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Radio on TV

David Reaves said:
When NBC was building the Studio 1A complex for the Today Show about 15 years ago or so, they contracted to have the old RCA Art Deco "ON AIR" signs replicated, for placement above the entry to each TV studio. When I was working there, you have no idea how much I wanted one of them, LOL!
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Now they're available for under $200. One company makes a plastic case replica for $129 and a different company makes a metal (aluminum?) replica for $159. I ended up getting the plastic ones as when I inquired with the company making the metal one I never got any reply from them. The other company gave me a discount for a quantity order as well.
 
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 1971 movie "Vanishing Point" with "KOW" Radio and Cleavon Little playing the part of "Super Soul" as the jock. John Amos played the part of the engineer. Of course, he went on to bigger and better things as "Gordy the Weatherman" at WJM-TV. In the early scene shot in Denver, Bob Palmer appeared as a reporter for KLZ-TV, where he was actually the news anchor for many years. There were several other notable people who had small parts in the movie, including David Gates and Rita Coolidge. For anyone who has never seen the movie, I highly recommend it.
 
CatFM said:
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 1971 movie "Vanishing Point" with "KOW" Radio and Cleavon Little playing the part of "Super Soul" as the jock.
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Well, the thread did start out as radio on TV, otherwise there's a boatload of movies that could be mentioned, too.

test123 said:
This fellow has some nice looking RCA on air lights...

http://www.silviaclassics.com/studiowarninglights/

t123
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Thanks for the info, That makes three vendors that make the reproduction lights and I was unaware of the company you referenced.
 
Three years ago my wife bought me one of the aluminum deco ON AIR signs with the
grey hammer-finish. It is very nice but was "just" a light. I put in two separate lighting circuits, one for
white lights, one for red. When carrier is present, the white lights light up.
When I open the mike switch it operates a relay that connects the mike, switches over the lights fom white to red,
and reduces the studio monitor speakers by 10 db.

The switch itself is a noiseless mercury type wall switch. The relay makes a tiny satisfying click. :)
 
CatFM said:
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 1971 movie "Vanishing Point" with "KOW" Radio and Cleavon Little playing the part of "Super Soul" as the jock. John Amos played the part of the engineer. Of course, he went on to bigger and better things as "Gordy the Weatherman" at WJM-TV. In the early scene shot in Denver, Bob Palmer appeared as a reporter for KLZ-TV, where he was actually the news anchor for many years. There were several other notable people who had small parts in the movie, including David Gates and Rita Coolidge. For anyone who has never seen the movie, I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...

I was just about to post about this movie when I read your post... BTW, where was Rita Coolidge in that movie? I have it on VHS, but have not pulled it out in a while. When I watched it in the 90s was the first time I realized that they had wrecked a '67 Camaro instead of the actual Dodge Challenger.

No one mentions the MOST OBVIOUS flaw about WKRP... The jocks NEVER wear headsets!!!
 
dannyscott101 said:
No one mentions the MOST OBVIOUS flaw about WKRP... The jocks NEVER wear headsets!!!
Click to expand...

Ranks right up there with when they cue up a record you never hear the audio, yet each segue was right on.
 
I looked through the whole thread and I didn't see this. Does anyone know the whole story about why WKRP mysteriously reduced power from 50000 watts on the wall map on the early episodes to 5000 watts in later episodes? Art Vuolo once explained that the reason was that no 50000 watt station would be such a "turkey", though that is no longer true, if it ever was.

KBHR on Northern Exposure was an AM on 570, yet one episode showed vertically polarized folded dipole bays on a short tower on top of the buildingas being the transmitting antenna.
 
I learn't to never trust editors and producers when "That's Incredible" came to Kansas with a helicopter crew and flew me into the middle of a quarter section of farmland so they could get a shot of my ass pulling a measuring tape away from the camera.

Total time of fame: >2.1 seconds.
 
dannyscott101 said:
CatFM said:
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the 1971 movie "Vanishing Point" with "KOW" Radio and Cleavon Little playing the part of "Super Soul" as the jock. John Amos played the part of the engineer. Of course, he went on to bigger and better things as "Gordy the Weatherman" at WJM-TV. In the early scene shot in Denver, Bob Palmer appeared as a reporter for KLZ-TV, where he was actually the news anchor for many years. There were several other notable people who had small parts in the movie, including David Gates and Rita Coolidge. For anyone who has never seen the movie, I highly recommend it.
Click to expand...



I was just about to post about this movie when I read your post... BTW, where was Rita Coolidge in that movie? I have it on VHS, but have not pulled it out in a while. When I watched it in the 90s was the first time I realized that they had wrecked a '67 Camaro instead of the actual Dodge Challenger.

No one mentions the MOST OBVIOUS flaw about WKRP... The jocks NEVER wear headsets!!!
Click to expand...

Rita Coolidge and David Gates both appeared in the scene where the band was playing in hippie commune (or whatever it was) out in the middle of the desert. The group also included Delaney Bramlett and Bonnie Bramlett, who were known collectively as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. They had a Top 40 hit in the late 60s, as I remember, but I don't remember the title.

Actually, not wearing a headset in WKRP wasn't necessarily a flaw. I sat in the control room of a Top 40 station many years ago where the jock wasn't wearing a headset. The way the control was set up, when the mic was open, rather than muting the monitor, it dropped it to a low enough level to not allow feedback. The jock I watched on the air amused me because he cupped one hand over his ear, much in the style of Gary Owens on "Laugh-In." Has anyone else ever seen a control room set up that way? I have been in many stations through the years, but that was the only one I ever saw rigged that way. I don't know if all of their jocks operated that way.
 
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti.
Every time the shot changed to a cutaway and then back to the Wolfman, the tape carts in the cart rack were in different locations.
It looked like a crappy little station too.
 
Delaney and Bonnie had two significant hits as I recall, "Never Ending Song Of Love" and "Only You Know And I Know". I remember that they were a favorite of Russ Gibb, purveyor of the "Paul McCartney Is Dead" story, at WKNR-FM Detroit. He was at FM Talk WDRQ in the early 1970s.
 
Dimming monitors is still a function included in many consoles.

Part of radio used to be the on-air signal. The age of processors that required and still require a non air feed because of the delay allows dimming to work.

It isn't foolproof. If the dim of the speakers does not include the mic in the process this isn't an issue. Those boys always want to hear themselves though.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Delaney and Bonnie had two significant hits as I recall, "Never Ending Song Of Love" and "Only You Know And I Know". I remember that they were a favorite of Russ Gibb, purveyor of the "Paul McCartney Is Dead" story, at WKNR-FM Detroit. He was at FM Talk WDRQ in the early 1970s.
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Yes, indeed! The Oldies stations nowadays don't seem to play either of those songs. I haven't heard them in years, and I would be willing to bet the last station I heard them on was CKLW. Oh, to be back in the time when radio was good.
 
frankberry said:
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti.
Every time the shot changed to a cutaway and then back to the Wolfman, the tape carts in the cart rack were in different locations.
It looked like a crappy little station too.
Click to expand...

I would have mentioned it, but I haven't had time to get the picture...
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii229/gmsnrich/wolfman-jack-american-graffiti.jpg

Lot of history in that room...I'm a bit rusty, but is that a Yard console? And what the transmitter behind the glass? It has one to many meters to be a BC-1G. Have a popsicle.
 
Nobody has mentioned the Clint Eastwood film, "Play Misty For Me." Perhaps the scariest film of all time for late night and all night DJ's. I saw it once and NEVER again! Don't remember much about the studio but it seems to me I heard they used an actual AM station after sign off for the studio shots.

I also seem to remember a show called Good Morning World back in the 60's, again memory foggy about the equipment.

I also worked in a station that had a low level monitor so you didn't have to wear headphones, that was WBPZ in Lock Haven, Pa back in 1967. I still wore "cans" (Brush Headphones, remeber them?) because I never could hear the low level monitor enough.

Also it surprises me the number of DJ's I worked with over the years who use the line feed rather than air feed for their headphones, I always liked the air feed so I could hear what the audio processing was doing AND IF the station was actually on the air!
 
frankberry said:
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti.
Every time the shot changed to a cutaway and then back to the Wolfman, the tape carts in the cart rack were in different locations.
It looked like a crappy little station too.
Click to expand...

It was actually KRE, Berkeley, CA. A fellow with whom I worked many years later was working at KRE when those scenes were shot.
 
Since now it seems movies have been added to the list here's a couple to add:

There's a Gates tube yard and Spotmaster card decks in the radio studios shown in "The Boat That Rocked" (U.S. title "Pirate Radio").

I also think there's a Pacific board and a Shure SM7 as part of the radio studio shown in the movie "The Truth About Cats and Dogs" where Jeanine Garofolo played a veterinarian with a radio talk show (confirmed the mic via Google images but going by memory on the board).

There's several studios depicted in the movie "Talk Radio" starring Eric Bogosian. In the flashback scenes there's a old Gates console (sort of looks like a Diplomat or Executive but the meter is located above the console front panel. The "current day" scenes appear to have BMX series consoles.
 
i don't know if this is true or just something we were told,
but when we put WPDZ (now WJMX-FM Florence, SC) on the air in 1979 they told us that our McCurdy production room console was the actual board from the movie FM.

it could have been true, it was a nice board. and the rest of the station wasn't too shabby either.

-amos
 
I don't remember anyone mentioning the "Airheads" movie, does anyone have any idea what equipment they showed in that? It has been years since I seen it, but I do remember a scene when they are in the engineering dept. and you can see a 8100 in a rack behind them...
 
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