Old console up for grabs

[wiggums]

Hi Everybody! Long time viewer, 1st time poster. A couple of years ago I saved WBRU's on air board from the landfill during their studio rebuild, thinking I might be able to recycle it someday for use in Westerly. Long story short. It's still under my stairs being used as a shelf for cat food and other stuff. For you tech types, It's a Pacific Recorders BMX-II 22 channel. I have the power supply and have all the input and output molex wiring to punch blocks. It's free to whomever can get this thing out of my pad in Warwick. I would advise 2 able bodied types, it's quite top heavy, like most of the women I go after. Interested... email me [email protected]

Thanks!
SC

 

[Lee Taylor]

I would old man, but I am in South Carolina brother. But you could drop a line to say hello to an old friend....

 

[jeffryan]

Those are nice boards... it's sad that anyone even considered tossing it. Have you tried eBay, Craigslist, et. al.?

 

[N1WVQ]

I may have a home for it. I'll give you a call.

 

[wiggums]

Thanks to everyone who participated! It looks like the board will find a well deserved better life in Connecticut. As a parting gift, all participants will recieve a "Best of WALE" aircheck. (It's under a minute long.) As an aside, all the stories you hear about that place are really true!

Thanks!

 

[Dusty Dale Brooks]

Was it WALE that was supposedly haunted or something?

 

[N1WVQ]

I'm just glad the original location of WALE (Durfee Theater, I think) is gone. A station in the BASEMENT of an old theater? No thanks!

 

[VelvetR]

I'm just glad the original location of WALE (Durfee Theater, I think) is gone. A station in the BASEMENT of an old theater? No thanks!

WALE started out as an FM only with a call like "WCFR" or, perhaps, "WFRM". The tower was on the roof of the Durfee Theater building, originally constructed with a base insulator in anticipation of one day getting an AM assignment. There was no ground system originally but one was added when the Sisson Brothers (George and J. Roger) were given 1400 at 250-Watts. The FM operation continued as a simulcast for only a year or two.

Entry was through a small doorway on Central Street which also served Central Cab (dispatcher in a small room) and a pool hall.
There were two studios off the corridor that served the pool room, one that had been for sometimes-separate FM; the other for AM. In later years the first of the two (Raytheon boards) served as a sort of production room and news-reader booth. Toward the end it housed a Schaeffer automation system (reel to reel and cartridge carousels).

Indeed it was a basement....but, wait, there's more!

The AM transmitter was in the control room and there was a space alongside it where the FM had been. Tubes; hot, glowing tubes. There was a thru-the-wall air conditioner that helped keep you from cooking and a switch for it by the operator's left knee so it could be turned off when the mic was on. The Raytheon transmitter had a plate relay that was about shot and would hum loudly at times. The remedy was to punch it off and on several times until it settled down.

On the far side of the wall with the air conditioner was a storage area where the defunct FM transmitter was stashed. It also served as access to the men's room for the theater! Imagine the stench in there.....the toilets accentuated by the heat being dumped by the AC.

There was a venetian blind on the control room window to the corridor so you didn't have to watch the old diminutive person (we called them something else in those non-PC days) who sat on a high stool peeling skin cancers off his arms with a pocket knife.

It was while weenending at WALE that I first truly learned to appreciate the scent of Lysol as a fine perfume.........

That was in 1958-59.

 

[PDK]

I've seen pictures of the building or sort of an add-on to it with a big plastic or plaster whale with the call letters and 1400 painted on it. I'm guessing that was destroyed when the building was torn down but it'd be great if somebody had it stashed somewhere.