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MY Dad,Bobby Allison & The Nightime AM Pattern

A

allenv

A bright eyed 10 year old kid walked into 1070 WNCT with his dad on August 20th,1977.Elvis had died four days earlier and I was still reeling from the news.
My Dad and I loved racing and my racing hero was Bobby Allison.Bobby had a rough year in 77 trying to race a Matador out of his own shops in Alabama.My dad and I listened to all the races on 1250 but for some reason 1070 was carrying
the race from Nashville.On this night Bobby was running well battling with Cale Yarborough,Richard Petty and Benny Parsons for the lead.All was well until around
8:30 in Pecan Grove in Farmville.1070 went goodbye,this was my first real experience with night pattern on AM.My dad and I jumped in the car and drove
close to the studio(tower) to hear the race.After Bobby finished 2nd I begged my dad to
take me inside the station.After trying to talk me out of it.. he did.John C Moore was there and he showed us around and let me talk on the Mic.From that day forward I was hooked and almost 31 years later I still am.I'm sure you have a story of your first time in a station and that is mine.Today my dad would have been 74.This is the first May 26th I've ever spent without him and I'm kinda lost
but I still love my dad,AM radio and Bobby Allison.... What About Your First Time
in a station??? Tell me about it......

Allen
 
I got my first station visit in 1974. My younger brother was to take a Cub Scout field trip to WVOT in Wilson. I begged to tag along. The station was on Herring Avenue back then. Our tour guide was James (Jim) Lafferty. He very patiently explained everything, from the turntables to the transmitter. We learned about playlists, logs, advertising, and other sundry things. They still had some of the original late-40's, early 50's era equipment in service back then. What a museum!

Jim was later to be my high school electronics teacher. He endured even more of my incessant questioning, always with a patient smile.

I eventually went to work for "14 Karat Gold, WVOT". Jim Lafferty was gone by then, but I never forgot that field trip.
 
First of all I'd like to say I hope you are doing well Allen, I know how tough it must be to be "celebrating" your dad's birthday without him. I'm there with you in spirit my friend.

For me my first time was actually two seperate times. First, dad know the guy that was working at WEED (I can't remember his name now). I was showed around the station and I was asked what song I liked. At the time I liked C.W. McCall's Convoy so I requested that and he played it. I also got a copy from the "AP Wire" they had and I still have it somewhere. I was just so enthralled by the whole experience and I knew that was what I wanted to do when I grew up. At that time you had to have a lot of math to get your FCC license just to be on the radio and me being terrible at math I figured it was hopeless. Anyway this was in about 1976. Roughly a year later I was coming home from Duke after an heart checkup and we stopped by the WRAL-TV studios and at that time Mix 101.5 (WRAL-FM) was in the basement of the station. While touring the station I saw their studios. I also met Charlie Gaddy there too. Anyway, Mix 101.5 had a wall (literally) of reel-to-reel decks from floor to almost the ceiling that was their automation system. I saw the really small studio the morning guy did his show from. The room only had a door that opened basically into the sitting position for the jock and that was the size of the room. I always listened to both stations I visited and wanted so much to be on them. I would have the pleasure of working for WEED nearly 10 years after my visit. And I still view working for WRAL-FM as a full-time on-air personality as my "dream" job. I have had the opportunity to re-visit the Mix 101.5 studios a couple of years ago when Bill Jordan (no relation) asked me to come up for a visit and to sit in on the morning show. I was in heaven. This was when Shotzie was his host and it was most enjoyable and an experience I will never forget. Bill is a super nice guy and one of my radio heroes who I'd love to be like.

I just love radio and I subscribe to Radio Magazine. Anytime there is anything to do with radio on TV I watch it. Although I am not a fan of either Imus or Stern, I would on occasion watch their shows just to see the inside of their control rooms. I have a video tape of what WRAZ-TV called "Djs on TV" which showed DJs live from several of the Raleigh stations including Mix 101.5. I will on occasion pull this tape out and wach it. My wardrobe consists mainly of station attire and I even have my own little studio setup here at home. I also once owned an AudioVAULT (AV-100) system before I sold it two years ago. Now I have iMediaTouch and am trying to get on their tech support team. I love both the on-air and the engineering side of radio and would love to have a full-time job doing something in radio. All my 23 years of radio has been in a part-time capacity Not once have I been even "offered" a full-time on-air position. Although I have been offered a full-time IT position with Greater Media in Philly, but I didn't have the proper skill set for the job (i.e the big guys friend got the job and not me).
 
Thanks John for remembering my Dad.Guys its funny.I haven't played vinyl on the radio at all since 1994 and haven't touched a cart machine since 1999 but a least twice a month I have the dream the the record won't cue,the cart machine won't play
and I have dead air and I can do nothing about it.Anyone else have the radio dreams??? I do miss playing records,the art of the segue,talking over cueburn,
the smell of summer while stepping outside during NCNN news or running to the barbque place next door during Ralph Emery or maybe trying to get lucky during segments of Soundtrack of the 60's(I never did) on Sunday night if I could convince
a girl to come see me at the station when she called for a request.In the words of Tony Denton..."Damn Baby Its Christmas".Those were fun times...

Allen
 
You're welcome Allen.

One of my radio "nightmares" is where the record gets "stuck" in the same spot and I'm in the bathroom and can't get out to go fix it. I still haven't "gotten lucky" yet whether it's at the station or otherwise. Girls just don't like me for some reason. That's a whole other story I won't go into here. But the nightmare almost was true. One time while I was working at WEED I had played a record and thought I'd be back in the control room in time for it to end, well I mis judged the timing and it ended while I was in the bathroom. I heard out of the little speaker we had in the bathroom as a monitor - song fade, thump, thump... I ran back to the control room which was really a short distance, but it seemed like an eternity and started the next record. Once I remember while I was cuing up the next record I forgot which one I was cuing and lifted the tonearm off the one that was playing on-air! Naturally I realized what I had done and immediately placed it back on the record almost in the same spot. Needless to say I was sweating when I got done with that one. I'm sure everyone who has worked with records has done those two.

Another war story was while I was still working at WEED we had mice in the studio and they had set out traps. Well I was informed of all this so later that night I was running an Orioles game I was leaned back in the chair with my feet proped up on the console when all of a sudden BAM! the mouse trap went off and I was sitting about 10 feet away from the console! It scared the s**t out of me as I was so "engrosed" in the game and wasn't fully expecting it at that moment. I went to look and see and sure enough we got the little varment. OOH what a mess! I'm glad I didn't have to clean it up.
 
Radio stories can be interesting, but since we are talking about WEED in Rocky
Mount, here is another one of those.
Back in 1983, i was on the air one evening, the entire time i was in so much pain
as a result of my back tooth going bad, i ran to the water fountain in the office
every few minutes to keep this from hurting me, at one point, i played the "B"
side of a Lionel Richie song in the process.
Other than my first day on the air when Men At Work's "Overkill" starting skipping
at the beginning, i won't forget this experience.
 
One of the things I used to do once in a while was take the record that was playing off the turntable instead of the one that had just finished.In 1990 I had a baby copperhead under my feet in the control room.What was I gonna do beat it to death with an LP???I called my dad and said Dad bring the Ho and bring something to kill a snake with too.He did.In April 1985 We Are the World was Hot and made the country charts.It was the day radio stations were playing the song in unison.I bought a copy and the first time I put it on the turntable it cue burned bad and it had a soft opening.You know that sound.How about when you were on the phone with a girl and your song was running out Ahh.. the art of the slip cue.. drop the gates turntable in neutral and hope for the best.I always hated when the jock would not turn his pot down after a rap,he would leave it up and you would hear click when he turned the mic swith on.I remember being yelled at by Gene Gray when I left the station to go to Hardees during Country Crossroads with Jerry Clower and Bill Mack.I had 30 minutes and I was hungry on a Sunday night.
Today stations don't want anyone in the building half the time.I left the mic on and cussed at John Creech during "Through the Bible" with J Vernon McGee.While he was saying "May God richly bless you my beloved" I said the S word.The light blinked and I relunctantly answered the phone and some 80 year old lady read me the riot act while I stuttered like Mel Tillis on crack apologizing profusely.Those were the days...

Allen
 
While at WGTM around '82, I had to read a PSA about the dangers of getting diseases from mosquitoes. The card read something like "Mosquitoes carry bacteria, having many different organisms...". Due to some Freudian slip, I obliviously read it as ""Mosquitoes carry bacteria, having many different orgasms". My girlfriend, whom I later married, suddenly broke out laughing while the mic was still hot, and I'm now frozen mid-sentence staring at her wondering what the heck I might've said. I moved quickly to hit the switch on the Russco turntable only to play "Afternoon Delight". Comedy ensued.
 
WGTM use to have this awful 15 min 715-730am religious show presented by G.S. Tucker Furniture. One morning, Jim Rochelle did it as an intro:
presented by G.S. ****er Turniture! :) From that day followed the intro & outro were on cart.

In Statesville on WDBM-FM (now CC WKKT), I was reading a local news story about someone that got shot while sitting on a couch. YOU GUESSED IT! came out WHILE SHITTING ON A COUCH :) Phones went off. Responses were I'd shot the sob if he did that in my house.

The old LIVE days
 
Re: My first radio station visit

My first visit to a radio station was 1280 KJOY (the Great 128) in Stockton, CA.

The following is a re-post from the Central California board...enjoy:


It was the afternoon of July 1, 1981. I was in downtown Stockton with my parents for an unrelated reason when suddenly our car's radiator began to overheat. My dad swung off the Crosstown onto El Dorado to find a gas station so he could put water in the radiator.

We went up El Dorado to Channel Street, I believe. Quick left. A Chevron station at Channel and Center. A big parking lot took up the rest of that block. While we waited for the car to cool down, I could see the "KJOY" sign with a smaller "1280" beyond the expansive parking lot and El Dorado Street. A couple of KJOY vehicles parked on the other side of the cyclone-mesh fence that separated the parking lot from the gas station, one of them had "The Great 128" painted on it. Curiosity piqued. This kid who had already decided on a career in radio HAD to go over there and check out whatever he could. Parents said OK...I was OFF!! I must've stood in both Weber and El Dorado windows watching the DJ at the board for what seemed like an eternity, trying to soak in as much as I could visually. You see, for the next year, I would be a religious listener of KJOY, the Great 128, and everything I was seeing at that moment would have to suffice in memory since we lived an hour away and I was too young to drive down and watch. All I had to go on visually as I listened to KJOY was what my mind retained as I watched from the sidewalks this summer day.

Not much to see through the Weber Avenue window, the window that the jocks and jockettes faced as they did their shows. The backsides of some equipment and XLR connectors. Surprisingly, the El Dorado Street window afforded more of a view of the studio. In this window, I saw different jocks' name signs both leaning on the end of one counter and lying on the studio floor. These signs sat in a big block of wood with a groove in the top in the Weber Avenue window as the DJs did their shows. Quite a few of these signs both stood and laid there. I remember one in particular and what it read. "Pat Kelley," I read...hmmm, wonder when he's on the air? As I look back with a current-day perspective, I'm somewhat amazed that KJOY still did this as late as 1981. Amazed, but very glad.

Still watching. The DJ takes a phone call. As he converses, I look around at the rest of the studio. To his left, cart racks full of carts, a tiny room with a window that I later learned was a newsbooth, a big metal box that had a meter and said "AM Monitor," whatever that is. "Why would they monitor the entire AM band?" I wondered before I knew what an AM modulation monitor was and that it was only tuned to one frequency. DJ off the phone, and with apparently nothing more to do at that moment, he sits idly as the song plays, elbows on the counter in front of the board, looking around in a supervisory manner, as if to make sure everything's running smoothly, nothing in need of immediate attention.

OK, the view from the sidewalk's great, but now, I need to MEET that guy! Shake his hand, talk to him! I need to SEE this stuff up close! To be in this inner sanctum of broadcasting! Through the door at 110 N. El Dorado Street, Stockton, California! The KJOY lobby. The receptionist, a sweet young lady, greets me. "Hi," I reply, asking as politely as I know how if I can see the studio and meet the jock in there. Alas, it was not to be. I was politely turned down, with the explanation that the DJ "kinda needs to get it together" as she put it. "OK, thanks anyway." But I before I turn to leave, I notice a spiral staircase just to her left going downstairs into the ground. "That's our production studio," she informed me. "That's where we make our commercials." "Oh, OK, thanks again," I say as I make my way toward the door to rejoin the rest of humanity. "Thanks for coming in!" she says cheerfully as I depart the Great 128 to begin a year of devoted listenership from afar.
 
Them skeeters can get ya...I'll tell you.A skeeter that can cause orgasm huh...
I'll bet the stock in Off would drop dramatically."There's a skeeter on my @##$%%
leave it there"There's a skeeter" on my.....leave it there"

I can feel an edit coming.......

Allen
 
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