ttgapers.com

Starting tomorrow, WLIB will scrap its daytime Caribbean programming and become the New York home for Air America Radio, the new, liberal talk-radio network. Friday mornings always began the same for Yonkers resident Dennis Hammer, turning on his radio and tuning to 1190 AM to listen to the steel band calypso that would remind him of his home in Barbados. But this Friday, he'll have to search elsewhere to hear the rhythmic beats of the pings and pangs of the drums.

Air America Radio, owned by Progress Media Inc., will feature Al Franken, Jeanene Garofalo and hip-hop icon Chuck D and pitches itself as an alternative to conservative talk radio. But while it may provide another choice in the world of talk radio, it will eliminate the New York region's only round-the-clock Caribbean programming.

But for some listeners, the melodic sounds of Caribbean music are all they want to hear.

Carl Tyndale, 37, has listened to WLIB for more than 17 years. He remembers when it was mostly talk radio on Caribbean issues and was surprised to hear of the format change.

"Where are we going to find Caribbean music now?" said Tyndale, the manager of the Royal Caribbean Bakery in Mount Vernon. "This station had so much information. They would broadcast cricket games and news from back home. Other stations don't do that. I don't think there is going to be many black issues with the new format, and there will be less Caribbean callers because people won't feel at home. That is where people tune in to get something from home."

"I always listened to them," Tracey-McCallum, a native of Jamaica and president of the Jamaican Civic and Cultural Association of Rockland, said yesterday. Others in the community shared her views, she said.

"I think it's a big concern that they're no longer going to be in place, because their programming was quite good and offered quite a bit of Caribbean news; so that one source now is no longer available to us, and I think it's a great disappointment," she added.