|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 23, 2008 20:35:52 GMT -5
Gee, I almost forgot about this little annoyance.
WLRS 1968 & SUITE 1008
As you may recall from my earlier offerings, the WLRS Studio was in suite 908 of the 800 Building at the time I was there...67--69.
The 800 used to have a web site which included the floor plans for their various apartments. Suite 908 was near the center of the building, but first apt to the west of center on the 9th floor.
It had a balcony facing south....this is only significant as it goes to another story, which I'll relate later.
ANYWAY!
The 800 Building was, at the time, and I assume is probably still a residential building. At the time, I think WLRS was the only business enterprise in the whole place.
The guy, gal, parties, whomever they were, who lived in the apartment directly above us, in 1008, were, apparently NOT music lovers....or perhaps not easy listening fans.
Any evening the studio speakers were still at a normal level when 1008 went to bed, there would begin the thumping and pounding from above....I suppose he was using a broom stick to bang on the floor.
It was not as if the speakers were high power / high fidelity or anything of the kind....indeed, they were simple 8" speakers mounted in a typical open-back & slant front case....like one might see in a school room. They were mounted close to ceiling level, and I guess the acoustic isolation between floors was non-existent.
Anyone working nights had to use strictly headphones and keep the speakers barely audible. 1008 had complained to the boss who let it be known that this guy was upset with us.
I thought....What the "H"....doesn't this guy realize that this is a radio station !?!
Then again, I guess he figured he was paying his rent and deserved a quiet sleep.
It was the only studio environment I had ever worked in where the neighbors would bang on the floor to shut us up. I wonder if it stayed that way after the station became The WALRUS ?
Regards Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 22, 2008 19:04:20 GMT -5
Thanks for your kind remarks.
I was in Louisville for only two years, but met so many wonderful folks there, and learned so much. Heck, I was just a kid, myself. I was only 18 when I came to Louisville, and 20 when I left for Dallas.
I miss Louisville, and have had no chance to visit, since I left.
My buddy Don Fugate, gets back there from time to time, his wife has relatives there.
Dallas has been good to me, though the Dallas I moved to in 1969 doesn't exist any longer.....not the Dallas I fell in love with when I moved here......I suppose the Louisville I left doesn't exist any longer either.
So many things happened during those two years I was in Louisville....I'll turn them into stories, as they come to my recall.
Regards
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 22, 2008 11:10:48 GMT -5
REMEMBER WLRS—SIMULCASTING—WXVW?
Say you don’t remember? Well, they did….not officially, but occasionally.
As you know from my threads, Don F. and I were buddies, from the same home town, Huntington, WV. We met at UEI and worked together at both WLRS and WXVW.
Don, for a while, worked opposite me during the same shift hours, him at WXVW and me, at WLRS.
It didn’t take long for Don and me to figure out that the Mutual Broadcasting System network feed went first to WXVW, and then via the patch panel at WXVW to a Telco leased line, to WLRS.
With a little re-patching Don could feed his console output to that leased line instead of the normal MBS feed.
We figured that neither Clarence nor our respective PDs would, by chance, be listening to both stations at the same time, and that it would be cool to simulcast. We figured we would never be caught, and you know how 19 year-olds are…….well……we did it.
Don and I would be on the phone with each other, and push our spots out as far as we could without totally screwing up the program log, so he could feed me his programming. The line was one way…..I couldn’t feed him my stuff.
At the end of a particular selection, we’d both “pot-down” and play our respective spots, etc. Then, Don would have to change the patch panel back so I could cut to news. We’d return after the news and repeat the same naughty activity.
No one ever caught on. Many evenings, we would do this. So, yes, WXVW and WLRS did, on occasion, simulcast. Fortunately, the powers to be never caught on, or Don and I might have been “Simul-Fired”
After a while the novelty wore off, and it wasn’t fun anymore. So, we stopped.
SORRY, Clarence!
Regards
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 22, 2008 11:06:14 GMT -5
I wanted to start this thread to say THANKS !!! to John Q. for adding the audio snippets I submitted and to collect any comments on same.
I hope you will find them of interest. They represent a time, not many of you will remember, first hand, a time before WLRS became the ROCK GIANT it eventually evolved into.
THANKS JOHN!
Regards
Dan Steffen
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 19, 2008 18:09:33 GMT -5
WLRS circa 1968: Clarence’s equip preferences: For the trivia buffs As I have mentioned, Clarence was a broadcast consultant, in addition to owning three stations in the Louisville area: WLRS; WXVW; WORX. As I observed Clarence’s choice of equipment, not just for his own stations, but also for those stations he specified, I began to pick up on some preferences he seemed to have in certain areas. I noticed that he would select AM Transmitters made by the Collins Radio Co., but for FM applications, he would select RCA transmitters, such as the RCA BTF-10D that we had at WLRS. At one point, I inquired about this preference. I had already had some experience with transmitters before coming to work for WLRS, and had developed a preference for Collins equipment….largely because it was so over-engineered. If a Collins Transmitter was rated at, say, 5,000 Watts, it could pump out 5,000 watts while idling. Often, RCA transmitters would be running at full throttle to produce their rated output. The reliability of Collins equipment for that and for other design related reasons was legendary. I was, therefore, curious that Clarence would prefer RCA for FM applications. Clarence seemed impressed that I had recognized his preference, and happy to explain. He asked if I understood the difference between direct and phase modulation. I said yes, that I had studied both in my FCC 1st phone License guide, though I wasn’t all that knowledgeable regarding the relative merit of either. Clarence’s eyes lit up, as if eager to explain. Indeed, he offered to explain in detail if I would come upstairs to his office the next morning, as he wanted the schematics at hand as he walked me through his explanation. I was flattered that he would take time out of his day to tutor me this way, so I promised to be there. The next morning, when I arrived at his office, Clarence had the schematic of our exciter (RCA BTF 10-E, if memory serves) laid out on his desk. He used it to show me the particulars of how phase modulation was accomplished in this exciter and why he preferred it. He referred to the older “direct modulation” method, still employed in the Collins exciters as “brute force” modulation. He didn’t like it since it tended to cause more instability in the center freq of the master oscillator, and produced other artifacts he didn’t care for. The “phase modulation”, he explained, was more subtle and didn’t involve tickling the main oscillator, thus, potentially, de-stabilizing it, or producing harmonic content or other undesirable artifacts. It was 1968, and Collins hadn’t yet adopted the phase modulation technique. I observed that he had also deviated away from the EV666 microphone, which WXVW had several of, which can be noted in the pic of Don and me in studio at WXVW on the WXVW page here on LKYRadio, in favor of the Turner 510 which can be seen in the pics on the WLRS page. Clarence said that the Turner 510 was new, becoming very popular, and had a nice presence peak in its response curve, and he wanted to give them a try. The mic was, indeed, very popular at the time, and, as I learned later, the Turner Microphone Company was an outgrowth of the Turner Co., whose only other product line was, of all things, embalming machines. For the trivia buff, you can check it out at the following link: www.ericbraun.com/turner/Indeed, Collins Radio Co. purchased the mic re-branded with the Collins “meatball” logo and painted Collins gray. They sold it by the thousands as the Collins M-88. I still have two of them, myself. They sound great, and are almost impossible to overload. In fact, I loaned one to a friend of mine, who is a jazz singer, who used it on one of her tours. If you like jazz you might want to check her out. Her website is: www.lilawilliams.com She was trained by Ella Fitzgerald, and wanted to borrow the mic because Ella used one for a while. She used it on one of her tours, and received many inquiries about it from mic-smart persons in the audience. Turner’s normal offering included a brushed aluminum model, as you’ll see in the WLRS pics, as well as a gun metal blue version for non-glare (TV) applications. The Collins version was special and unique to Collins. Back to transmitters-- Clarence agreed that the Collins AM transmitters were virtually indestructible and confirmed his preference for them. Another unique product selection was the Fairchild Turntables we had at WLRS. I have dealt with them elsewhere, so I won’t elaborate on them here, except to say they had excellent figures-of-merit for wow & flutter, and in the new FM-MPX environment where a broader range of audio frequencies were transmitted, keeping any noise or other artifacts, typical to idler driven turntables, out of our audio was quite important. Those can also be seen in the studio pics here on the WLRS page. I suppose it’s all trivia, but guys like me, and, I bet, many of you are into such trivia. Regards Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 16, 2008 19:05:40 GMT -5
OK John, I will.
I was at WLRS and WXVW for two years, there were many things that happened in that time and, as they come to mind, I'll pass along the stories, such as, the time I....
STEPPED OFF THE SIDE OF THE 800 Building.
It was the first occasion for me to go to the roof and visit the transmitter shack. I was on my air shift and Clarence was up on the roof in the transmitter shack.
The studio line rang and it was Clarence. He asked me to join him in the transmitter shack to help him to lift and move the dummy load.
I put on a pre-recorded program tape....you know....one of those I had been prompted to make due to my unhappy experience with the Fairchild Turntable....as I described elsewhere in this thread, and headed for the elevator.
Soon, I was in the rooftop equipment room, where the elevator motors, etc were. Our transmitter shack was not in that area, however, it was in a freestanding shack on the roof. It was its own entity. I knew that, though I had never been there. One could see the top of our mast and the antenna bays from the ground, so I knew about where the shack would be found.
I opened the door and stepped out into....mid-air. It was night and very dark. As I felt my foot falling ahead of me off the side of the building, the skyline of downtown Louisville presented itself to me as a display of street lights, auto lights, building lights, and such.
I'm sure my heart probably skipped a beat and I grabbed that brass doorknob with such a grip that my fingerprints may well still be inprinted into it.
Soon, my foot stopped "falling" and landed upon the tar and gravel roof of the building. I realized I hadn't stepped off the side of the building, but, rather, discovered that there was a good 2 plus foot step from the door onto the roof. The tar and gravel roof was pitch black so, in the split second of my panic I didn't recognize it was there.
There I was hanging from the doorknob, in something like a fetal position, still refusing to let go of it, even though my feet were both on the roof.
Just then, Clarence opened the door to the transmitter shack to see me in my awkward position. He smiled and said:
"Oh..... I meant to tell you about that. That first step is a killer."
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 11, 2008 16:37:04 GMT -5
Perils of the Fairchild Turntable:
I have mentioned before that WLRS used, what were at the time, state of the art turntables, made by Fairchild. I had never before or since encountered them.
Their claim to fame, as it were, was a remarkable figure of merit as it goes to Wow & Flutter. The means of accomplishing this was attributed to two factors;
Belt drive...to eliminate the transfer of motor noise, usually associated with idler driven turntables and;
A platter that weighed as much as a small car.
I'm kidding, of course, but the platter was very heavy. I'd bet well over 10 pounds. My vacuum cleaner weighs 12 pounds, and I'd say that the platter weighed nearly as much. If you look at them in the pics that John Q. was so kind to post on the WLRS page here at LKYradio, you can best see them on the pic showing our cute little Scottish visitor. The part of the platter that is visible is primarily the cueing flange. The bulk of the platter is sunk deep into the cabinet.
I have mentioned that the weight of the platter on these turntables meant that they were painfully slow to come to speed, and, therefore, were a pain in the butt to cue. The upside, if one can call it that, was that when the belt broke, the inertia, or flywheel effect on the speed of the platter was that it slowed down extremely slowly. Seems like much of a "cut" would go by before one would sense the change in pitch of the singer or melody of a selection.
Anyone, in those days......no prophet system or other such automation......will attest, it was common practice to choose a selection with maximum length to play when one was, shall we say, called by nature to be away from the board for a few minutes.
The weight of the platter placed a lot of strain on the belt, and it failed more often than one would like.
Such was the case one evening. I had put on "The Blue Tango" by the 101 Strings.....cause it's nearly 5 minutes long, if I recall correctly, so as to answer the call.
As I was contemplating the transcendent mysteries of the cosmos in the restroom, that infamous change in pitch occured in my ear.
NOT NOW! I thought. I think I may have even said shuckie-foot & Golly-Darn or some other some pronouncements.
Once the pitch change had become apparent, the subsequent slowdown happened more quickly and unhappily.
By the time I was able to conclude my contemplation and rush back to the control room, the speed had slowed to a point that...well...no one would be doing the tango to that tune.
After my embarrassment was maximum, the phone rang....it was our PD.
"I bet I know where you were!?!" He laughed.
Yeah. I replied.
After that I began producing program tapes. This way I could contemplate when required, without worrying about a repeat of that episode.
I still have many of those program tapes. In fact, some of the program excerpts that John Q. will eventually post contain programming from those tapes.
Yeah, I know, Murphy's law being what it is, I could have just as easily had a tape to break, but if it did, silence would soon ensue, which is not nearly as torturous as listening to an instrumental slowly changing pitch.
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 7, 2008 13:55:58 GMT -5
When WLRS was still at the original location on S. 3rd Street, the transmitter and studio were in adjacent rooms with a window between them. One could be at the board and look through the window to see the transmitter. One winter's afternoon I had stopped off at a butger chain..."Burger Queen", not Burger King, but Burger Queen. Don't know if that chain still exists. Anyway, I stopped off on my way to work and picked up something to eat. Typical fare, I recall, chesseburger and fries, and a coke.
By the time I arrived at the station, the cheeseburger and fries had become rather cold, so I employed the trick all the other DJs had employed, when it came time for lunch. I opened the door on the transmitter P.A. (it was not part of the interlock system, I suppose because you couldn't really come in contact with any lethal voltages....and it was an OLD transmitter with quirks I've mentioned in other threads.) and placed my bag of goodies into that chamber to warm.
About the time I was ready to retrieve my lunch, the door burst opened and there was Clarence and our PD, at the time, Dick Brabant....the guy who had hired me.
OH SH----! I thought. If Clarence finds I am using the transmitter as a food warmer, he'll....well....let's just say he wouldn't be amused.
Soon, one could smell the aroma of my lunch wafting through the area. Fortunately, Clarence never remarked or went looking for the source of the aroma...to my great relief.
It was 1967, so it's not as if we had a microwave or some other means of reheating food. Still, I'll never know what would have happened if Clarence had noticed and found the source of the aroma. Clarence and Dick unlocked the door to the Radio School and dissapeared into that part of the building. I quickly made a B-Line to retrieve my lunch. By the time I had done so, I had envisioned all manner of horrific possibilities, like the bag catching fire, the cheese melting and dripping down onto the final...a 4CX4000A, if memory serves...and numerous other horrible possibilities were coursing about in my mind until I retrieved the bag.
BTW, I observe that John Q. has begun posting the stuff I sent him recently on the WLRS page...THANKS, JOHN!.....some scans of vintage WLRS stationery are there along the the pics I sent him from WLRS circa 1968. They are the same pics that WLRS was kind enough to post on their web site, as well.
There are several CD's of music, spots, PSAs, commercials, and of course music and announcements by yours truly.
In 1968, WLRS did not roll tape for air-check purposes. I did record my own air, ocassionally, to see how I was doing. John hasn't posted any of those just yet, but I'm sure, he'll get around to it soon. I told him to use as much or as little of it (there's a ton of it) as he pleases.
Anyway, after we moved to the 800, we had a full kitchen, including a range and oven, fridge, etc.
Of course, I couldn't have abused the transmitter in such a manner then, anyway. It was now a brand new RCA BTF-10D and was tucked away on the roof in the transmitter shack.
It was controlled by a remote control unit that Clarence had fashioned. It was mounted ( see the photos on the WLRS page) in the right-most 19" rack as a black panel with pushbuttons for the filaments control and the Plate voltage control. The filaments control was active, there would be a purple light on. If the Plate voltage was active, there would be an additional red light on.
Clarence had set up the two racks such that all the audio gear was in the left cabinet and all the RF gear was in the right.
The pics show, to some extent, the transmitter control panel, the Collins Audio processor/limiter above it, the McMartin MPX generator/monitor above the Collins limiter, and the freq monitor etc toward the top.
Regards;
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 6, 2008 11:43:16 GMT -5
Thanks for the correction. I recall being there for the install of a new antenna system, I thought we were adding a whole new FM side to that station. There was no pre-existing FM antenna on the tower while I was there. I suppose it might have been removed at some point before I came onto the scene.
Sorry to hear that Clarence is no longer with us. He was a GREAT guy, and I will always remember him fondly, for the personal interest he took in me.
Regards
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 4, 2008 18:40:28 GMT -5
As I've mentioned in other threads. I worked at WLRS between 1967 --69. I worked for a wonderful gentleman named Clarence Henson. Clarence took a personal interest in me, and I've never forgotten it. I have no idea what became of Clarence, if any of you know, please fill me in.
Clarence allowed me to be part of one of his installation trips. Clarence was, most of all, a broadcast consultant. He spent much of his time travelling around the country, putting stations on the air "turnkey" for investors.
In this case, there was a pre-existing AM station in Owensboro KY which was adding an FM counterpart. In order for me to join in the fun after my shift at WLRS, Clarence flew me from Louisville to Owensboro, or some little airport close by, I can't remember exactly. It was a super big deal to me cause it was my first time to fly.
I flew on an old "gooneybird", as they were called. It was a two turboprop plane with the wings above the passenger compartment. It had two Rolls Royce engines and was an Ozark Airlines plane. I thought myself HOT STUFF....at 20 yrs old, being flown around to help put a station on the air....WOW!
Anyway, Clarence picked me up at this little airport and drove us back to the station. I can't remember the call letters of the pre-existing AM station....it's been 40 years, after all. They had done something I'd never seen before, and it sure seemed a great idea. It would be even more a great idea today, with all the energy conservation measures we concern ourselves with.
They had vented the heat from the AM transmitter into a system of ducts and control dampers. In the summer the heat was vented to the outside. In the colder months, the heat was vented into the station to heat the actual facility. I never had time to learn if the thing was thermostatically controlled, or just how they managed this system. I doubt that the heat from the transmitter was sufficent to heat the facility on its own, but I bet it reduced their heating bill considerably.
Clarence had hired some professional tower jockeys to haul the heliax and multi-bay antenna up the side of the existing tower. The tower was a self supporting type and darned tall, though I can't remember if I ever knew how tall....it was a "Big-un".
Anyway, Clarence had positioned a large wooden spool, of the type the power company might have to transport wire, such that one could use a small ladder to get to the top of the spool, thus insulating oneself from ground before taking hold of the tower itself, which was still hot. The station would not shut down its AM operation while the FM antenna and heliax was being installed.
The hair on your arms would stand up and you would feel a definite "tingling" sensation in your arms as your took hold of the tower. Once completely on the tower, the tingling would stop.
It was the first and only time I had been on a still-hot tower.
Anyway, I was climing the tower to help the guys steady the heliax, as it was being clamped to the leg of the tower. As anyone knows, who's ever been to the top of a tower can attest, the tower is not the rock solid structure it appears to be from afar. At the top, one will find the tower "dancing" around such that one had better hold on tight, or find oneself hanging by his safety belt.
Without warning, the guys at the top of the tower began screaming over the walky-talky that the tower was collapsing. Clarence knew what was going on, as he was still on the ground.
The rest of us were scared, instantly, s--, well let's just say none of us would require ex-lax that day.
The guys at the top began coming down the tower at a furious pace. Me too. I was much closer to the ground, so I was off the tower well ahead of them.
After we were all on the ground, Clarence informed us we had just gone through an earthquake.
MURPHY'S LAW, of course. an earthquake...in KENTUCKY!
No one wanted to go back up until we knew what to expect. It was November 9th 1968......if you check the USGS web site, you'll see they have a record of the quake. It was actually centered in Illinois.
Anyway, later, I rode back to Louisville with Clarence. We discovered that this same quake was felt even in Louisville. It was powerful enough to cause the tonearm to skip along one of the turntables, and scared the beejeezers out of the DJ and the residents of the 800. It also knocked a cherub or gargoile or some little stone creature from the church across the street and down the block from the 800, off its perch, sending it to break in half on the sidewalk below. The parking lot adjacent to that church, is where I generally parked during my air shift.
A little known attribute of the 800 was that it was the first eartquake resistant building in Louisville. If you drive up into the parking garage of the 800.....unless something has changed over the years, you'll see that the entire superstructure of the 800 sits on huge coil springs. While these serve to protect the building from serious damage, they also allow the building to sway in the face of tremors, or even in high wind.
Anyway, typical of my luck, Murphy's law saw to it that the experience was especially exciting.....half way up a self supporting tower during an earthquake in, of all places, Owensboro Kentucky.
Still, I'll never forget the personal interest that Clarence took in me. I hope he is still with us, and that life has been good to him. "Phonebook.com" would indicate his son still lives in Louisville.
So much for another WLRS the early days story.
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 4, 2008 15:03:41 GMT -5
Pictures too !
I have sent my circa 1968 69 pics from WLRS to John Q. Today. Hopefully they will post at about the same time as the audio CDs I sent earlier in the week. He should receive those today or tomorrow.
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Sept 2, 2008 18:54:41 GMT -5
WLRS & The Boston Pops
Sunday Morning fare at WLRS in the 1968 69 timeframe included a dose of religious music as played from LPs. This proved to be a real ratings-loser. Instead, we adopted a weekly program from the Boston Pops Symphony. They would send us two 10" reels each week of the live performance of the Pops from a week earlier. This was a hit, and we continued the programs for the remainder of my time wit WLRS.
It did prove to be a technical challenge for us, however. If you observed the pics of of studio, as posted on the WLRS webpage, you will have noticed that our Magnecord 1022 reel-to-reel machines were designed to accommodate 7" reels only.
Magnecord had made available a solution. For lack of a better word, it was a CONTRAPTION that attached to the 19"rack and provided extender arms to accomodate 10" reels. The extender arms were belt driven from pullies that attached to the normal reel chucks on the deck.......What a Rube Goldberg thing it was. Still, it worked and allowed us to air the Sunday Morning Boston Pops performances.
Among the audio snippets that I have just put into the mail to John Q. is one of a Boston Pops performance. It's a minute or two of "In the Mood". Actually it's quite good. The quality remains excellent, though the tape is 40 years old.
Much other audio is included, as well. John may use as much or as little as pleases him.
I included a Special Program from Mutual (MBS) on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, which happened on my shift.....I'll never forget potting the network feed to cue to check for the 10 second tone, only to find, instead, a live broadcast of the horrific goings-on at the Ambassador Hotel, where RFK had been shot moments earlier.
I also included exceprts from various programming from my shows, to include PSAs, Spots, Station IDs, and of course music, appropriate to our format, at the time.
At that time, WLRS did NOT roll tape for air-check purposes. I did from time to time record my own air, to monitor my own performance. My show had a unique "Signature" for want of a better term. Sure, we were an easy listening station, but I was determined that my show would not be considered "elevator music". I always seasoned my show with lots of "latin" beat, or "afro-cuban" beat, or other orchestral punctuation mixed in with some upbeat vocals. My ratings were consistently high as a result and I received many requests for songs that my listeners favored. If you listen to some of the audio I sent off to John, I hope you'll agree.
I think one thing that WSTM, one of our competitors, in those days, did wrong, and I don't recall who was the PD at that time......anyway.....their sound was almost indistinguisable from Muzak.....EEKS.
If you listen to the audio I sent, you'll see that unlike WAKY or some top 40 station, the DJ was only allowed brief time during each half hour to speak. So don't expect to hear an air-check typical of WAKY when you listen to the stuff I sent, which I hope you will.
Joe Stamm's favorite snippet, which I sent along to him, as well as to John Q., is the 1968 Christmas Greeting from the on-air staff at the Time:
Dick Brabant; Dan Steffen; Don Fugate; and Glen Behr.
Anyway, John should receive the stuff I sent in the snail mail by Friday, and post as much as he sees fit in the days thereafter.
Hope you enjoy it.
Best Regards
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Aug 28, 2008 15:40:52 GMT -5
WLRS – THE EARLY COMPETITION CIRCA 1968
One evening, while I was on shift, the studio phone rang. It was a fellow, whose name after 40 years, I confess I don’t remember….anyway… it was my counterpart on a station in St. Matthews, WSTM. WSTM was also a MOR (Easy listening) format station, and in that regard, our competitor. I have no idea if WSTM still exists or what station now operates in their space.
We hadn’t been in the 800 building very long, at the time, and he indicated he would appreciate a courtesy visit to see our new digs. He offered to reciprocate by giving me the nickel tour of WSTM. I became immediately suspicious, in light of some comments he made that this was really an “Intelligence” gathering mission. Comments like… “Now that you guys are kicking our ass” and similar comments acknowledging the greatly increased range and signal strength that WLRS gained in its move to the 800, I’m sure had piqued the interest the WSTM Program Director.
The following evening, He appeared for the visit. The 800 building had, as part of its security facility, a doorman, Sam, during the day, and at night, an intercom system, for a visitor to buzz to communicate with one of the residents. Remember, the 800 was largely a residential enterprise. I think, at the time, WLRS was the only business in the building.
When so desired, the resident could press a button to release the front door for a visitor to enter. So it was with my visitor from WSTM. I buzzed him in, and told him we were in suite 908. Soon he was at the door.
I gave him the quick tour of our studio…that didn’t take long. He commented on the new, and at the time, state of the art, console. It was an RCA BC-9. You can see it in the pics I have posted on the WLRS website….check out the “Locals Only –Old School” tabs on their website.
It was 1968, so nothing was truly “digital” in any sense we would the term these days. Still the BC-9 had a unique feature that allowed it to perform with only four pots as if it were a BC-7 that had ten. Pots 1 & 4 had an 8- button (illuminated buttons…WoooHooo) such that one could select any of the 8 sources from either pot. Thus one could cross-fade from any source to any other source. The other two Pots were dedicated to a single source.
As a matter of trivia; I remember the source designation on that console. On the two selectable Pots…1 & 4… Button 1 was (a Fairchild turntable) turntable 1; Button 2 was turntable 2; Button 3 was the lower of the two Magnecord 1022 reel – to- reel decks; Button 4 was the higher of the Magnecords. Button 5 was the network feed from MBS.
The remaining Buttons were used for a variety of sourcing, i.e. remote feeds and such.
The dedicated pots were: Pot 2, cart machine and Pot 3, Studio mics.
When I review certain pics of the studio, whether posed or taken in real on-air circumstances, I can tell what source was actually in use when the pic was taken. As an example, when the cute little Scottish girl posed for a pic at the console. The pic reveals that, source 3 was actually in use. Thus a reel of pre-recorded music was actually on air while the pic was taken.
Anyway. I explained that several things accounted for WLRS’ new reach and strength. First, our antenna height had probably more than doubled from our old, and relatively short antenna at the S.3rd Street location. Antenna height is extremely important to FM Broadcast, as it increases the “line of sight” to the horizon, which is a relative indicator of range, as those of the readers who are technical know well. Secondly, Clarence Henson, in his primary business as a Broadcast Consultant, had a “BETA” agreement with RCA, thus allowing him to access to new equipment well ahead of the general market. In this case, WLRS was the first in the area, perhaps the first in all of Kentucky, to employ the new and state of the art, at the time, antenna with “circular polarization Circular polarization makes the orientation of the receiving antenna irrelevant. I can’t remember, after 40 years, if ours was a two or four bay antenna…guess that’s not important…. (I think it was a 2-bay with, of course, a gain of 1.) Most FM stations, at that time, operated with antennae that were polarized in the horizontal…which was a big problem for folks receiving their signal in cars, which have receiving antennae polarized in the vertical. I won’t belabor this writing with the detail regarding the degradation that occurs to the workability of that mismatch, except it can be marked.
I could sense my visitor taking mental notes about it all, no doubt to carry back to the technical folks at WSTM.
Our visit was cordial and I accepted his offer for a reciprocal visit to WSTM, which I did a few evenings later.
As I drove up to the station, I could view their tower. It was about the same height as had been the WLRS tower at the original 3rd St. location. I’m not the best judge of such things, but I’d say that the tower was, perhaps 85 ft…100 at the most.
Someone had spent a great deal of money on their studio. Everything was brand new. They had a Collins console, top of the line. I don’t remember the model number, but it was the first of the Collins consoles to abandon the resistive step function Pots, as used by everyone else, in favor of an optically coupled pot. Anyway it was a very nice studio.
After the nickel tour, I settled into a chair next to my host at the console. More than anything else, the point regarding WLRS kicking their butt was driven home for me by a note taped to the console, I suppose by their engineer:
“Ride the gain HIGH at all times; We need the modulation to compete with WLRS.
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Aug 26, 2008 21:57:16 GMT -5
I'd love to restablish contact with him as well. He and worked together at WLRS, and I always liked him. He did me a big favor in selecting his shift so mine could be chosen so as not to interfere with my class schedule. He was a genuinely nice guy, and I haven't seen him since 1969, when I left Louisville for Dallas, TX. Intellius would suggest he still lives in the Louisville area. Should you track him down, give him my best regards, and tell him I'd love to hear from him after all these years.
Regards
Dan
|
|
|
Post by dbsteff on Aug 26, 2008 11:02:12 GMT -5
Hi Travis;
You're quite correct....the best way to break into the biz is to hang around some station. That's what I did, as well. By the time I found myself in Louisville, I had already been on the air at WMUL in Huntington, WV....the Marshall University Labs station. It was a classical format....and I mean classical....Mozart, etc. I was bored out of my mind. Later I wound up at a rock station, much more to my liking.
The transistion to WLRS was difficult. I had been doing top 40 at a station, also in Huntington, and the MOR format at WLRS required a more stilted on-air style. It was the only opening at the time, but I never regreted taking it....met a lot of nice people, especially Clarence Henson.
UEI was an OK school. Nothing to write home about, but the only alternative, if I remember correctly, was DeVry.....much more expensive, and I saw no real advantage to going there.
I am going to burn a CD for John Q. this weekend with some old WLRS air-check stuff. It includes a 1968 Christmas Greeting from the on-air staff, at the time. I will also send him a CD with the MBS special that we aired on WLRS the day after the RFK assassination. It may be to long to post, as I think it is in excess of 20minutes. I'll leave that to John.
Hang in there. I'm happy to have made your aquaintance....even if only by message board.
Regards
Dan
|
|