Not a specific news story, but the news program "Monitor" was my earliest memory. My mother explained that when the 3 note chimes were played, that meant that we were tuned into an NBC station. My parents used to listen to "Monitor" on KFI 640, an NBC affiliate. Back then, it was owned by Earle C. Anthony, with the antenna on top of his car dealership. When they played the chimes, that meant that Monitor was coming on the air.
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What's the first memorable news story you heard about on radio?
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
It wasn't a secret, and couldn't have been, not with weather warnings for southwestern Missouri counties popping up on screens tuned (!) to KCBJ, which didn't cover any of those counties.
KCBJ also had a back-up off-air pickup from KMBC in Kansas City. KOMU had an off-air pickup as a backup in case of network failure; that was with WGEM-TV in Quincy, Illinois. That was rarely used, of course. I don't think KRCG had a backup.
KCBJ also had a back-up off-air pickup from KMBC in Kansas City. KOMU had an off-air pickup as a backup in case of network failure; that was with WGEM-TV in Quincy, Illinois. That was rarely used, of course. I don't think KRCG had a backup.
I wonder how long they kept the antenna on the building after moving to a better antenna site? We still have the old towers on Hollywood Boulevard...
Trivia: The building a the far left with a peaked roof was where I first did radio work in LA in 1972; it was the business office of KWKW. Today, the land to the west of it is the new theater where those gold-plated statuettes are handed out!
Cool photo! I used to live close to the KWKW transmitter ( and I think their studio was in the same building for awhile).It was on the corner of Sierra Madre Blvd. and Sierra Madre Villa in Pasadena. I think they broadcast on either 1300 or 1330.
That was where the studios were before KWKW bought the AM facility of KFAC. The management office in Hollywood later moved to Barham, a block or two from the freeway on the road that lead down to, among other things, Forest Lawn.
I may have mentioned this before- but another early radio memory is when I was learning Spanish and was a fan of the L.A. Dodgers baseball team. In order to learn baseball words, I would set up 2 transistor radios next to each other. One was tuned to Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett, who called the game in English. The other radio was tuned to KWKW, where Jaime Jarrin and Rene Cardenas called the game in Spanish. That way, Jaime and Vinny served as interpreters for each other. š
"Monitor" had the Monitor Beacon, a mix of telephone tones and other beeps and bloops, as its signature at the start of the show, with the NBC Chimes at the end. "You're on the Monitor Beacon."Not a specific news story, but the news program "Monitor" was my earliest memory. My mother explained that when the 3 note chimes were played, that meant that we were tuned into an NBC station. My parents used to listen to "Monitor" on KFI 640, an NBC affiliate. Back then, it was owned by Earle C. Anthony, with the antenna on top of his car dealership. When they played the chimes, that meant that Monitor was coming on the air.
NBC chimes - Wikipedia
I've got to tell that story to Jaime next time we get together.... priceless.
Thank you! Then they must have played the chimes at the top of the hour as part of the station I. D.
The first radio news story I remember was the Cuban missile crisis. I was in 5th or 6th grade. We had been practicing the hide-under- your-desk drill all that week. The station everyone listened to in Raleigh NC for news was WPTF. Television networks were still only running 15 minute newscasts at the time, so radio (and it was AM radio) was the only place to get news.
I worked with a gentleman who was one of the announcers on Radio Swan. They worked one week on and one week off. A plane flew them from Miami to Swan Island each week. He related as how he did not feel safe on the plane seeing as how the entire trip was over water and the plane was provided by the lowest bidder.
The transmitters were modified Gates VP-100s and were dumped into the Gulf when the mission concluded. The original plan was to locate the transmitter on the island of Navasa but it was decided to use Swan Island because Navasa, even though it was much closer to Cuba, had no place to dock the ships that provided supplies.
I remember hearing the traditional NBC chimes (not any of the updated, orchestral versions, the original) leading into a news broadcast while listening to KABL one day back in 2002 or 2003. Even then, I thought it was a bit quaint sounding, though I didn't mind (and, since KABL at that time aired a format that leaned fairly heavily into 30s-40s nostalgia, it made perfect sense).
If only network radio cues could only be that simple nowadays.
I noticed that KIXI still airs top-of-hour NBC newscasts, which apparently are still a thing, but the lead in is some kind of new, orchestral variation, not the traditional "chimes" I heard.
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I visited Swan Island, a joint Honduras / USA protectorate, when I went to visit the sister station of the one I worked at as a kid in Cleveland. WJMO / WCUY was part of Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting and they had WFAB in Miami.
So on a Spring break, I flew to Miami to see WFAB and also visited the address of the well known Radio Swan in downtown Miami just off Flagler on 2nd. I met one of the "management" people who had "spook" engraved on his forehead. They were going to fly a shift change to Swan that evening and asked if I wanted to go along. For an AM DXer, seeing such a mysterious station was fascinating.
What I recall is that the plane flew very low... not at water level, but you could see the whitecaps in the moonlight we were so close to the water.
It was, from all I could tell on about a 2 hour stay-over, a miserable place. A few "locals" that fished and took their catch to the Central American coast or to the hotels on the Caymans in fishing boats that looked like they could not navigate a large pond, let alone the Caribbean. The only reason we stayed even 2 hours was that one of the crew had eaten something vile in Miami and spent an hour in the can.
I don't remember the first remarkable news story I heard on radio, but the one I remember most was 9-11. I was at work, and all we heard were scant rumors of private planes flying into the World Trade Center. I had my radio in the studio and switched it on, and I think it was Dave Ross on KIRO radio who said the Twin Towers looked like the Twin smokestacks. He also remembered the reports of the jets flying into the Towers.
On that same day, I was on an American Airlines flight out of LAX that was literally a second or two from rotation when, of a sudden, it reverse thrusted and braked and made the fastest taxi return to the gate I have ever felt a plane do. The pilot told passengers to disembark as fast as possible when we got to the gate.
I got my "radio guy" portable radio out of my briefcase and started hearing the news on KFWB. Of course, nearby passengers were listening too.
As I was in the second row, I got off the plane among the first five or six passengers and moved as fast as I could to my car in the airport parking where I continued to listen as I drove to the HBC station offices.
It was definitely a strange and tragic day. Here in Seattle, the weather was balmy, sunny, and beautiful. I remember driving home from work around noon (I worked overnights, basically -- stayed late to watch the TV coverage in the one TV that was in the building), knowing that the world was suddenly a different place.
Also, I made a typo in my post. Dave Ross reported that it was jets that went into the buildings (not 'remembered'). Up until then, those of use who were working (about 6-7 a.m. or so when we first heard about the planes hitting the towers) had thought it was some sort of private plane with a pilot with a heart attack or something. The info hadn't really gotten out yet. By the time I tuned in Dave Ross, of course, more accurate news reports had been coming out of NYC.
And although all of us were in the radio business, not all listened to the radio at work. I could get away with it in the CD mastering studio, out in the main room of the facility we had to listen to all the CDs, tapes, MOHDs etc. Quality control.
Also, I made a typo in my post. Dave Ross reported that it was jets that went into the buildings (not 'remembered'). Up until then, those of use who were working (about 6-7 a.m. or so when we first heard about the planes hitting the towers) had thought it was some sort of private plane with a pilot with a heart attack or something. The info hadn't really gotten out yet. By the time I tuned in Dave Ross, of course, more accurate news reports had been coming out of NYC.
And although all of us were in the radio business, not all listened to the radio at work. I could get away with it in the CD mastering studio, out in the main room of the facility we had to listen to all the CDs, tapes, MOHDs etc. Quality control.
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011nerve
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I think this was before 9/11, there are 2 stories I remember hearing about. Strange to remember them. One guy fell asleep smoking and passed away around 3 AM. Another accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes and drove through a business front door or something. The oldies station in the area where I grew up gave the news in mornings.
Not a national story but in a somewhat related area, the northwest was treated to the tail end of a hurricane commonly known as the Columbus Day Storm on October 12, 1962. On the way back from picking up my mother from work, she commented that the sky looked strange and when we got home, the storm struck. Having lost power, we turned on a transistor radio and all the stations were off the air except KGW, which was on a generator. We sat and listened to the radio for hours! I was in the fourth grade and had a really neat substitute teacher that day that nobody really wanted to hear about. The old style black and white TV antennas were apparently all wiped out by the storm and I never saw another one.
That would have been some time around the Cuban Missile Crisis as well. Looks like October '62 was a big news month.
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