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WIBG EARLY TO LATE 60s: ONE-PERSON OPERATION IN NON-BUSINESS HOURS?

E

Early Byrd

I have a question which I'm sure someone can answer:

In the early to mid 1960's (circa 1962-1965), was there generally only one person (i.e., the jock) in the WIBG building in Lafayette Hills during non-business hours? Or, because WIBG was a 50,000 watt station with a complex five-tower directional pattern, did an engineer always have to be in the building 24/7 with the jock? For example, I believe that Dean Tyler and Larry Justice were two guys who handled weekend afternoons back then. When they were on the air, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, would they have been the only person at 117 Ridge Pike? Or was there also a news guy as well? How about the overnight guy, Scotty Brink? Was he alone in the building?
 
Short answer is No, never.

Wibbage was a Union House. Until the early/mid 70's, the Talent never touched a board or control, just the occasional on/off switch. There was ALWAYS an engineer to do that on the other side of the glass. The engineer cued records, ET's, tapes. By Law, it had to have a First Class Engineer on duty 24/7 as well. Did he do both? Sometimes. And in the off-peak hours is when the RCA Ampliphase BTA-50 was down and available to walk in for maintanance by the CE. It was a busy place.

In off-peak hours, Talent read live copy, AP/UPI News, Sports, and entertained. To fulfill License obligations, it did Newscasts every hour (or more) around the clock, but not always with a News Dept voice.
 
amfmsw said:
Short answer is No, never.

Wibbage was a Union House. Until the early/mid 70's, the Talent never touched a board or control, just the occasional on/off switch. There was ALWAYS an engineer to do that on the other side of the glass. The engineer cued records, ET's, tapes. By Law, it had to have a First Class Engineer on duty 24/7 as well. Did he do both? Sometimes. And in the off-peak hours is when the RCA Ampliphase BTA-50 was down and available to walk in for maintanance by the CE. It was a busy place.

In off-peak hours, Talent read live copy, AP/UPI News, Sports, and entertained. To fulfill License obligations, it did Newscasts every hour (or more) around the clock, but not always with a News Dept voice.
Click to expand...


Thank you for the information. Wow, I had no idea the WIBG "Good Guys" back then didn't run their own boards. This was even the case for overnights? One of the two I mentioned in the original post (i.e., Larry Justice) went to WMEX in Boston after WIBG, and he most certainly ran his own board there. He never sounded "rusty" from not doing so for two years in Philly. I'm sure that was the case with others as well...going on to a station that didn't have the strict division of responsibilities that WIBG did as a union station.
 
amfmsw said:
Short answer is No, never.

The engineer cued records,
Click to expand...

Minor Correction: The DJ cued the records and started the turntables. (There's a picture of the original WIBG Studios in "The Hy Lit Story" just released this weekend). The Turntable cue button was directly in front of the turntables. The DJ also loaded the carts. The engineer also had cart loads and network spot feeds by Katz and other ad agency's, that were recorded by the enfineer. The Engineer also required a hand wave to the engineer to turn on and off the Mic.
 
Yeah, WIBBAGE's control situation was unique (and union contract-driven.) The jocks had the turntables and cart machines on their side of the glass; the audio console was on the other side and was manned by an engineer 24-7. This was because the NABET (engineers) work rules specified that union engineers had to "control all audio levels" and all "microphones." So you would cue up a record and a little sticker on the label specified the fader setting, of which you would inform the engineer by intercom after cueing. Of course if you changed your mind and wanted to take that song off before air, you had to advise the operator so he could turn the pot back down. As Hy says, you also had to call for your mike, and this required planning ahead because frequently the board operator would be distracted by something and not looking at you at the precise moment you wanted to go on the air.

Because of my WIBG experiences, to this day I open my mike 30 to 40 seconds early. Ancient habits die hard. ;)

WIBG had two NABET duty engineers on 24-7, a board operator plus a transmitter supervisor who did Tx readings (then required every half-hour), base current readings (requiring a twice-daily hike out to the base enclosures at each of the five towers) plus miscellaneous tasks like cart machine maintenance, fixing broken stuff, and loading the FM automation.

There was usually someone in the newsroom until midnight and then again starting around 5am.
 
Savage said:
WIBG had two NABET duty engineers on 24-7,
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Was it IBEW or NABET? When I arrived as Chief Engineer in 1981 (WZZD) it was IBEW, which had been carried over from the Fairbanks days. The station remained union until 1983, although at that point they were strictly pulling transmitter and technical duties...no board ops. In 1983, we replaced the old RCA BTA-50G with a Harris MW-50A, which greatly simplified the work load of maintaining the transmitters, and was used both day and night. At that time the BTA-10H 10KW night transmitter was also relegated to Auxiliary Transmitter status.

Later in 1983, the five staff engineers - a couple of whom had been here for a number of years - voted the union out when the contract came up for renewal. For the life of me, I still don't understood why. Within six months all of them were gone and the department was reduced to myself and one assistant. From that point on the announcers changed pattern and took readings. I know that a couple of the newer engineers were not happy about having to pay union dues to IBEW; but, didn't they realize that they were pretty much cutting off their nose to spite their face? In all honesty, by that time a full five-person (plus chief) engineering staff was no longer necessary. We had done major repairs to the antenna system in 1981 (which was part of the station sale agreement between Fairbanks and Communicom); and we installed the new transmitter two years later, and therefore, the station did not require constant adjustment and repair to keep things legal. But, they were naive to think that they were not voting themselves out of a job!

Back to the original question, perhaps Sam could clarify if it was IBEW or NABET back in the day.....
 
I know you asked the question of Mr. Lit. But allow me to enter a guilty plea to another attack of Bobheimer's. It was IBEW.
 
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