When I was younger,I belonged to an explorer scout post sponsored by the local radio station.
I love music, and thought this would be a great job, surrounded by music and great audio equipment. I learned quickly that in broadcasting, perception and reality are two different things. Somehow, I had the notion that girls would take notice,admiring my skills crafting a tight air sound and trying to sound like Casey Kasem. At the time, nothing entered my teenage mind that girls were actually interested in future doctors and lawyers and that disc jockeys were just a humorous distraction.
Radio stations are now operated mainly by computers, and any human intervention is minimal. Back in the 70s, we literally spun the 45-rpm discs, which had to be cued up on a turntable. What wasn't on record was on a cart, a tape cartridge resembling eight-track tapes that have long been obsolete. Then there were reel-to-reel tapes, which were often a challenge for the novice, because you had to thread the tape around the heads, rollers and other little things on the tape deck.
Some of the more technical challenges were operating the transmitter. At some stations the transmitter had a remote control, a small black panel with lights and a rotary dial. It's not unusual for some of this equipment to last 50 or more years. I think Marconi made some of the equipment I worked with.
I always enjoyed sign-on shifts. During my breaks from college, I worked some part-time at WKSP in my hometown of Kingstree, S.C., I'd wake up at 4:30 a.m.to get to the station at 5:30 a.m. After arriving in the parking lot, I would stumble around searching for the key hidden behind the station, finally finding it in the overgrown grass below the little mailbox. Then I'd fumble at the lock on the station door in the morning darkness, half awake and barely able to do anything coordinated. I enter the studios, turn on the lights and warm up the transmitter. While the tubes begin to glow, I'd pull the first few records and commercial carts for the day. Not finding a commercial or program tape is not unusual, and you're not likely to find the station manager in a good mood if you call him at 6 a.m., especially on a weekend.
With the transmitter warmed up, you fire up the final stage, hit the sign on tape, and you're up and running. Keeping it going was kind of like being on a treadmill, especially when you had 2-3 minutes between songs to get the next tape or record ready. You'd put on your cheeriest morning voice, despite the fact you're half-asleep.
The phone rings. It's the station manager, saying you mispronounced the name of an advertising client when you read his spot. So far, things are going well.
A cart malfunctions, resulting in silence, or what radio folks call "dead air." Dead air's not a good thing. You scramble to get something else on, or mumble something in the microphone before starting the record. You realize you're not playing Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's just that the turntable was set on the wrong speed. You shift gears and continue.
The phone rings again. Someone wants the score of a football game the night before. You walk to the teletype, a clunky machine that spits out news on a continuous roll of paper. Going through miles of paper, straining at faded type (forgot to change the ribbon), you finally find the score.
When you return to the control room, you see that the record has run out. You take a diving leap toward the start button on a tape machine or turntable and the music resumes.
A couple of minutes before reading the first newscast, I'd rip the latest news from the Associated Press (AP) teletype, a clunky, noisy monster spewing out reams of paper with news, weather and sports, then read it on the air.
This went on until the next deejay was scheduled to take over around noon.
Such was the life of a deejay.
I still have dreams that I'm in the radio station control room, fighting equipment problems, or being unable to cue up a record before the other record played out. In the worst of these nightmares, only the microphone works. Thankfully I wake up and thank the Lord it was only a dream.
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