arulanantham Suresh Joachim - CMR-FM (Canada)- 120 hours
2004 Charlie Welch - WJUC-FM 107 hours
2005 Dave Plotkin - WPRK-FM - 110 hours
2006 Stephano Venneri - BBSI(Italy) - 125 hours

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This post will be continually updated 

at a static page here