I was born in a great Radio Town; Jacksonville Florida. So it was only natural that I joined WUSC (AM at the time) in my first semester 1963. I went on to a career in commercial radio and television in Columbia, WCOS AM & FM, WIS-TV, WIS Radio, SCETV and PBS. I'm retired now, giving back since 2010 to the station that started my career, WUSC-FM. If you did the math you will know that I celebrated the 60th anniversary of my first radio show ever in November 2023.
Making SC Broadcast History Just five days later, the Ikegami HL-35 would be back in the headlines. WIS-TV was in a race to be the first to use the camera dubbed the “Mini-Cam” with another SC Broadcaster live in a newscast. We had received our camera first and had it and all the required equipment ...
Shooting News Video For The First Time November 12, 1975, is the date that it all started to change. On that date, WIS-TV received a delivery of one of the first shoulder-mounted video cameras to arrive in SC: an Ikegami HL-35. Short aside: HL stood for Handee Lookee; I kid you not. It ...
Getting Up In This World When people find out that I worked at WIS, I often get asked if I have ever climbed their towers. The answer is yes, both of them; the 400’ self supporting triangular tower with a 30 ‘ base at the studio downtown and the 1,200’ Tall Tower at the transmitter site in Kershaw ...
Midnight Studio Creeps In the summer of 1974, I was again working the overnight shift at WIS TV. My task that week was to wire in a new microphone panel in the new studio we were building. This studio would be used for larger productions such as a taping of a ballet by Sidney Palmer, one of our producer/directors, ...
Snow and Empty Studios In early 1973, Studio Engineering Supervisor Tom Bradford decided to split up the maintenance responsibilities in the studio. While each of us could repair anything that broke down during our regular shifts, each of us was assigned a set of equipment to manage overall. This was ...
Television Takes A Village Up until the day I walked into WIS TV, doing a live broadcast was a solo act or at the most a two-person team; DJ and board operator or DJ and Newscaster. The same was true in television during network hours when the switcher and engineer handled the station breaks. But broadcasting ...
And The Walls Came Tumblin’ Down It was a clear cool Sunday morning, November 21, 1971, just four days until Thanksgiving. I was working the morning shift as the engineer on duty along with Bill Roehl, the only other person in the station, operating the Master Control Switcher. There was a cinematographer ...
Television is Different When I walked into WIS-TV’s Studio Facilities I recognized two old friends, Master Control sported a Gates board almost identical to the one we had at WUSC. The other audio board down in the production suite was also an old friend of the Altec knockoff the WUSC had of the ...
On to Television When I was just a tyke, I had an interest in everything electronic. If I came across some abandoned electronic device, I’d take it apart to see the components. This was before the days of circuit boards and underneath the metal plates upon which the tubes were mounted, I discovered ...
Let’s Get The News GuyWCOS, like many Top 40 stations in small and medium-sized markets did not have a dedicated news department. Each DJ read the news at 5 minutes until the hour and a half past the hour that the Associated Press wire service provided via a teletype machine (TTY). At about 15 minutes ...
