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.
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 ...
Some Old Radio Gear This chapter is about some radio gear that was commonly used in the 60s but is rarely seen in radio control rooms today. These machines were the bridge between reel-to-reel tape machines and vinyl records and the computer-based audio files we use today. We’ll take them in chronological ...
The End of the Cruzin’ Era April 4, 1968, was a typical Thursday, but the world changed that day. I had distributed the paper copies of the WCOS Top 40, no longer the “Top 60 in Dixie” to the record and drug stores where they were ready to be picked up. I spent a few extra minutes talking shop ...
Friends and Competitors In 1965, besides WUSC the USC operated Carrier Current station on 730, there were only 6 AM stations in Columbia; WIS – 560 (Middle of the Road), WCAY 620 (Country), WNOK 1230 (Top 40), WOIC 1320 (R&B), WCOS 1400 (Top 40) and WQXL 1470 (CountryPolitan.) Two of those; WCAY ...
