Whoop de do! Rarely do radio listeners hear elsewhere many of the reminiscent relics Bob Bittner spins from his West Bath Station, WJTO, a.k.a. “The Memories Station.”

One minute Bittner is “Putting on the Ritz,” and the next he is piping out Pavarotti. Until now, the flow of commercial-free tunes could be heard only at 730 on the AM dial. Bittner recently branched out the station to 98.3 FM, a move landing him directly between major radio stations that reach differing demographics.

“I look at both of my own stations as a hobby, not a business; and that’s pretty much how we run things,” Bittner said. “We don’t go overboard. I was raised rather frugally, meaning that, while I’ve succeeded at buying radio stations over the years, I’ve never been in a limo unless I was forced into one,” he said with a chuckle.

He has owned and operated stations throughout New England, and also currently runs WJIB in Boston.

Few stations nowadays play a mix of memories so thick that it is not unusual to hear Sinatra and Sting perform on each other’s heels (or to hear “It’s Not Unusual”) among other bygone golden oldies. Bittner, an eclectic seasoned radio personality, entered the business at age 12 in 1962.

The sax and guitar lessons his parents encouraged him. “(They) made me realize that my interest in music was not playing it, rather, introducing someone else’s music to others,” Bittner said.

Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling albums bedeck the funky West Bath studio. Boxes of letters from enduring fans of all generations are carefully kept here. More than a dozen categories of music beam from the noteworthy tower that looms outside.

Painstakingly, Bittner burns onto a computer tens of thousands of songs, a smidgen of this and of that, like in Steven King’s “Needful Things.” Where else can you can waltz and tango and yell “Itali-ANO” in under 10 minutes?

Bittner defies radio “norms” and “mores,” by refusing to broadcast commercials. “It’s not that I’m against commercials, per se, it’s that I’m against commercialism — especially from the big corporations.”

Instead, Bittner conducts an annual fundraising campaign from (around) June to October, to keep the listener-supported stations afloat for another year. Covering just the cost of operating with the campaign, Bittner has unequivocally put his money where his mouth is. The monetary and sweat-equity of properly maintaining the towers alone costs staggering thousands.

The Washington, D.C. native has lived here since 1997. When asked why he does not seek personal gain via his professional efforts, he looks around his enchanted water-kissed Midcoast property, and asks rhetorically, “what more could I want?”

Bittner resides with his wife, Raisa, and the couple’s two dogs, Rachael and Henry.

Routinely, Bittner makes his own occasional social statement on the air. Like this one: “Credit cards are snapping turtles issues by snakes.”

He also drops in quotable quotations by his favorite diplomat du jour, akin to Edward R. Murrow, who said “A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves.”

“I’m not against government; I’m not an ‘anti-government’ type,” Bittner said. “We all need it (to be governed).”

But corporate bilking makes Bittner see red: “Credit card companies want and try to force you to use your credit card — dependently.”

Call Bittner the Ralph Nader of the new millennium, but the main thing to him is that, “I love playing great music.” He emphasizes that, “introducing people to new and old songs or artists is something that gives me great satisfaction.”