Down Memory Lane

Down Memory Lane was Originally Posted on February 17, 2010 by lavarock

Over my life, I have been involved with radio and television in many aspects, from being on TV, behind the cameras, listening to radio to being the DJ.

Some of the early TV shows I remember were Howdy Doody, My Little Margie and Captain Kangaroo. At the time we didn’t realize it, but they had given the Captain so much makeup that decades later he would look the same as they removed the makeup and he could go cold turkey.

A local NY tv station would take the camera and point it at a fireplace during Christmas, so viewers in NYC who did not have a fireplace could have one on television with appropriate holiday music to trim their tree.

Another early TV show out of New York was Joe Franklins Memory Lane. It is speculated that Joe may have created the 1st television talk show as he talked with showbiz people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Franklin

Living between New York and Philadelphia, I had the good fortune of many radio stations, some to boast the best DJ’s in the land; names like Cousin Brucie on stations like WABC.

Years later I moved to Washington DC and continued enjoying radio DJ’s and “air personalities”. I went to private school and along with a few friends, built and worked a campus radio station. Although we were a carrier current station (sending the radio waves into the electrical lines), we more often just hooked up an antenna and let the good times broadcast. Being in a country area we had no complaints, but years later, someone called the FCC and the station was seized and shut down. I think the new operators twisted the frequency dial one too many times and ended up transmitting over top of a local real radio station.

One day, Chuck and I were playing with one of the tape decks, which could create echoes. We had it hooked up in the audio stream and did not have it set correctly to be able to disable the echo. We were live and at the time, started playing the National Anthem. As it came out on the air, the reverb was quite pronounced. We started laughing and trying to remove the reverb from the channel. We flipped on a religious show sent to us on a vinyl record and it went out on the air. As I fell on the floor laughing, the record skipped. The listeners heard the following: a piece of the national Anthem with a great echo, then a pause, the opening music of a religious show, an announcer (with echo) “THIS IS DAY BY DAY WITH JESUS”, a brzzzzz as the needle skipped across the record, and then the words “THIS HAS BEEN, DAY BY DAY WITH JESUS”! That has to be the shortest sermon in history.

Later the shows came on tape!

Not long thereafter I went to college in Southwest Virginia and helped to start a short-lived campus radio station. The owner of the trailer park where I was living worked at a local Kentucky radio station, WREM, owned by a doctor at the Jenkins Clinic. I started out doing commercials and spots and soon was on the payroll. At one point I was fired and moved away to Washington DC. The station changed hands and the bank took it over. I was invited back as the new owners felt I was fired inappropriately.

I had spent many years in that area and still talk with some of the DJ’s I worked with there. The station has changed hands again and was almost in the movie “Coal Miners Daughter [the recent version]).

Along the way, I helped with some audio work at the University of Richmond (VA) radio station (at the time called WCRC). I wasn’t actually a student there, but somehow just got involved. I think it was due to my TV work. I had gotten involved with the local public TV station, WCVE with their televised auction. They would take donations from the local stores; offer the items for sale over the TV and the money helped support the TV station expenses. The views got items at a very nice price and the donors got free TV ads (witch seemed to circumvent the FCC rulings). However, it appears the public and the FCC agreed that this was an acceptable use of public airwaves and many stations around the country did similar fund raising shows.

I moved to DC the next year and for another12 or so, helped with WNVT and WNVC’s auctions. Those stations were also part of the same group and some of the people from Richmond ended up coming up to DC too.

I didn’t mention it here, but when I was in college in Southwest Virginia and before taking the radio gig, I helped build WSVN in Norton, Va. This station would receive programming via tape from Roanoke and soon set up microwave links. I actually wired a lot of the station, audio, and video and inside the transmitter. There were large pieces of tubing witch carried the electricity. The klystrons (giant microwave tubes) were moved around on a crash-cart type device. You would pull a lever and the old tube would be hinged down to cart level. You slid the tube onto the cart, and as I remember, twisted the cart and inserted the new tube in the old ones spot and installed the new tub that way.

The equipment was all RCA equipment. An engineer from RCA came to help us and he took me down the mountain one day when there was heavy snow and ice. The car, a rental as I remember, slid on the ice and into a snow bank. We were in a very country-like mountain setting. We got out and started walking the few miles towards town. He saw some guys standing off in the woods and started to approach them. I pulled him back as it it appeared they were standing in the woods with smoke rising from the area of freshly cut wood. I am sure that based upon where we were, they may have been bootleggers, making a bit of grain alcohol.

The reason I mention these things is that life has changed quite a bit since those old days. Now you can get your radio stations and TV shows from satellite and the term “local” doesn’t really apply much. With a GPS in your car and a satellite radio feed, the national signal could have local ads inserted specifically for your area.

With advances on the internet, we now have free streaming audio from around the world. I use WinAmp (with its built-in Shoutcast service), but you can also go to Shoutcast.Com and listen to the same audio feeds for free without having to load WinAmp. Music, talk shows and even police scanners are available for the asking.

Once oldies station I used to listen to was from Poland. Many of the stations are commercial free, but some are run from people’s basement and who knows what their feed is like

Some examples of various stations you can receive are one from the Reunion Islands, one that plays piano jazz, country from Tennessee, perhaps Hawaiian from Honolulu or Maui is more your style. Any kind of music is available both live and jukebox.

There is even software that allows you, for perhaps $300, to create your own radio station on the internet, or if licensed, over the air. Whether it is just having it play random music selections or bring in news on the hour, it can make you a DJ too!

So there you have it, my trip down “Memory Lane”