As 101 continues our "How I got started in radio" theme, today we get Buzzed...
I got my start in radio shortly after my senior trip to beautiful sunny Vietnam and subsequent discharge from the Marine Corps. My first gig was part-time doing nights on weekends at WLIK Newport. In about three months I got the night shift from 6p-midnight full time. The station was 5000 watts day and 500 watts directional nighttime. That meant the night jock had to work at the transmitter site. At the time, the road was filled with potholes big enough to swallow a VW Beetle. When it rained in the summertime you had to watch out for swimmers and sun bathers around those potholes.
Like most small market stations during that era, "The Big LIK" had a fairly nice control room at it's main studio. However, the transmitter studio was something of a nightmare...a console Marconi built, two Gates turntables large enough to replace broken down rides at a carnival, one cart machine that would not play anything longer than 30 seconds, if it worked at all, and the mic was a Shure brand that Elvis rejected. Also, the headphones would not only take patches of hair every time you took them off...they would hurt your ears when you slapped 'em on. The monitor speaker went through several repairs during those days. I often parked my car near the front door to use its speaker as a monitor. The only thing that worked properly were the phone lights to let you know someone was either calling in a request or another employee letting you know the mic switch was left open during the last record!
You also had to carry some coins to put on the turntable arms or find a good boat anchor! All music was carried in an AP teletype box along with news copy from the day shift since there wasn't a teletype at the transmitter site. Cue burns were common on all records. Songs like "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack got butchered by those tone arms! Edwin Starr's "War" was burned so bad you had to pot it up at "Absolutely nothing", which is the second verse.
It was great having no one around to interrupt you except for the occasional snake that would get in. In the summer, it got so hot you had to leave the front and back doors open. In the winter, you could close one of the doors. Even snow melted within 20 feet of the transmitter building! My FCC ticket was proudly hung near the transmitter. No wonder it was dried out and cracked when I took it out of it's frame!
When WLIK started carrying UT football and basketball I got to do nights from the main studio. Shortly thereafter, the FCC relaxed the rules and I did my gig from the studio on the hill overlooking the Newport Drive-in Theatre. It was silent movies and loud rock 'n roll. But, that is for another story in the future!
Looking back, with all it's faults, those nights were great! Radio was fun. The music was great! As Billboard once reported, small market radio was the backbone of the industry and I am proud to have been a part of it when AM was king!
Thanks 101 for all the wonderful memories.
Bill Beason aka Buzz Dailey
Like most small market stations during that era, "The Big LIK" had a fairly nice control room at it's main studio. However, the transmitter studio was something of a nightmare...a console Marconi built, two Gates turntables large enough to replace broken down rides at a carnival, one cart machine that would not play anything longer than 30 seconds, if it worked at all, and the mic was a Shure brand that Elvis rejected. Also, the headphones would not only take patches of hair every time you took them off...they would hurt your ears when you slapped 'em on. The monitor speaker went through several repairs during those days. I often parked my car near the front door to use its speaker as a monitor. The only thing that worked properly were the phone lights to let you know someone was either calling in a request or another employee letting you know the mic switch was left open during the last record!
You also had to carry some coins to put on the turntable arms or find a good boat anchor! All music was carried in an AP teletype box along with news copy from the day shift since there wasn't a teletype at the transmitter site. Cue burns were common on all records. Songs like "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack got butchered by those tone arms! Edwin Starr's "War" was burned so bad you had to pot it up at "Absolutely nothing", which is the second verse.
It was great having no one around to interrupt you except for the occasional snake that would get in. In the summer, it got so hot you had to leave the front and back doors open. In the winter, you could close one of the doors. Even snow melted within 20 feet of the transmitter building! My FCC ticket was proudly hung near the transmitter. No wonder it was dried out and cracked when I took it out of it's frame!
When WLIK started carrying UT football and basketball I got to do nights from the main studio. Shortly thereafter, the FCC relaxed the rules and I did my gig from the studio on the hill overlooking the Newport Drive-in Theatre. It was silent movies and loud rock 'n roll. But, that is for another story in the future!
Looking back, with all it's faults, those nights were great! Radio was fun. The music was great! As Billboard once reported, small market radio was the backbone of the industry and I am proud to have been a part of it when AM was king!
Thanks 101 for all the wonderful memories.
Bill Beason aka Buzz Dailey