Kent, KHOZ still gives me the chance to "play radio" every now and then. Like so many in our beloved
once upon a time, all local and live industry, they're now mostly satellite delivered after Dan Timbrook's morning show. I get my licks in when the few remaining live bodies are going in too many directions at the same time and they need someone to do the local part of a remote.
The "machine" talk brings up a couple of things that just happened to KHOZ: The air-program computer crashed right at the beginning of the first quarter of the Sugar Bowl. Then, when it re-booted, it went to the satellite country programming and stayed there until Rob McBee was able to make it in from waaaay north of town and re-load the Razorbacks stuff. Then, a couple of nights later during a basketball game, the network guy either put up the wrong cue or didn't do one at all, so some in-game spots got missed. New mandate: there WILL be a live body sitting there to hit Start, if that ever happens again.
Back before it moved from Kaplan to Lafayette, 97.3/The Dawg was plain ole KMDL, and had what was probably pretty close to state of the art for the time. Alas, the time was the early 1980s, so that meant: four of the giant-sized reel-to-reels, and several of the rotating cart players. Kinda scared me back then, how good they could sound with something like that -- except: whenever one of Acadiana's very frequent thunderstorms occurrred, and the power went off ... when it came back on, EVERY damned machine would start playing. If Crowley hadn't already had an excellent Christian-programming station, I would have suggested to Ernie Alexander that he flip to "Southwest Louisiana's Radio Tower of Babel."
Back around the time Goat Rodeo Cowboy and I were KWAKing together, I visited KXJK/Forrest City. Lloyd Denney showed me their Seeburg Select-O-Matic, which played all their spots off station-cut discs. Pretty smooth, the way he could talk while the just-played spot was returned to its slot and the next one came up. Didn't know how to listen all that critically but don't remember any long stretches of dead air, or hearing him still be talking when a spot started.
BTW, GRC, too much NFL crashed me last night before I got your e-pistle. Check your mailbox, and re-up your Visine -- you'll find proof that I'm just as much as you, no candidate for Twitter. Hell, I can't even say "hi" in less than 140 characters. :
