...And now for something completely different. Buffalo Radio engineers.

[Kal]

A few weeks back we had a lively discussion about WWOL, WUSJ/WLVL and more. In that discussion the 'gruff but loveable' Walter Williams was mentioned more than once. Got me to thinking.

Besides Walt, who were some of the 'old school' engineers we worked with in Buffalo radio? I know Mike Rozman (although certainly not old at the time) was one of the 'studio' engineers at WGR, but my 'Senior Moments' occur much more frequently now and the other names escape me.

It always amazed me how when we were 'young and eager' and came up with what we thought were clever and innovative ideas, got them approved by the GM's and requested that the Chief Engineer implement them, how most of them (especially Walt), would chuckle or even laugh out loud and then do what we asked (OR NOT), knowing full well that he'd 'been there and done that' a hundred times before!

What patient and understanding guys the old school engineers were.

So do any of you other 'Broadcast Veterans' recall the names of the guys who made us novices sound much better than we actually did in reality?

and... 'All you kids, get off of my lawn!'

Kal

 

[alw]

Don Lang (WEBR) was one of the best Chief Techs I was fortunate enough to work and become friends with.

Dan Kriegler (WKBW & WEBR) was one of the smartest/craziest I've ever known.

S & B...........fill in the blank

 

[SirRoxalot]

A Different Breed

You want memorable?

Blind Bill Stachowiak and his cast of dozens. Bill is the least handicapped engineer that I've ever seen. S&B also helped produce some very good engineers who have gone on to bigger and better things.

 

[OttoM]

Re: A Different Breed

You want memorable?

Blind Bill Stachowiak and his cast of dozens. Bill is the least handicapped engineer that I've ever seen. S&B also helped produce some very good engineers who have gone on to bigger and better things.

Bill is certainly legendary, but he'd never call himself that. Truly one of the best.

As for other engineers, IIRC Dave May not only did traffic but also was the engineering whiz for Larry Levite.

 

[average_listener]

Tom Atkins, Joe Puma, John Carroll. All capable. All gentlemen. None of them old, though.

aL

 

[x13thfloorrand]

No Question Bill S is truly a eng legend. Yes, modesty is also noteworthy. Could stroll into Regents/CBS/Infinity..whatever... and could tell you the level of the studio monitors without feeling the board. And quite good in the 21st century radio studio w/servers, computers, touch screens, ISDN/T-1 and other networking items.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

Let me add to the kudos Bill S. is receiving. What a remarkable man! For those of you who are members of the Buffalo Broadcasters Association, consider giving Bill your vote in the "Behind the Scenes" category for the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Engineers. Those men and women who are so often overlooked or not given their due. Good thought-starter, Keith! I've worked with only a few engineers who treated jocks and PD's like pocket lint. This thread is a tribute to the notable, good and great ones, who far outnumber the bad ones.

We've worked with some good, if not great ones, here in Western New York. Bill "Blind Bill" Stachowiak is a marvel to behold. Genius. You want a dose of reality? You want to see a man who's "risen above it all," nurtured a new breed of engineers, stayed on the cutting edge of technology and keeps running like the Energizer Bunny? Bill Stack. Here at Citadel, we have Al Marranca, another great one who worked for Bill at S&B. Now Al is the Chief and mentors Bill's son Brian. Very unique situation. The "old man" and his posse keep Regent running in top shape, his kid's over here at Citadel... and not a trade secret gets uttered between them. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Tom Atkins is a multi-talented, versatile Chief Engineer who knows RF, audio, I-T and HVAC like a book. (He will NOT, however, do plumbing. Long, funny story... some other time.)

Every jock and PD wishes he could work with an engineer like Tom who was a jock or PD at one time in his career and understands what it's like to be on the air. When you go to the Chief's office and say, "I hear a buzzing-click noise in the left channel, but it only happens on even hours on Wednesdays..." the Chief doesn't tell you to take a hike, but goes to the control room to give a listen... and fixes the problem. That's Tom. He was a jock, PD and now he's the VP of Engineering at Backyard Broadcasting. I've seen him move WGR from Franklin Street to Delaware Avenue at Keymarket-Sinclair and do a complete rebuild with the Entercom Cluster to Corporate Parkway, Amherst. You cannot imagine how detailed and demanding those situations are until you've been through them yourself. Tom and his staff engineers Dan G., Bill N., and Tom K. executed the moves flawlessly.

Bob Collins was Chief in the 70's and 80's, followed by Doug Wolf at WGR-WGRQ. Bob was a sharp guy who knew his stuff and he was a character in his own right. Doug was a can-do guy who's still involved in every Buffalo Bills radio broadcast and gets them done flawlessly. There was Victor Michael and Lynn Deppen also at WGR and WGRQ. Both guys were half nuts, creative and brilliant and went on to station ownership. They did tri-band audio processing that sounded better than anything the manufacturers cooked up and they knew RF equally well.

"Uncle Fid" Fiedler was a legend at WKBW. Imagine falling into the power supply cavity of an active 50kW AM transmitter and living to tell about it! That alone qualifies a person for "legendary" status.

Ron Potaczala, a guy who was pure eccentric genius, worked at WUSJ Lockport years ago. This guy must have dreamed about transmitters and souped-up Mustangs cuz he knew everything about them. He was hip to black Hi-Top Con's ("Chuck Taylor's") long before they became fashion vogue. Brilliant.

On-Air and Production engineers? WKBW, Jim Adler and Norm Bruckner. Brilliant!

Yes, we're really lucky in Western New york to have worked (and work) with some great engineers.

 

[T_Magoo]

Bill "Blind Bill" Stachowiak is a marvel to behold. Genius. You want a dose of reality? You want to see a man who's "risen above it all," nurtured a new breed of engineers, stayed on the cutting edge of technology and keeps running like the Energizer Bunny? Bill Stack. Here at Citadel, we have Al Marranca, another great one who worked for Bill at S&B.

It's 1981 or '82 and I'm doing one of my weekend shifts at 'PhD, and something is funky, so I get on the line to S & B. About an hour and a half later Bill is led in by Al, and I take Al to task. "An hour and a half?! It's cold and snowy out there, you let Bill drive again!"

Bill has to go behind the side wall in the PhD studio over on the left side of the room, and I asked Bill if he needed the lights on back there. We all laughed.

Did you ever watch him work and go..."He's touching stuff...is that smart?"

Hope this gets back to you Billy...you're the best!

 

[Bob1370]

Dave May and his assistant engineer Dave Hunn did a masterful job making WBEN and Rock 102 sound crisp and sharp back in the 70s and 80s. Mike Jetter worked wonders in the production room.
And I never saw a live air board run tighter than Tommy Whalen ran the board during the "Newsday" noon hour.

 

[Bill Myers]

He's already been mentioned here but I agree about S&B Bill.
To add to his credit, I've seen him go through the circuitry of an audio board and knew exactly what he was doing and what he was looking for.

Another engineer I'd like to mention is Randy Orbaker. The chief over at WHAM, etc, etc - whatever else that station owns.
I recall going to Randy for bulb replacement for the buttons on the board and if he wasn't busy he'd be right in the control room to replace 'em. He would also give the jocks credibility if one walks in complaining of a slight buzzing sound in the left channel. He'd be right in to check it out.

I recall one day I was at the transmitter site with Randy and a snake was all coiled up sitting pretty right on top of a power supply of the main tx. Neither one of us wanted to just reach in and pick it up. So he powered up the aux tx (low power at 11 in the morning) shut down the main and sucked the snake out with a shop vac - threw it outside as if it was poisonous and then switched the tx's back again.

I had another chief that would always refer to the pots (rotary) on the board as toota-lee-modge. 'Turn up the toota-lee-modge'. He was old school - always telling us that we should stand back about a foot away from the Neuman U87 mics when speaking. His backup eng. (Ken) would always be the voice of reason to Rudy. He would try to get him to see things from a jock's perspective cuz he was one himself. Ken was kind of like our liason - between the chief and the jock.

Does anyone recall an engineer named Ed Stone? He did all the eng. work for CH 4 back when it was 'BEN. He not only did eng. work but he also did the carpentry work for the news sets at 4.

 

[Buehly]

John Rosso spent a few years at KB and WGR. He was a great engineer and went on to big things at ABC.

 

[Kal]

Then there was (wasn't it?) Ward Miller. Wasn't he the chief at JOY for years? Another 'old school' gentlemen!

I absolutely agree with everyone's acolades for Bill of S&B! The man could SEE everything with just his 'touch' and ears!

Can you imagine the schematics he had stored in his mind? He seemed to know what every color wire did on every connection in every installation the company installed and/or serviced. All he needed was one of his assistants to tell him which wire was the 'green' one and where the 'yellow' wire was... then he'd grab both of them! GENIUS!

Kal

 

[slickkicker]

We called him Nick-O the Sick-O. Nick Rozonov, the mad Rooskie from Buffalo. A great guy to have a drink with who ended up in D.C. and New York for a spell. The guy just fixed it, even if it meant climbing up the tower during a mean, lake-effect blow. I hear he's doing well.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

It's nice to see the engineers getting some credit for a change. They are an overlooked and overworked lot. Most of the really good ones get tired of the low pay and 24/7 on call. I know it's frustraiting for them when management doesn't understand what they are saying.

I always took an interest in what they were doing, I never thought that I would be on the air, I always thought I'd be an engineer. Alas Math was not my best subject.

At one station I worked for the engineers let me in on a little secret. Whenever the PD wanted the processing adjusted they would go over to a unit and show him they were adjusting it and ask, "How does it sound now?" The PD would say "Great" and that would be it. What the PD didn't know was although the meter was moving the processor wasn't even in the chain. It was a dummy unit. The PD never suspected!

The lesson is: Be nice to your engineer!

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

Nick Rozonov, the mad Rooskie from Buffalo. A great guy to have a drink with who ended up in D.C. and New York for a spell. The guy just fixed it, even if it meant climbing up the tower during a mean, lake-effect blow. I hear he's doing well.

"...Who is this Nicholas Rozanoffff, and why is he peeping in our windows!? Damn you! Taft Broadcasting!"

-Dr. Al Schemiel, WUWU on-air promo, c. 1982-83

Nick was one of the adventuresome engineers on Victor Michael's staff when 97 Rock and WUWU were engaging in hand to hand combat. The story can be told because it's 25 years after the fact. Taft corporate brass sent Nick to the WUWU transmitter on WUWU Mountain in Whethersfield to scope the joint out: Basically, a reconnaissance mission.

Nick, always looking for adventure and not one to do the job short of 100%, somehow climbed up and looking through the windows, took pictures of the transmitter inside the building, focusing in on the modulation monitors and all the metering, which apparently showed WUWU operating in excess of licensed parameters.

Taft included those pictures in a formal complaint to the FCC, which in turn motivated Dr. Al, a majority share holder in WUWU, to go postal in a wild-rant promo that WUWU ran seemingly every hour. Those were the days before duopoly and this episode was probably one of the last full-scale station v. station street brawls. It was epic and Nick Rozanov was smack dab in the middle of it all.

When re-calling Nick's days at 97 Rock, guys like Russo, Norton and I will quote that WUWU promo, saying "Who is this Nick-o-lass Roz-a-nofffffff....." and the other person in the converation will finish the sentence, "... and why is he PEEPING in our windows... Damn you! Taft Broadcasting!"

 

[topsound]

We called him Nick-O the Sick-O. Nick Rozonov, the mad Rooskie from Buffalo. A great guy to have a drink with who ended up in D.C. and New York for a spell. The guy just fixed it, even if it meant climbing up the tower during a mean, lake-effect blow. I hear he's doing well.

"Vladimir the Engineer"

 

[Philip_Airtime]

An insider at WBEN back in the day recalls how veteran newscaster Ed Little -- in his wonderful voice -- would bellow out, "Somebody needs to call Joe Puma!"

 

[Play Freebird]

Bill S is a truly inspiring example of someone who overcame a major handicap to make a very worthwhile contribution to the broadcast industry -- and to society at large. About the only thing he doesn't do is drive a car, and that's only because the state won't allow it!

I recall working with him after midnight 20-some years ago on one of WBUF's old Sparta/Bauer transmitters. The PA wasn't tuning properly, so I'm poking around in the cavity, looking for something wrong when he says "Hey, let me take a look"... so he puts his hand under the tube socket and ten seconds later, says "I found it!"

He had felt a little hairline crack on the back side of one of the doorknob capacitors which I had completely overlooked.

Fortunately we had a spare on hand, so the problem was fixed within minutes -- then we headed back into town, had a nice breakfast at the old HoJo's at Ogden and Dingens, and I dropped him off at his house before driving back to Rochester. Great guy to work with -- and he has a good ear for audio processing, too!

 

[Call Me Sherlock]

Bill S is a truly inspiring example of someone who overcame a major handicap to make a very worthwhile contribution to the broadcast industry -- and to society at large.

I'll second that, Mark. And I join with all the other posters in praising Mr. Stachowiak. Bill and his S & B crew were a great bunch of guys to work with -- they served us well at WBUF.