This is from FAIL-SAFE, not from my radio station.
There are some things they don’t prepare you for in radio school.
I traveled from Los Angeles to a tiny town in Virginia for my first radio job.
My first day on the air was a Saturday.
The jock before me split as soon as I cracked the mic, and I was alone in the building.
The first hour went pretty well. Didn’t “wow” any records, no noticeable dead air.
And then, from inside the studio, I began to hear a competing radio station.
I’m not talking about some annoying RF interference. I mean another radio station was blaring from a speaker in the on-air studio.
You see, in the U.S. we had something called the Emergency Broadcast System.
Within each county, one station was designated the EBS station. In case of emergency, everyone was supposed to tune to that one station while the others suspended their regular programming.
Actually, it was kind of cool. We had a sealed envelope with the secret authorization password and everything. (Just like in FAIL-SAFE.) It was begun during the Cold War, and fortunately it never needed to be employed.
Our studio (and I guess all stations’ studios) was equipped with an EBS monitor. I was hearing our local EBS station through the monitor.
Four things you need to know about that EBS monitor:
1. It had no “off” switch.
2. It had no volume control.
3. It was hard-wired into the circuitry.
And most importantly:
4. It did not mute when I opened the studio microphone.
So for the rest of my show, every time I cracked the mic to read a live commercial, spot tag, public service announcement, news, etc….My audience heard a tinny version of the “big” station 15 miles away, through the EBS speaker and into my microphone.
A less than glorious start to my career.
As I write this, suddenly I’m visited by the long-buried memory of returning to my new apartment in that tiny town, filled with despair and thinking, “I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ll never be able to do this.”
But tomorrow was going to be another working day, so I tried to get some rest.
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Dan,
Thanks for sharing this story. I made a number of on-air mistakes (programming and technical) as a board operator/DJ/announcer at KWTX. Amazingly, I survived them all. Looking back, that was one of the best jobs I’ve had. I wish now I had paid more attention to it and the many opportunities that followed.
Best wishes,
Mike Braun
KWTX-AM/FM
Waco, Texas
1975-1979
First time I ever cracked the mic open (7/4/76) I laughed at myself. I was actually talking into an inanimate piece of metal. I managed to get the wx but not without giggling through it.
First day as a paid radio disc jockey. AM daytimer in Minneapolis. Country. All records – LPs and 45s – with a small stack of “Up” 45s and a small stack of “Down” 45s. Faded color-coded index card system with red, green, blue, and yellow – occasional white ones saying Up or Down – all taped to the wall. Old RCA board, with a click down for cue, and doorbell buttons for remote start to the turntables – and TT1 you had to make it snap to pop back up, otherwise the record would start and wow down. Teletype – the hammering kind, not dot matrix – in the next room with the transmitter meters, complete with a key to help decipher the miss-hits for rip-n-read news and sports scores where letters would replace numbers and vice versa. Bathroom was downstairs. All songs were between 2:15 and 3 minutes. First shift was from Noon to sign-off at 7:30pm. I am also colorblind for red and green – especially when faded. …Yes, my friend, THESE are the good old days.
My first radio show was in 1967 on a ship in the North Sea — anchored just slightly more than 3 miles off the coast of Britain — where millions of eager listeners were getting their first taste of music radio. I did the show with a bucket between my knees. The first song I played was “Silence is Golden”. I should have taken the hint. I averaged two upchucks per hour during that first show. (And I’d do it again if I had the chance)
My first day in “professional” radio (I had already been on the air in high school, thru a 10 watt non-com and a Junior Achievement company) was at a small town station in Ohio. I was all of 17. My first record played: “Jimmy Loves Marianne” by Looking Glass. The station was an FM standalone and not particularly well run. In fact, before 2 years was up, it went bankrupt. I actually ended up being the “Acting General Manager” during the distress sale, having to call on the few clients we had to meet payroll. Then the FCC inspected, and I discovered, lo and behold, the former GM had kept no transmitter logs! Not the best day in my life, but somehow, I managed to convince the inspector nothing was the fault of the staff. (We had all been told all of the readings were being taken at the transmitter site by members of his family who lived on site and had the proper licenses to do just that.) We were permitted to stay on the air pending the arrival of the new owner, and we did…at least until the old Rust Transmitter gave up the ghost 12 hours before the new owner arrived. I was told by an older fellow broadcaster that day, “Kevin, you don’t realize it, but you gained five years experience in just one day…and you handled it well.” Ah…those were the days…I think…
Wow, I love reading these stories!! keep them coming…
Jean from Westcoast BC|!
I moved from my hometown of London, Ontario to the town of Smiths Falls, home of Hershey’s Chocolate. The whole downtown smelled like Reese’s Pieces. I was in heaven! The station was being remodeled so our studios were set up in construction trailers right next to the Rideau Canal with a dairy farm across the dirt road. When the windows were open you could hear the cows mooing as you read the news. The first thing I ever read on the air on CJET was the hog report followed by the funeral announcements. My News Director clapped when I finished and then proceeded to answer phone calls about mispronunciation of the names of the deceased. I learned a lot at CJET/Q101 Smiths Falls and 4 radio stations and 30 years later, I still have great friends in Eastern Ontario.