Here goes the bio for a radio old-timer:
When I was 10 or 11 in the 60s I became an AM radio DXer, a hobby that started when I felt I should listen to all the Storer radios stations because I owned one share of the company stock. I logged and verified over 2000 stations and began visiting some of them. One visit at age 13 turned into a part-time job at WCUY and WJMO in Cleveland as a go-fer and board op.
As a product of DXing, I learned Spanish and spent lots of time listening to stations from Latin America. I'd tape them overnight and listen while I did my high school homework. Sometimes I'd even get my mom to allow me to call XEB in Mexico City to request songs they had fun putting me on the air asking for Sonora Santanera tunes!
I jumped at a chance to go for a semester in Mexico City, and before classes started I visited almost all of the 30 stations there. At one I literally "bumped into" the head of programming and after apologizing and chatting, he offered me an internship. I never went to my school, but did all kinds of learning work at XEQR, XEJP, XEAI, XERC, and XELZ each of which was #1 in its format. Because of my age I became a station "pet" and was even allowed into programming and promotion meetings and music selection groups too.
After a dull year back in Cleveland, a family friend, Herbert Evans of the Nationwide broadcast group, found me a chance to do my final year of high school in Guayaquil, Ecuador. As soon as I got to that hot port city the government fell in a coup d'etat and my selected school was not allowed to take foreign students. On my own, I went to Quito and found a school that could take me as they also accepted most of the children of diplomats in that capital city.
While in the city center one day soon after I saw an electronics parts store with an AM transmitter in the front window. I went in and was looking at it from all angles when the owner of the business, Al Horvath, saw me and asked why a young kid was spending so much time looking at his transmitter. We chatted, and I learned that he had been the chief European design engineer of Telefunken but, as a Jew, had to leave Europe. And sensing my interest in radio, he said that he had a license for a station in Quito which he would sell for S/. 5000 to whomever bought his 1 kw transmitter, a tower and related gear.
I had savings from about 10 years of progressively larger investments and made a deal. By 1970, I had built over a dozen stations in Ecuador including its first FMs. I went through several armed government changes until a nearly mortal experience with my news talk station forced me to leave....
If there is interest, I'll add the next chapter: Puerto Rico.
When I was 10 or 11 in the 60s I became an AM radio DXer, a hobby that started when I felt I should listen to all the Storer radios stations because I owned one share of the company stock. I logged and verified over 2000 stations and began visiting some of them. One visit at age 13 turned into a part-time job at WCUY and WJMO in Cleveland as a go-fer and board op.
As a product of DXing, I learned Spanish and spent lots of time listening to stations from Latin America. I'd tape them overnight and listen while I did my high school homework. Sometimes I'd even get my mom to allow me to call XEB in Mexico City to request songs they had fun putting me on the air asking for Sonora Santanera tunes!
I jumped at a chance to go for a semester in Mexico City, and before classes started I visited almost all of the 30 stations there. At one I literally "bumped into" the head of programming and after apologizing and chatting, he offered me an internship. I never went to my school, but did all kinds of learning work at XEQR, XEJP, XEAI, XERC, and XELZ each of which was #1 in its format. Because of my age I became a station "pet" and was even allowed into programming and promotion meetings and music selection groups too.
After a dull year back in Cleveland, a family friend, Herbert Evans of the Nationwide broadcast group, found me a chance to do my final year of high school in Guayaquil, Ecuador. As soon as I got to that hot port city the government fell in a coup d'etat and my selected school was not allowed to take foreign students. On my own, I went to Quito and found a school that could take me as they also accepted most of the children of diplomats in that capital city.
While in the city center one day soon after I saw an electronics parts store with an AM transmitter in the front window. I went in and was looking at it from all angles when the owner of the business, Al Horvath, saw me and asked why a young kid was spending so much time looking at his transmitter. We chatted, and I learned that he had been the chief European design engineer of Telefunken but, as a Jew, had to leave Europe. And sensing my interest in radio, he said that he had a license for a station in Quito which he would sell for S/. 5000 to whomever bought his 1 kw transmitter, a tower and related gear.
I had savings from about 10 years of progressively larger investments and made a deal. By 1970, I had built over a dozen stations in Ecuador including its first FMs. I went through several armed government changes until a nearly mortal experience with my news talk station forced me to leave....
If there is interest, I'll add the next chapter: Puerto Rico.