1974 was a good year to get started in radio with a provisional license in Henderson Nevada.

[Buzz]

The station was KLVM 94.1 FM Henderson, owned by The Pennino Music Company out of California. Running as a loss leader for Tax reasons as the California Station KNOB was doing well showcased in a Mall, it was low budget here. Automation was an IGM automation system with 2 - 14" Scully 270s (Instrumentals), and 1 - 10.5" Ampex 350 (Vocalists) reel to reels for music playback. 2 - Carousels of 24 cart spots and 3 or 4 cart players, beside the 2 Time carts that advanced every minute. Down the hallway in the closet sat the special phone line that fed our United Press International Dot Matrix Printer that supplied the news for us to record to cart for top of the hour broadcast. It did make it hard to sleep with all the clicking going on, but I was told to rest during my shifts as I had a minimum of 3 shifts during the weekend. I was 16 at the time, dropped off at the Station early Saturday and picked up late Sunday by my parents. I lived on 7/11 Big-Un hamburgers from the store directly across the street from the Station. In a memo I have, our manager claims that I worried so much at work that it resulted in sleep. Cute memo that names all the operators that worked their at the time. This was between 1974 and 1976 when I left KLVM that had changed it's call to KXTZ by then, and also left 720 AM KDWN, a 50,000 watt Night time directional that required Onsite Transmitter Engineers as Remote Direction Operation had not been approved yet. I was at the Studio ay the Union Plaza Hotel across from the Hotel Operators Office. All our music then was on carts and KDWN actually sounded really good, but I never understood the Roy Masters Program that I ran at 4-5 AM, so I just would step out and grab a bite to bring back to eat. A. J. Williams and Clair were the best to work for, and you should have seen His Microphone collection. He actually made ribbon microphones as well. For Christmas. Stars hung from the ceiling, every square foot was covered. Good Times...

 

[davideduardo]

I was 16 at the time, dropped off at the Station early Saturday and picked up late Sunday by my parents. I lived on 7/11 Big-Un hamburgers from the store directly across the street from the Station.

Big smile, Buzz: ☺️

So familiar a story. When I was about 15, new rules made the FM I was at have to start broadcasting on Sunday, so I was put on to do 7 AM to 11 PM. Across the street was a Royal Castle, and I'd buy 5 or 6 of those fifteen cent hamburgers and the same amount of dime-a-cup coffee and play Dave Brubeck and Ornette Coleman all day. And I did the whole week's study assignments from school, too!

 

[K.M. Richards]

I sort of have a story like that. When the first station I worked for needed me to move from Saturday night sign-off to Sunday morning sign-on (because by then I was coordinating the public affairs programming and it made sense to the management for me to board op the playback) we somehow forgot to cover my Saturday shift the first weekend.

So I took a five-hour nap in the control room with the loudest alarm clock I could find to wake me up in time to drive over to the 24-hour coffee shop about a mile down the road, have breakfast, and go back to the studio in time to sign us back on.

I was young enough that the lack of a full eight hours of sleep was something I could shake off, but the hardest part was that both shifts were nine hours long and I was starting to feel the effects of those cumulative hours.

 

[vw86]

I had an entire summer of 15 hour long Sundays back in the day.

Arrived at 6am to board op the church services on the AM and public affairs shows on the FMs.

At 8am Casey Kasem started on the Top 40 station and Bob Kingsley on the Country station.

Noon-4 I was on-air at the Country station. Then 4-9 on Top 40.

And this was after doing 7-Midnight Saturday nights as well.

Best summer of my life.

Thank you for sharing, Buzz!