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Where are they now: Macon Radio

billelder said:
My question was always why they had 4 cart machines going into one pot on the board that would clip the audio when going from one cart to another.
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Ahh...I'd forgotten about that infernal RCA audio switcher. I dealt with one of those at WTHO/Thomson, too. Seems like there was another cart machine manufacturer that had something like that...maybe Spotmaster, on their multi-cart decks. What was it? Oh, yeah...the Five-Spot and Ten-Spot.

Those lights in the CR (for the transmitters) were RED, BLUE and GREEN. If I'm remembering it correctly...and I'm probably not, RED was 1kw and BLUE was 250w on the main transmitter, and GREEN was 250w on the auxilliary (original) transmitter. I asked and was told exactly how the indicators worked (and they did), but that they were more for show, sounds about right.
 
billelder said:
I was told that his answer was something along the line of..."Have you seen the people who work here? They can handle maybe three pots at a time. Four, tops!" ;D
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Humm. The more things change, the more they remain the same. I know some folks lucky to be able to operate two pots.
 
There was an engineer at WVLD in Valdosta (now a pile of rubble) who had four carts on one pot that you could fade with your fingers. He devised buttons that would fade by pressing and holding down the button of the cart that was playing while starting the next cart. Remove your finger from the first cart to end the audio.
 
When I first came to WMAZ in the 60s they had a GE board about four feet wide with all kinds of buttons and switches on it. ( I came from a 5 pot station, and one pot was down the hall)
So, it was confusing enough, but about half the buttons didn't work. Probably the late Skip Holmes who was there had already punched the you know what out of them and they no longer made contact. So you had to switch a combination of buttons and switches to bring in several audio sources including tapes and even CBS. (you'd never want to run a tape while Arthur Godfrey was on anyway.)
One of the tape machines was a Spotmaster I think. It had a wide piece of tape, probably a foot wide and 60 seconds long, and you would have 25 or more spots on it. You moved a lever to the number in a notch on the front of the machine to chose the spot you wanted to play, punch the button and away it went. When it got to the end of the spot a tone reversed the tape and it was quickly ready to play another spot. It sort of worked like a window shade. Except, some time the tone didn't stop the tape and it would continue on and pull of the tape off the reel it was hooked to. Then you had this flapping sound going while you're trying to get something else playing so you can open the machine, fasten the tape back with masking tape and hope it stops next time.
Anybody else ever work with one of those wonders or am I the only one from the dark ages of radio?
 
There was an engineer at WVLD in Valdosta (now a pile of rubble)
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So Bill (or is it Don Stevens?)... do you mean the engineer is now a pile of rubble? Or do you mean the station... or perhaps even Valdosta ('cause the last time I was through there it didn't look like much).

Just wonderin'.

TDO
 
Steve Malone said:
When I first came to WMAZ in the 60s they had a GE board about four feet wide with all kinds of buttons and switches on it.
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Those old GE boards must've been popular with CBS affiliates...WTOC/Savannah had one, too. Hmmm...I just remembered that we had one of those in the newsroom at WYCL/York, SC, and they weren't affiliated. No, really. They were rife with anonymity!

(I came from a 5 pot station, and one pot was down the hall)
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Did you learn that from Jimmy Lee?

One of the machines had a wide piece of tape, probably a foot wide and 60 seconds long, and you would have 25 or more spots on it.
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That monster was the Gates PT-101 Spot-Tape. The tape length was 90 seconds, and it had 101 tracks. ATC (originally marketed by Collins) had sold quite a few cart machines, and Gates was trying to come up with something competitive. The PT-101 wasn't the answer. In fact, that thing caused hair to grow in the palms of many a young disc-jockey's hands. No...now that I think of it, that hair was from a different thing.
 
Jay, I learned a lot from Jimmy, but that wasn't one. I became a "farm director" at WMAZ because Jimmy was it and left, leaving me holding the reins. A dozen years later he hired me at Georgia Farm Bureau and danged if he didn't leave there and I was left with both radio and TV for a while til they could find somebody. Paul Beliveau.
I learned not to follow Jimmy to another job. But, he was easy to work for.
 
Diamondtwo,
...do you mean the engineer is now a pile of rubble?
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The engineer was "unbalanced" then, but I never noticed any piles. lol They tore that station down and stomped it flat about a year or so ago.
 
jovialjay said:
That monster was the Gates PT-101
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I almost never correct myself...I usually leave that to others (and there are many), but that Gates is the ST-101. I think the PT-101 was a Chrysler product.
 
J Jay
Your technology skills are slipping. You need to learn more about water bongs. According to today's Telegraph that seems to be the current thing in broadcast equipment (WMAC-AM).
 
Bongs have always been a part of broadcasting. ALWAYS
 
I've been bonged more times than I can remember. Some of the great, near-great and some that thought they were great, have bonged me.

Being bonged does mean the same as being fired, doesn't it???
 
rcombs said:
Bongs have always been a part of broadcasting. ALWAYS
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I remember Keith,forget his last name, worked overnights at Q106 and left his bong after his shift.
The morning guy eric stephens found it and put it away. but keith called nathan hale the PD and said i guess you know it was my bong. nathan was like what bong? Keith got fired. I wonder what nathan did with the bong. nathan could not understand how someone could be high and do an air-shift at the same time. oh nathan dont be so naive.

so where is keith, eric stephens, nathan hale ( hank said he was still in fort valley i think back in 02) where is chuck action figure connors, scott tyler, oran michaels, crazy chris caldwell?
 
Third Ferguson said:
rcombs said:
Bongs have always been a part of broadcasting. ALWAYS
Click to expand...

I remember Keith,forget his last name, worked overnights at Q106 and left his bong after his shift.
The morning guy eric stephens found it and put it away. but keith called nathan hale the PD and said i guess you know it was my bong. nathan was like what bong? Keith got fired. I wonder what nathan did with the bong. nathan could not understand how someone could be high and do an air-shift at the same time. oh nathan dont be so naive.

so where is keith, eric stephens, nathan hale ( hank said he was still in fort valley i think back in 02) where is chuck action figure connors, scott tyler, oran michaels, crazy chris caldwell?
Click to expand...

Eric is in Tampa working at a TV station. No idea what happened to Nathan. Last I heard, he was working at the bus plant in Ft. Valley.
 
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