Sumner County Radio

[olebud]

Hi friends and neighbors. It's been rather quiet here in the county of Sumner and Gallatin lately so I though all you here on the Nashville board (which also serves middle Tn.
I went up to Portland Monday to see my old friend Lee Dorman....now I'm on crutches, but that's another story.
Lee is doing well and his oldies sound good. His book on Nashville Radio History is coming out the middle of March and he's doing a book signing in Hendersonville at Barnes and Noble. Thought I'd plug it since it has a picture of me in it. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You know you're getting old" when the only time you're mentioned the word 'history' is in the title.
http://www.nashvillebroadcastinghistory.com/
is where you can find it.
Back on Sumner County, Lee's station sounded good, WHIN was booming...but not a sound out of wmro. Could not pick it up or hear it. Maybe down for service or something.

 

[scottwmro]

Hi friends and neighbors. It's been rather quiet here in the county of Sumner and Gallatin lately so I though all you here on the Nashville board (which also serves middle Tn.
I went up to Portland Monday to see my old friend Lee Dorman....now I'm on crutches, but that's another story.
Lee is doing well and his oldies sound good. His book on Nashville Radio History is coming out the middle of March and he's doing a book signing in Hendersonville at Barnes and Noble. Thought I'd plug it since it has a picture of me in it. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, "You know you're getting old" when the only time you're mentioned the word 'history' is in the title.
http://www.nashvillebroadcastinghistory.com/
is where you can find it.
Back on Sumner County, Lee's station sounded good, WHIN was booming...but not a sound out of wmro. Could not pick it up or hear it. Maybe down for service or something.

Hi Buddy,

I got a phone call at the house about your message posted about WMRO on the board and not being able to receive the station. I didn't want to get back on this message board anymore, but due to lots of phone calls, emails, & concerns, we thought it would be best for me to let the public know what has happen to Scott & Leslie Bailey's little WMRO Radio here in Gallatin

*****Let me explaned what has happen to WMRO over the past few weeks:

On February 11th, the storm that came through Nashville, with high straight line winds, also came through Gallatin, with winds here on the North Side of Gallatin at almost 80 mph. The winds ripped the 3 wire, folded unipole wires off the tower that the feeds the WMRO's 150', grounded, self supporting tower. The station has been off for almost 2 weeks. During this time, I had our insurance adjuster come out to help us with cost of rebuilding the unipole antenna, buy ordering parts for the unipole kit to go back on to the tower.

Instead of using a traditional series feed, AM Tower, WMRO uses a folded unipole system to feed the AM tower.

Through the help of engineer Dale Howard, WMRO went back on the air, with low power, on February 24, at 3:30 PM, with a temporary antenna feed attached to the tower. Our new unipole kit for the tower is on the way and we hope in the next two weeks, weather permitting, our tower climber from Jasper, AL, and Dale Howard, being on site at the same time, we can get the new antenna, unipole kit installed back on the tower and the station can go back to full power.

*For the history and technical books, one thing I want to point out, the reason WHIN gets out as well as it does is because it is an old AM allocation to Gallatin, starting in 1948, in the middle of the dial with 1,000 watts, then in the early 80's going to 5,000 watts, allowing WHIN to have coverage over Nashville during the daytime hours, where WMRO was a 1960's, highly directional allocation that we moved from Nashville to Gallatin. With WMRO on the high end of the dial, which is bad, and with only 1,000 watts during the day, it's signal not able to cover as well as WHIN. WMRO can not get a power increase due to 3 stations blocking us. 1560 is a bad, crowded channel.

Let me take this time out to thank the many calls, emails (especially about our Sunday Programming) and the station. We have never been off this long due to storm damage. May God bless all of you who have prayed for WMRO, me and my wife Leslie, and my two little, four legged critters, Lexie & Lance, our dogs!

Now, back off this list, and back to work. Your welcome to call about the progress of 1560 WMRO getting back to full power to cover Sumner County with a decent signal. I don't look at this board or post anything anymore, but we felt we want to let folks know what has happen to us.

Best Regards,
Scott & Leslie Bailey
WMRO Radio, Magic 1560
Gallatin, TN

 

[oldies5161]

Enjoying retirement, Buddy?

 

[olebud]

oldies 5161 asked,

Enjoying retirement, Buddy?

The only thing that could be more fun would be to have all the folks I worked with in News the last 43 years in one department doing it again. And I say ALL because it would be difficult to pick just a few. There were a few who didn't fit....but it wasn't necessarily their fault.

When I was younger, there was nothing like being on the streets, riding along with the police on drug busts, DWI rides and covering breaking stories. Didn't much like covering politics. Some of them I'd rather not associate with although there are a number who were good folks and I still respect.

Enjoyed covering trials. Federal courts coverage was slower than state and local courts....not as interesting unless a former governor or local sheriff was on trial and a few other instances.

As I got older, being out in the cold overnight waiting on Don Aaron to bring hourly updates in West Nashville on a hostage situation were not as much fun anymore. Back when I was only 40, we reporters walked the hills of Cheatham County with authorities a whole day in the blazing heat of July or August looking for a couple of kidnapped youngsters. Most of us with our tape recorders and cameras wouldn't have been there if they had told us before we left that copperheads and rattle snakes as big around as our arms were in the hills and creeks we waded. Yep, waist high.

I enjoyed watching a news room come awake in the morning, go over assignments and ideas, see what's happening and hope for a good breaking story during the day. And there's nothing quite like anchoring a breaking story when you have a fully staffed news room that handles it as well or maybe better than any other shop in town.

There were a lot of good people who came through WSM and if I named a few I'd forget another and that wouldn't be fair. I'll have to admit, women in the news room added a new outlook. There was a anchor/reporter for t-v over at wsm who had a more colorful vocabulary than I'd ever been around. She made me blush.

But I doubt a newsroom like that is going to happen again...... and retirement is the next best thing and I'm enjoying it. No pager, very little use of a cell phone...no two ways. And next to working in a fully staffed news room 5, 6 or 7 days a week, seldom less than 9 or 10 hours a day and always on call ----- I now look ahead to my Thursday and Friday mornings when just for an hour, I sit and just talk on the radio, asking people questions about things I know little about but enjoy learing.
And just think............for all these years I a lot of people were working for a living.

God was trully good to me.

 

[Evangelist]

Buddy,

That was so beautifully said. I have also worked with some interesting and talented people over the years, and like you, I think it'd be nice to have them all together. I wish you and I had enjoyed the opportunity to work in the same newsroom but it was nice to have you on board when you came over to Clear Channel to handle affiliate relations. The morning Johnny Cash passed away, you came to the newsroom and were a tremendous help to me--wish we'd had the opportunity to work together like that more often.

 

[Tibbs4]

oldies 5161 asked,

Enjoying retirement, Buddy?

The only thing that could be more fun would be to have all the folks I worked with in News the last 43 years in one department doing it again. And I say ALL because it would be difficult to pick just a few. There were a few who didn't fit....but it wasn't necessarily their fault.

When I was younger, there was nothing like being on the streets, riding along with the police on drug busts, DWI rides and covering breaking stories. Didn't much like covering politics. Some of them I'd rather not associate with although there are a number who were good folks and I still respect.

Enjoyed covering trials. Federal courts coverage was slower than state and local courts....not as interesting unless a former governor or local sheriff was on trial and a few other instances.

As I got older, being out in the cold overnight waiting on Don Aaron to bring hourly updates in West Nashville on a hostage situation were not as much fun anymore. Back when I was only 40, we reporters walked the hills of Cheatham County with authorities a whole day in the blazing heat of July or August looking for a couple of kidnapped youngsters. Most of us with our tape recorders and cameras wouldn't have been there if they had told us before we left that copperheads and rattle snakes as big around as our arms were in the hills and creeks we waded. Yep, waist high.

I enjoyed watching a news room come awake in the morning, go over assignments and ideas, see what's happening and hope for a good breaking story during the day. And there's nothing quite like anchoring a breaking story when you have a fully staffed news room that handles it as well or maybe better than any other shop in town.

There were a lot of good people who came through WSM and if I named a few I'd forget another and that wouldn't be fair. I'll have to admit, women in the news room added a new outlook. There was a anchor/reporter for t-v over at wsm who had a more colorful vocabulary than I'd ever been around. She made me blush.

But I doubt a newsroom like that is going to happen again...... and retirement is the next best thing and I'm enjoying it. No pager, very little use of a cell phone...no two ways. And next to working in a fully staffed news room 5, 6 or 7 days a week, seldom less than 9 or 10 hours a day and always on call ----- I now look ahead to my Thursday and Friday mornings when just for an hour, I sit and just talk on the radio, asking people questions about things I know little about but enjoy learing.
And just think............for all these years I a lot of people were working for a living.

God was trully good to me.

Buddy,

God is still good to you and us as well for all the years and all you gave to listeners and the radio industry. A couple of weeks ago, I think it was appropriately
somebody calling themselves "The Big A" posted that local didn't matter. It didn't help radio. I don't know that person, but I couldn't disagree more with him/her. People listened to radio for the people as well as the music. It completed the picture. Now, CEO's of cheap radio done wrong scratch their heads
(or something else) and wonder why they are failing. Reading your post says it all. It's become wrong to care about your job, your community and your
station. It's a grind, now, mindless as possible. Ride the clock. Minimal. I hate it when the news of the day is nothing but headlines straight out of the Tennessean (another sad example of the demise of an industry.) Sure, times change. But, the need to feel a connection is more important today than
ever before because it is rare. I know I miss your voice. I know people who work/ed for other companies love and respect you, but didn't love how dedicated
you were because it was friendly competition. I hope one CE-OOOh from Chitadel delisted, Crumulus crashing and Radio None, etc. gets a copy of your
post and finally realizes it's not that damn hard to get this all on track. But, they are blind to the fact that personality of a station is what matters most.
And Buddy, that's one of your coolest posts yet. It's great to see someone still in love with life and his job after so many years. There's alot of us who
wish we'd get another 43 years of radio with you in it, sir. Enough "kissing up, as you say." It's just the truth the way I see it.

 

[olebud]

Tibbs and Paul,
Thank you for all the kind words. I also appreciate that you took time to listen...because as you know, when the mike is open and you're reading, reporting or whatever...and you aer llive, sometimes the thought runs through the mind, "wonder if anyone heard that?"
Thank you again. And one final note. I wrote;

And just think............for all these years I a lot of people were working for a living.

God was trully good to me.

When reading it again, the "I" should not have been in the quote, and I misspelled truly. I didn't have an editor and had to do it myself. scuse meeeee...

 

[Journeyman]

It's great to see someone still in love with life

Buddy:
These kids! That's not YOU who loves life, that's the fella with the funny colored hair!

 

[DouglasB]

God was trully good to me. When reading it again, the "I" should not have been in the quote, and I misspelled truly. I didn't have an editor and had to do it myself. scuse meeeee...

Hey, Buddy, long time....... Don't sweat the typos. You always said to write for the "ear" and not the eyes. Glad you're doing well.....

 

[K4WRF]

oldies 5161 asked,

Enjoying retirement, Buddy?

God was trully good to me.

Ole Bud,
That is except when the news room microphone was inadvertently left on…..
Best,

w/

 

[olebud]

Ole Bud,
That is except when the news room microphone was inadvertently left on…..
Best,

w/

Bro Watt: now to set the record straight, Harvey McGee was sitting next to the mike in the middle of the newsroom when Al Wynter recorded that little snippet of WSM history. Harvey never knew the mike was on and Al didn't know he could record what was on that mike while it was in the 'audition' mode. Your engineers got that fixed real quickly after that incident and set up the 'dolly partin' red lights in the news room.
The other time when the 'bomb' word went out was because Keith goosed Al Wynter (again) just as Ii was finishing my cast. The first call when I got back to the news room was from my Dad making sure it wasn't me who did it.

A little known fact. The WSM radio news production or work room once had a t-v camera installed with a monitor in the AM control room. This was to insure there would be a news anchor 'standing by' so the announcer could come to us for headlines. However, after a couple of the jocs encouraged the news girls to wear short skirts, management thought it would be better to cut the camera off.
Thanks Watt for the memories....I had forgotten about the t-v cams and mikes in the news 'work' area.

Yes indeed, God has been good to me.
Not counting the time I misread the word 'organism' and looked over to the hall door to see every smily face in the building grinning though the window. My bad.

 

[Tibbs4]

Buddy, one of my first encounters with actually talking about wine (verses drinking it) was doing a story on
the yearly November release of Nouveau Beaujolais ... a wine from France that has a bit of hype when released.
I explained that it was the gamay grape, and it was not aged in barrel, rather for this wine the
process of winemaking is called "carbonic maceration." I rehearsed it, I wrote the proper way to say
it in red marker, large letters and you can imagine exactly what I said, along with a pause, the word
oops (and maybe something else) and a quick commercial. That was in the mid 80's. Of course
we received a hundred (semed like 10,000) calls from people wanting to know where they could get
that wine. Not the worst or most crude thing I have said, but probably the most stunned I have
ever been behind a mic. Long couple of days after that, but all in fun. THOSE were the days.

I don't think they use carbonic maceration on Arbor Mist, thankfully. ;D

 

[K4WRF]

Ole Bud,
That is except when the news room microphone was inadvertently left on…..
Best,

w/

Yes indeed, God has been good to me.
Not counting the time I misread the word 'organism' and looked over to the hall door to see every smily face in the building grinning though the window. My bad.

Buddy,
I think the radio business today begs for a little "shock-box" therapy, what do ya' think? A fun transfusion.....

Best,

w/