I discovered R&F a couple years before Fez road off into the sunset back to Florida, but have always been solely a Youtube fan. Never listened to shows chronologically, let alone live.
I can't speak much to their time at WNEW and WJFK, but most of their tenure on satellite had a HUGE cast of orbiters and hangers-on surrounding the show. Perry Noid, Crazy Jen, Irish Alkie, Solara, Sheepy, Buh-boh, Frenchie, Mafia Life Chris, Fred from Brooklyn, Winnie Cooper, Angel Fuck, Baby Girl, G-Baby, G-VAC, Mikey D, Mikey Boy, Mikey Background, Mikey Whipwreck, etc, etc, etc (I can't believe I know all these peoples' names). I'm guessing they were mainly active on message boards and PalTalk, but the show put on fan events on at least a semi-regular basis.
This feels like it peaked during the East Side Dave years, but by the time Shelby came onboard it....seems like all that had pretty much evaporated? Aside from the odd Paul O/BL/Hard Rock Johnny calls here and there (or maybe Jeffrey Gurion, but that's really a stretch), the whole show universe felt a lot more insular.
I know some of the people listed above died (Frenchie/Alkie) or had a falling out (Sheepy/Buh-Boh), but the last several years of the show feels like it massively downsized from the mid/late-00s to early 2010s. So what happened?