[BC] Weirdo dials /was/ ABC Network in the wired days

[Rob Atkinson]

when I was around 12, and one of those oddball kids who went to radio 
stations to ask obnoxious questions, this other kid and I got on the train 
and somehow (don't remember what we did) made it to west bradley place and 
got into WGN.
this would never happen today.  Today, our mom's would be called, and we'd 
be turned over to DCFS.

but anyway, we got a look at the morning studio among other things, 
(Phillips wasn't there to our disappointment) from behind the glass of the 
control room, which was up to one side looking down into the studio.  A guy 
in there worked the board, one of the old kinds with nice big VU meters and 
pot knobs as big around as baseballs.  It was nicely beat up too i noted.
In the studio a guy wearing a white shirt and black tie and headphones sat 
off to one side from the talent (roy leonard inverviewing henry fonda) and 
played everything that wasn't live on a stand alone turntable.  I assumed 
this was the fellow who handled the voice bits for Phillips.  no sign of 
carts, or reel to reel anywhere.  The guy at the board told us everything 
(spots) got put onto disks.

don't hold me to this but I am somehow under the impression that the 
recorded voice bits were somewhat random (not planned in advance for 
example) and W.P. simply went with wherever the needle dropped.    He was 
fast enough on the rebound to be able to go with whatever happened.  the 
radio studios were cavernous.   and quiet.  they were not "booths."

I also recall we got to see TV (the bozo's circus studio was one thing I 
remember,  where we learned for the first time that everything looks bigger 
than life on TV).

rob atkinson

From: Alan Kline <akline at netins.net>
Reply-To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Subject: Re: [BC] Weirdo dials /was/ ABC Network in the wired days
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 00:07:03 -0500 (CDT)

Wow...

As a faithful listener of Wally's for many years, starting in junior high
(I was the weird kid who didn't listen to WLS...) that just seems to
unreal to believe that those bits came off disks.  It's hard enough to
envision a board engineer loading carts in a flash to play those bits.
Those guys on the board earned their bucks--I can't remember any kind of
error in playing those bits, or anything else for that matter...Bob
Collins had enough fluffs reading live copy to make up for it!  (RIP,
Uncle Bobby...)

Wonder if any of those ET's are still kicking around somewhere inside
Tribune Tower?

And I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that, AFAIK, WGN was
among the last stations to employ record-turners under an AFM contract?
Or would ET's have been played by the engineer?



ak

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005, Scott Fybush wrote:

 > At 10:49 PM 7/13/2005 +0000, you wrote:
 > >i have news for you Al, up into the 1980s WGN was cutting transcription
 > >disks because Wally Phillips's show used them (that was how they 
inserted
 > >the little voiced sound bites he would ad lib with which were his
 > >trademark, in a day before PCs with MP3 files on hard disks).  He 
brought
 > >in so much revenue they didn't mind spending the money on it, which was 
a lot.
 > >
 > >Rob Atkinson
 >
 > The cutting lathes are still stored - in very nice condition - in the
 > basement of the transmitter site. See 'em about halfway down the page 
here:
 >
 > http://www.fybush.com/sites/2004/site-040101.html
 >
 > s
 >
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > This is the BROADCAST mailing list
 > To send to the list, email: broadcast at radiolists.net
 > For sub changes, archives and info on this other lists: 
http://www.radiolists.net/
 >


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