How did you get your start in radio? 101 wants to hear from you! Here's Carson Cooper...WATO was the first station I ever worked for. I grew up right next to it and – as a kid in the '60s -- used to have nightmares about those towers falling on my house. The equipment inside when I worked there (mid-late 70s) included several Gates Yard 80 boards and some really sweet sounding RCA ribbon mics. The transmitter (Harris, I believe) had "hand cranks" to make phase adjustments (three tower array) for the night pattern.
When I was around fifteen I begged for a job there: I went from emptying garbage cans and cleaning out the coffee machine (yuck) to board op for Atlanta Braves (on WATO-FM, later WUUU) to part-time news anchor on AM before James Freeman (now in TV in Knoxville) hired me away to WBIR-FM during the final months of the country format.