Birthdays you don't forget

Today would have been my mother's 97th birthday. That is - if she was still alive, she'd be turning 97 today. But that wasn't meant to happen. My mom died in September of 1980 just two weeks before her 66th birthday. That was 31 years ago this month.

11,000 Visitors Expected in Mexico

The 10th Annual Walk Back in Time was expected to bring as many as 11,000 visitors to Mexico this weekend.

Photo coverage of Walk Back in Time and the renovated Simmons Stables click here.

In a Climate of Competition - The Short Lived Central Missouri Radio Association

In the early 90s our Program Director, Chuck Thomas, heard about a group of radio men that met on a quarterly basis to discuss almost all things radio at The Hub Cafe in Ashland.

It was the Central Missouri Radio Association. We got an invite to join them, and for a couple of years, either Chuck or me would try to attend the informal meetings. We weren't full members, since we weren't located in Columbia or Jefferson City, but associate members. If the group voted to do something, Chuck and I couldn't vote.

In a very competitive time for small market radio it was an interesting group with an interesting idea. I'm not sure who had the idea to start the group, but at one time it included:

Tom Theis, GM at KTXY working for Brill Media.
Frank Newell, GM and Owner at KJMO
Dave Baugher, Al Germond and John Ott from Premier in Columbus, associated with KPLA and KFRU.
Chuck Thomas, PD, Gary Leonard, GM, KWWR
Richard Hauschild, GM, KFMZ
Don Lynch, GM, KCLR

One thing we all had in common was a real passion for radio. It wasn't just a job, wasn't just a source of income - it was RADIO.

The idea of the group was how to promote radio as a primary advertising medium - mainly as a way to take advertising dollars away from newspapers At the time newspapers around the region had a much larger percentage of the available advertising dollars from businesses and retailers - and the idea was to work together to promote radio over newspapers and increase sales.

There were a few areas that the group did not discuss - ad rates for the radio ads - to avoid any image of getting together to set a going rate for the market and avoiding anything that might be considered a trade secret - like the type of processing used, length of commercial breaks, specific sales techniques and practices, etc.

In a market climate where radio not only competed with other radio stations for listeners and advertising dollars, there were many competitors that weren't radio stations, too - newspapers, yellow pages, billboards, etc.

Each GM had a unique personality - since most had been in radio for a while either starting in sales or sometimes on air, sales and then management. Generally, Tom Theis from KTXY didn't like any idea the group came up with. Frank Newell, Dave Baugher, Richard Hauschild and Don Lynch were fairly even keeled - with opinions voiced for and against certain ideas. And because KWWR was an associate member, Chuck and I remained fairly quiet compared to the rest of the group.

Most states had state broadcasting organizations, like The Missouri Broadcasters Association, where as an industry ideas and projects could be explored to further advance radio and TV. But I'll bet there were very few organizations like the Central Missouri Radio Association.

In later years, with deregulation and two main groups controlling all of the stations in Columbia and Jefferson City, the Central Missouri Radio Association soon faded away.

But when our tower was taken down by storms in August of 2000, Frank Newell with KJMO and the Zimmer Group, (KTXY/KCLR) were quick to offer us assistance to get back on the air. They were willing to loan us any spare coaxial cable or microwave dishes that we needed to get KWWR back on the air.

In the 90s, Dave Baugher and Al Germond made an offer to Anne Johnson, the owner of KWWR, to buy KWWR for 1.9 million dollars. Jerry had a passion for radio, but Anne wasn't interested in giving up local ownership.

By the turn of the century and after, Cumulus would buy the Premier stations, and Zimmer would buy most of the other stations in the market.

Local ownership of small market stations was disappearing quickly. But not at KWWR. In retrospect, retaining local ownership was not the best course of action - for either our employees - or the Mexico business community. But it's been said that hindsight is 20-20.

So it goes.

Time for New Tape Decks

The entire music library for KWWR and KXEO was on 10" reel to reel tapes as we were doing upgrades to the transmission systems of both stations. But state of the art processing for both KWWR and KXEO, pointed out that we needed some new reel to reel tape decks badly.

Both Harris System 90s had 3 different brands of reel to reel tape decks in the early 80s. Once we went 24 hours a day on both  KWWR and KXEO, some of the older tape decks didn't last very long.

Fortunately both systems had at least a few ITC-750 reel to reel playback machines. They were great tape decks - all of the electronics was in one central housing on the back of the deck, the head was easily accessible under a flip up door on the front. And replacing other parts as they wore out, like brakes for the take up and supply reels was very convenient on the 750s.

Dick Wagner with Concept had heard of a station that had gone through a fire - and although the tape decks only received minor smoke damage - that station was selling 6 or 7 ITC-750s/770s for about half the cost of new ones. We were able to replace ALL of the aging reel to reel decks for both KWWR and KXEO with the ITC tape decks, making head alignment, cleaning and other repair work standardized among of the reel to reel tape machines. Parts were readily available and we brought all of our tapes decks up to new specifications in the early 80s.

That was a major improvement for both KWWR and KXEO.

But another problem created by broadcasting 24 hours a day was the reel to reel tape heads would wear out in several months, requiring replacement at a cost of a few hundred dollars each time for each deck.

Jerry thought there had to be a better way to keep them up to date than complete head replacement every few months -  and he was right. I checked into it and found Nortronics made a tape head relapping kit. So when the tape heads were worn down by the constant playing of tapes, they could be relapped 2 or 3 times instead of being replaced. The relapping kit cost a couple of hundred dollars, but being able to relap the heads meant getting up to a year or more out of each head. The Nortronics relapping kit used several different densities of abrasive paper, to take the flat and worn spot off a tape head and return the head to near new specifications. It was a manual process requiring just a bit of finesse!

The head on the left has been relapped.
The head on the right shows the flat area
produced by playing the tapes 24/7.

So how did we know when it was time to relap a tape head? Easy - the high frequency sound response of the tape deck would start to drop dramatically - so I could hear when a head needed relapping. But that wasn't a very good system either, because it allowed the music on a particular tape deck to sound muffled before relapping a head. So I instituted a regular maintenance program to inspect the tape deck heads every month, and if I saw signs of wear on the head, I knew it was time for relapping.

State of the art audio processing AND state of the art tape decks in the 80s for both KWWR and KXEO made us sound dramatically better than other stations in the area.

But the end of life for both The Harris System 90 AND the reel to reel tape decks was inevitable, as new technologies came along after the invention and widespread use of the Personal Computer.

The pay wasn't great and I knew I'd never get rich working in small market radio, but being able to embrace new technology was extremely rewarding and produced an FM radio station and an AM radio station in the small market of Mexico, Missouri, that I could be extremely proud of.

So it goes.

We Tried to Not Leave AM Behind

Starting in 1978, nearly all of the station resources and upgrades were going to the FM side, KWWR. But we tried to not leave KXEO entirely out of the picture.

In an earlier post I talked about replacing the ground system for the AM antenna system in 1983 We did that after I found some of the ground radials from the original 1948 tower were disintegrating in the ground. While that did help the KXEO signal, it still wasn't as good as it could be.

The FM got an Optimod 8100A FM processor early in the 80s, a big step up from the processing that dated back to 1966. Orban began marketing the 8100A in 1980 - and it would later become the most popular FM processor in the word.  Two years later Orban unveiled the 9100A for AM, and  KXEO also got updated processing, an Optimod 9100 AM. State of the art processing greatly improved the sound quality of both KWWR and KXEO.

The 400' tower at the studio location was installed in 1966 for KWWR, but that meant the old self supporting 180' tower used by KXEO would have to come down. The new tower was designed to have the FM antenna bays at the top, and use the lower portion of the tower itself as the AM antenna.

Using what's called a bazooka, the 400' tower was connected to electrical ground at a point about 180' from the the ground. By using components to keep that part of  tower isolated from the FM and other equipment on it, allowed the station to use the lower 180' as an AM antenna. The main problem with that is, not only keeping the AM signal entirely out of the FM signal, but a 400' tall tower is larger than 1/4 wavelength electrically (which is what AM requires) so it was an inefficient AM antenna.

The tower also had electricity to feed the tower lights and heaters on the FM antenna for use during icy conditions. While the tower lights ran on 120 VAC, the heaters needed 240 VAC. Keeping that isolated from the AM signal, and keeping the AM signal isolated from that was a marvel itself.

In the late 80s I had read about a new folded unipole AM antenna produced by Nott Ltd. in New Mexico. The Nott system used tower standoffs and copper wire for radiators on the outside of the FM tower structure. The tower itself could then be grounded and KXEO would have a much better AM antenna, particular in terms of RF bandwidth, than the series fed taller structure. The Nott antenna was 180' in length - the perfect 1/4 wavelength electrically needed for the AM.

The Nott folded unipole antenna was a major improvement in the KXEO signal for the Mexico area. But it wasn't the kind of thing you promoted on the air so most people never knew we did that.

In August of 2000 a strong storm brought the 400' crashing to the ground. By then the FM was transmitting from the 1200' tower at Centralia - so 400' was no longer needed. We replaced the destroyed tower with a 200' tower. It, too, got a brand new Nott folded unipole antenna put on it and a microwave dish at 200' to feed the FM signal to the transmitter and tower in Centralia.

With the new ground system in 1983, and the Nott folded unipole antenna a few years later, KXEO got its first physical AM antenna/transmission system upgrade.

So not only was KWWR state of the art, we had brought the little 1 kilowatt KXEO up to state of the art as well.

Today there are probably still numerous small market AM/FM combos with rotting ground systems and inefficient AM antennas - but it was great to get KXEO up to state of the art for the time.

Too bad that most people were only listening to the FM, including the station owner.

KXEO actually sounded better than a lot of FM stations after those upgrades.

So it goes.

Theater of the Mind +1

Radio has been called theater of the mind - it can take you places that don't exist by painting an audio canvas as real and as down to earth as a Norman Rockwell painting.

In 1980, Bart McLendon created a 50 hour fantasy country concert - Kenny Rogers' First Annual Hickory Creek Reunion. In almost all of the promos for the broadcast it was billed as "The Greatest Country Concert That Could Never Happen." It was only on the radio and nowhere else. Hickory Creek didn't exist, and the dozens and dozens of past and current country artists who performed "live" weren't really in a Woodstock type setting from 6 PM Friday until midnight Sunday but it sure sounded like they were.

The program sounded like it was actually happening - the announcers talked about folks having parking problems, artists arriving late, restroom breakdowns and more. There were outdoor sound effects to add to the illusion - and all of the country songs featured had crowd noise mixed in like a live concert.

They were all there:  Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Charlie Pride, Marty Robbins, Hank Williams Junior, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Alabama, Ronnie Milsap, The Oak Ridge Boys, Don Williams, TG Sheppard, Roy Clark, Buck Owens, Ed Bruce, Johnny Cash ....woohoo, I know I'm not listing every artist.... but they literally had every country artist past and present performing live on the stages of The Hickory Creek Reunion. And there were multiple stages.

It was an awesome program. KWWR promoted the broadcast heavily leading up to to it. We had people calling for tickets and location information - but it was the greatest country concert that could never happen.

The program came on 10" reels of tape - so for 50 hours of programming - that was 50 reels of tape. The tape deck in the main studio had never had that kind of continuous workout before. We had to prop it up and put a fan behind it to keep the take-up and supply motors working.

The playback heads on the tape deck had to be cleaned with cotton swabs and alcohol every so often, or the broadcast would start sounding muffled.

Amazingly the broadcast went on the air great - no major problems, aside from the fantasy parking problems created by those hosting the greatest country concert that could never happen.

We even had calls from the Missouri State Highway Patrol asking about the location of The Hickory Creek Reunion. Once we explained what was actually happening they were relieved.

I don't recall KWWR getting many complaints about the broadcast being a fantasy - but we did hear from lots of listeners who wanted to be there and "see" The Hickory Creek Reunion.

Looking back, it was one of those once in a lifetime type of things - but none of us realized it at the time.

Theater of the Mind, Extraordinaire!

So it goes.

Concept Productions

In an earlier post I talked about the BMI music service on 10 inch reel to reel tapes and the Harris System 90. The big drawback to the BMI music service, was the fact the announcer's voice tracks were recorded with the songs. So every time a song played, the same voice track played. On a system with only 5 reel to reel tape decks, some of the same songs played repeatedly in a week's time - and that meant the exact same voice track played repeatedly in a week's time.

Then Jerry heard about a new automation music service near Sacramento, California. This system used major market air talent for the voice tracks and laid down a 4 digit code between each song or voice track. The 4 digit code did NOT play on the air, it was in between the end of one track and the beginning of the next. At least it wasn't SUPPOSED to play on the air. The system had a controller hooked to 3 reel to reel tape decks.

Each hour was formatted with a certain number of current, recurrent and gold country songs and there was a printed music log that listed the songs and artists for a week at a time.

The way the system worked - the announcer voice track was coded to match either the current or gold country song in each 15 minute segment. The codes had to match between the voice track and the song, or the Concept controller would engage a relay and not let the voice track play until somebody got the codes lined up again.

So the announcers had a daily 3 or 4 hour radio show - complete with artist information, date relevant trivia - as each voice track only played once at a specific time of day according to the format, and some of the announcers used sound effects and comedy bits to liven things up. They would also record CUSTOM liners once a week to be interspersed during music without a voice track - and these had local market information about specific community events, sports teams, meetings, etc.

It was really a unique system - at a time when all of the big automation music service companies only had "canned" voice tracks recorded with the music. Former Fresno, California PD Dick Wagner was the head of Concept Productions. It was a small automation music service compared to some of the big guys like TM, Century 21, Drake-Chenault and Bonneville. But it was the only service that offered real localized major market voice tracking for any size market via the Concept coding system.

Current song tapes were changed weekly - so the top 40 or so country hits wouldn't play in the same order from week to week. Recurrents were updated monthly to keep them fresh, and the gold tapes were updated occasionally. The gold library had maybe 30 or 40 10" reels of tape, so it was a pretty good variety and didn't get repetitive.

I learned about stereo phasing about this time - where the tape playback head needs to be lined up perfectly perpendicular with the tape, or you'd get phasing problems. When you combined the left and right audio for a mono sum channel - errors in phasing would become apparent because the mono sum would be muffled compared the the stereo mix. This was important in the 80s, because not all radios were stereo - and the music had to sound good in stereo or mono or the listener would hear songs with no high frequency material, like cymbals or high notes, if they weren't listening in stereo and the phasing on a tape deck was off slightly.

Phasing was challenging, because the tape heads when the tape was recorded and the tape heads when the tape was played back had to be aligned alike, or the phasing was off. At some point I began to notice that some tapes from Concept had phasing problems and I would get on the phone and call Dick Wagner. We talked about using test tapes to get the stereo phasing matched up - and he'd re-align tape heads at the recording end, while I'd re-align tape heads at the playback end.

I'll bet Dick Wagner got tired of hearing from me in the 80s - because every time we'd receive a tape with phasing errors, I would be on the phone to let him know it wasn't right. They would cut a new tape and we'd be OK again for a while. He eventually found he had some recording machines that stayed in alignment better than others, so the tapes for KWWR were produced on specific tape decks on his end.

KWWR purchased the same tape alignment test tapes that Concept was using, so by hooking up an oscilloscope to the left and right channels, playing some test tones of 10, 12 or 15 khz, the phasing alignment could be calibrated. But hooking up a scope was pretty inconvenient. Fortunately the System 90 had a mono sum channel so phasing could be checked by listening to a tape pretty quick. The System 90 also had a single VU  meter to aid in aligning tape deck levels and phasing.

I think this is where my tinnitus got its start. I regularly used the 10-15 khz test tapes to check the alignment of our decks. Sometimes I'd just plug a set of headphones directly into the tape deck and I could hear when the alignment peak was at maximum to get phasing just right. But this was also playing 10-15 khz tones in headphones at a much too high volume level. By 1990 I noticed the ringing in my ears never went away and it gradually got worse. Tinnitus is somewhat subjective - each person with tinnitus may hear slightly different sounds.  Some people hear crickets, some people hear birds chirping, and I heard 10-15 khz test tones non-stop day and night. The tinnitus is annoying and through the years since I first noticed tinnitus I have avoided loud sounds like concerts, fireworks or other extremely loud sources - or I made sure I had ear plugs to protect my ears. But I digress - as I often do, so let's get back to Concept Productions.

The system was simply amazing. Each announcer had a daily shift. People in this area thought the announcers actually worked at KWWR. Joey Michaels did 5-10 AM, Mike Rogers 10 AM - 3 PM, Gary Alan 3-8 PM, JT Bear 8 PM to 1 AM and Alan Gentry 1 AM to 5 AM.

And they had major market personality. Joey Michaels was a small guy with a big voice, and liked to call himself Magnum PeeWee (after the TV show Magnum P.I. which was popular at the time). As a sound effect with some jokes, he used a bicycle horn that sounded amazingly like the station's Bids for Bargains horn.

Mike Rogers ended each air shift with a unique way to say goodbye - "Well the boss is going to unchain my left leg from the turntable so I can toddle on out and terrorize the town."

JT Bear told jokes frequently that would border on being off color - but they always stayed family friendly. There was a short segment not for on air use before each days air shift. I remember JT Bear once commenting that he could be dead for two weeks but still be heard on dozens of radio stations.

After a few months, we hooked up a reel to reel recording deck with a 25 Hz generator  (25 Hz was the End of Message cue to signal the automation it was the end of a song or voice track). First, I took over the 3-8 PM daily shift. So after Joey Michaels and Mike Rogers each day - it would be Gary Leonard on KWWR. Since I actually was local, my voice tracks were more localized than the Concept announcers and the illusion of having a major market staff sounded great on the air. We couldn't use the 4 digit code in between voice tracks to keep everything matched up, so it was up to the on-air person in the studio to make sure the voice tracks and music tapes stayed in sync.

One weekday afternoon the station actually received a phone call from David Allan Coe. He was traveling by bus on Interstate 70 and had been listening to KWWR for a couple of hours. He said it was refreshing to hear our announcers talk about life and country music - when many smaller markets had canned music services. I even recorded a short interview with him and played a couple of his songs that day around the interview, with him introducing the songs. But I didn't have the heart to tell him we were automated, too.

Eventually local  announcers took over air shifts, so we had Chuck Thomas from 5-10 AM, Brian Gann (who had a heavenly set of deep pipes for a voice) from 10-3, Me from 3-8 and Greg Holman from 8 PM to 1 AM.  We kept Alan Gentry on the overnight voice tracks up until After Midnite with Blair Garner debuted in 1993 to fill the midnight -  6 AM time slot. Thanks to Chuck Thomas and satellite delivery, KWWR was there from the start with After Midnite.

Local voice tracking was done on a daily basis, so a DJ would come in 40-60 minutes ahead of his on air time, and record voice tracks for that day.

Dick Wagner had a subscribing station about 30 minutes outside Louisville, Kentucky with a Harris System 90 that frequently wasn't running like it should. The station was threatening to drop Concept Productions unless a solution could be found. Dick asked if I'd fly to Louisville some weekend to get their System 90 straightened out - he'd pick up the tab for the air fare, the hotel and I'd make $600 to boot as a consulting engineer. So I flew out of St. Louis on a Saturday afternoon and would return Sunday afternoon.

As I've talked about here, the System 90 had a problem with integrated circuit sockets that regularly needed "massaging". So I spent a few hours near Louisville "massaging the sockets", replacing a few bad ICs and getting their System 90 back in to top shape. His station there was happy, Dick was happy, and I was happy.

When I got to the airport in Louisville to fly back to St. Louis that Sunday morning, the airport in St. Louis was fogged in. So my 45 minute flight was delayed about 5 hours until the fog lifted back in St. Louis lifted. One highlight of being stuck in the Louisville airport was I noticed the Smothers Brothers - who apparently were also stuck at the airport for a while. I didn't try to approach Tom and Dick Smothers, they looked like a couple of every day people stuck in an airport, but it was pretty neat watching them hang out at the airport.

Back home, KWWR sounded like a million bucks and radio was fun, like it's supposed to be. That was an amazing time to be in small market radio.

So it goes.

Carol of the Bell

Through the 70s and 80s AM and FM stations were constantly looking for new ways to maximize their signal on the dial - making your station stand out above the rest of the stations on the dial. The most common competition among stations and their processing was to be the loudest on the dial.

For some stations, there was also something behind the scenes that slightly affected the loudness of the main FM signal. That's the use of FM subcarriers for subscription services.

How the FM bandwidth of one radio station can be used.

At KWWR, we not only tried to maximize the sound of Country 96, but we were also using the FM subcarriers for subscription services. That made being loud a challenge, since each subcarrier used a portion of the total modulation allowed by the FCC.

Background music, piped in music, elevator music or Muzak were common names for one use of the first FM subcarrier at 67 khz. Using special receivers, that service could be sold to retailers, businesses, industry and restaurants for background music.

Not every market had someone utilizing the FM subcarriers but quite a few did.  In Mexico we used 67 khz for background music and 92 khz for contemporary music. When the 1000' tower was constructed, a 3rd subcarrrier was used to transmit control data from the studios to the transmitter building using 110 khz. While the first two produced revenue, the third was just for our private use.

In our part of Missouri, FM subcarriers were being used for subscription services on KJFF in Jefferson City (which later became KTXY), KWWR in Mexico, KRXL in Kirksville and WIL in St. Louis. Public Radio stations, like KBIA, at colleges and universities frequently used 67 khz to transmit reading services for the blind.

In Jefferson City, the subcarrier of KJFF was tested for use as a way to distribute The Missouri Network (instead of phone lines). But that didn't prove viable and The Missouri Network eventually went to satellite delivery. We had a test receiver for a while in the basement. It was very interesting to hear Bob Priddy and his unique voice in full clarity on the FM subcarrier, while the feed on the phone lines sounded tinny by comparison.

In Mexico, the original 67 khz subcarrier was fed by a cabinet filled with cartridge tape machines and timers that sat in the central office area on the main floor. The timers would rotate the tapes so the same songs wouldn't play at the same time or in the same order all the time.

On one excursion into First National Bank in Mexico, several of the tellers asked me if I could get the background music guy to change a particular tape. There was a song that played every day around 2 PM that the tellers eventually found annoying, and in the bank that day, they pointed to the speakers in the ceiling and said, "That song!". So when I got back to the station I said something to the guy who handled the background music and he said he had forgotten to rotate the tapes in recent weeks. He made some changes, so hopefully that one song quit playing at 2 PM every day.

That particular guy was eventually replaced by the owner's son and the owner's son grew the company from those two music subscription services and expanded into drive-thru systems for fast food restaurants and security video for businesses. Quite a few years back, the background music company separated from the radio station - and with small satellite dishes becoming common - the FM subcarriers were no longer used for subscription services.

To show how the background music company grew - subcarriers were also leased by us in Kirksville, Eldon, Boonville and Carrollton  for subscription music services beginning in the 80s. As the engineer for the station, I was involved in setting up not only the first 11 foot dish for receiving the background music feeds in Mexico, but also installed a satellite dish at KRXL and involved in upgrading some equipment in Eldon for the subscription channels there. At Boonville, KWWR was used as the distribution path to get the subscription music services to the station for their subcarriers.

For stations that used subcarriers for subscription services - you had to be careful when you took the FM station down for maintenance - since that also affected all of the background music service customers. In Mexico the background music company would get some service calls for the subscription service going to static late at night a few times in the 80s as we experimented with different processing to maximize Country 96.

And now I come to the title of this post - Carol of the Bell.

In the 80s, we did an on air auction every February called Bids for Bargains. It ran from 5-6 PM weekdays all during February.  Businesses would give the station merchandise and in return get an advertising schedule for the value of the merchandise. The station would then auction off the merchandise on the air to the highest bidder and it helped make February a profitable month - where in the past the FM advertising part of the business got extremely slow that time of year.

The entire staff participated in Bids for Bargains - some of the on air staff, the sales staff and office staff all joined forces for the daily broadcast and to man the phones for bidders calling in. We tried to make Bids for Bargains entertaining, while trying to make money for the station, so at times it sounded like a morning radio show. There were also a couple of things used as a special audio signal for listeners. A bicycle type horn was honked every time an item sold. And we had "instant bargains" - like restaurant dining out certificates - that we signaled for listeneers by ringing a small silver bell.

It wasn't long before the background music company was getting phone calls about a bell sound on the background music every day between 5 and 6 PM, as the main channel was bleeding over into the 67 khz subcarrier every time we rang the bell.

We worked with McMartin Industries, who manufactured the receivers for the background music feed to find  out how to keep the bell out of the background music channel.

Not only was I involved in my regular daily duties at the station, I also became a key part of the daily Bids for Bargains broadcast - AND had to work with the background music company to keep the bell from interfering with their customers.

So working at KWWR during the 80s was far from just being a disc jockey. We had our hands full for a while.

Man, that WAS radio!

So it goes.

What Was "State of the Art"?

When I started in radio, every time a station upgraded some major piece of equipment, you'd start airing promos about how your station had the latest state of the art in (fill in the blank). So what qualified as a "state of the art" upgrade that got promoted on air?

I came to Mexico in 1978 and quickly moved from working the evening shift, 4 PM - Midnight, to a day time shift with responsibility, 8 AM to 5 PM, as Program Director. I subscribed to every free trade publication I could find. They had names like Broadcasting, Radio World, Behind the Mic, and there were many others. The publication's producers's sold advertising in the magazine or tabloid to national brands, people in the radio industry wrote the articles and the publications were provided free of charge to working professionals in radio.

The articles ran the gamut of a radio station, from the latest technology in audio consoles, to turntables, headphones, microphones, transmitters and processing. Processing was the last audio amplifier/controller in the air chain before the transmitter - and controlled things like peak volume on your audio, boosting the low end frequency response and adding to the high frequency end end, too. I had ideas on how to improve the quality of our radio signal - not spend a boat load of money - and have state of the art equipment. Jerry Johnson was great to work for in that respect, if I could present my case of how much better the station would be to get a new (fill in the blank), then he was very receptive to replacing some of the outdated equipment.

In the early days of radio, the industry came with standards and specifications. Some were designed to provide the best quality product to the listener, some were designed to meet FCC regulations for keeping your signal contained to where it should be on the radio dial.

Loudness and frequency response had FCC regulations - that meant to a station that meeting those guidelines you could sound very good - or not coming up to those guidelines - not sound as good as the competition.

Small, medium and major radio markets had loudness wars in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Whoever could get the latest processing technology would sound better and and have that signal "jump out at you" on the radio dial. Those with outdated processing sounded weak by comparison..

In all markets, what your station used for processing was usually kept secret - so the competition couldn't go out and buy the same processing equipment and suddenly sound just as good as you did.

In 1978, it was like no one at the station had really cared to keep up with "state of the art" in the entire broadcast chain. And it must have been like that in most small markets - any profits went into the pockets of the owners while the staff had to make do with the equipment they had until the equipment died.

In an earlier post I talked about replacing the audio consoles in the studios. That was a major upgrade for the station in 1983/84 and required ripping out all of the old audio wiring and replacing it with new audio wiring inside conduits made for the electricity. At that point, the station got "state of the art" audio consoles.

Electro Voice 666 Studio Mic - still in use as studio mics until the
early 80s at the station in Mexco

The microphones in use when I started had also been around a while. They were made by ElectroVoice and had been state of the art in the 50s. It was time to replace those, too.

The first replacements were Sennheiser 421s:

Sennheiser 421 - good but shallow on the bass end

The processing being used dated back to the 60s and had equipment with names like Volumax and Audimax, made by CBS. But by 1978, during broadcasts of things like a high school football game, you could hear the crowd noise moving back and forth from left to right and right to left because the air chain had not been kept up to specifications. You may say, "OK", as you read that statement about crowd noise moving back and forth. But if you listened to a broadcast in stereo, it could actually make you nauseous by the constant movement of the sound back and forth - that was called platform motion. As equipment aged, something for the right channel may have changed audio characteristics sooner than the same equipment for the left channel.

The equipment back then was basically designed for AM and a single audio channel, then adapted for FM, which brought left and right stereo to the listener. So depending on the equipment and the station, the right channel could sound quite a bit different from the left channel.

New equipment designed just for FM stereo, treated the left and right channel audio identically and created stations that seemed to blast out of the radio as you tuned past them.

I was not only there for some major upgrades to state of the art equipment, I was also the impetus behind those upgrades for KWWR and KXEO.

From new microphones, tape machines, turntables, audio processing and everything that affected how a station sounded on the air - I was keeping up with the latest trends and tried to get older equipment replaced.
Jerry was OK with that, because he saw it as a way the station could grow and make more money - if we were the best sounding radio station in the area.

So the early 80s were a time of change for KWWR and KXEO. And I was there at ground zero. I had no idea at the time what we were accomplishing in terms of the industry. I had the attitude of why wouldn't ANY station want the latest state of the art equipment to sound best on the radio dial? It wasn't until much later I discovered that wasn't always the case at other small market stations and it made the Mexico radio stations very unique in the 80s.

More to come - stay tuned.

So it goes.

The Big Day

I've been nervous about our public auction coming up Sunday afternoon. Saturday night I think I found out why  I've been nervous.

Among items we're selling is my 388 Classic Rock Album collection. Anytime I had $10 in the 70s I was buying albums. Saturday night I went downtown to the Sticky Wicket building, hooked up the old Kenwood receiver, fired up the Denon direct drive turntable, all playing through a small set of Radio Shack speakers and listened to a few dozen records.

The music sounded pure. A few songs didn't sound quite like I remembered them sounding - but that was OK - they were all good.

Gregg Allman's album Laid Back. Classic southern rock with a hint of jazz. Robin Trower and Bridge of Sighs - exceptional guitar work. Phoenix by Wishbone Ash - saw them live Thanksgiving night around 1975 at Kiel Auditorium.

Grinderswitch - I think KSHE  may have been one of the few radio stations playing Grinderswitch, but the lean, mean vocals of Dru Lombar and the organ work of Paul Hornsby brought back some great memories of seeing Grinderswitch live at The Granary in Edwardsville, Illinois. A real farm building that had been elegantly converted into a nightclub.  It was a hot summer night and the band was on fire. Tight surroundings. Cozy. If you walked up the stairs you could be just a few feet from the band. Peach County Jamboree and Kiss The Blues Goodbye sounded awesome on that nearly 40 year old vinyl. Just like seeing the band at The Granary.

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. Featuring JD Souther from the Eagles, Chris Hillman from the Byrds and Richie Furay from Poco along with Jim Gordon on drums, Paul Harris on keyboards, and Al Perkins on steel guitar. Fallin' in Love and Heavenly Fire were a nice reminder of seeing the band play live at the SIU campus at Edwardsville circa 1974 at an outdoor concert at night.

Cream and the songs Badge, White Room and Sunshine of Your Love. Eric Clapton was being hailed as the world's greatest guitarist shortly after Cream. He performed on his own and as Derek and Dominos after Cream. Awesome music.



Mark-Almond and The City. Pop, rock and jazz in one group - amazing.

Alvin Lee and Ten Years After - I'd Love to Change the World. Saw them at Keil Auditorium and that was the first time I remember my ears were ringing after the show.

The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour. Made for a great midnight movie at The Varsity Theater in University City as part of an all night Beatles marathon until dawn featuring A Hard Days Night, Help, The Abbey Road Sessions and lots more.You had to be there to understand.

And The Charlie Daniels Band - No Place to Go. KSHE had the group in for a FREE concert at Forest Park in 1975 - and I was there. Thousands of people enjoyed hard driving southern rock across the highway from the old Highlands in a field at Forest Park. Sh$t kicking classic rock with Charlie Daniels singing and playing a mean fiddle.

It was all Classic Rock from the 70s - and featured a number of tunes even the "Classic Rock" radio stations don't play now.

After a long evening and when it was time to go home I felt good. I had no idea listening to those tunes could be so enjoyable after having them stored away for 20+ years. And that's why I'm nervous about the public auction - pieces of my life in the 70s will sell to the highest bidder. So I'l leave you with the words from the inside jacket of The CDB's Fire on the Mountain album - quoting Charlie Daniels.

"Hungover, Red Eyed, Dog Tired Satisfied. It's a Long Road and a little wheel and it takes a lot of turns to get there. Thank you Damn It."

So it goes.

Thank you and good night.

Stop to smell the roses

Some days you just have to stop and take in your surroundings.  Two pictures from today, rainbow in downtown Mexico and sunset on Elmwood Drive.

Aaahhhhh.....

So it goes.

One man's trash is another man's treasure

One man's trash is another man's treasure. You hear that phrase when you're fairly young and you don't think too much about it. Later in life you look back at some of the things you considered trash at one time and wonder what they'd be worth today.

In 1978, the basement at the radio station was mostly a dumping ground for records and other promotional items dating back to the station's beginnings in 1948.

There was the pink baby grand piano that had once been in the old large studio on the main floor - where live bands actually provided the music that went out on the air.

There were things like a couple of big filing cabinets, filled with 16" transcriptions (discs) of various programming and music. The 16" long playing records dated back to the 40s and early 50s and required a special turntable to play them. There were also a couple of discarded 16" turntables that had been removed from the main studio long ago.

Things like dozens and dozens of  the blue hardback book with a Presidential seal on the cover, "The Warren Report" - the official book from the Government Printing Office on the results of the Warren Commission Report's look at the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.




Boxes and boxes of a small green hardback books on the history the AP Green family in Mexico.

And large cardboard boxes filled with discarded 45 RPM records covering several decades.

A small adult multi-colored bunny rabbit suit - that had been worn by people like Jim Griffin as part of the station's Easter Egg hunt for children. (I know Jim wore it because there was an old photograph of him in the suit at Plunkett Park back in 60s.")

A dark blue apron with three deep pockets that said "Pick Your Prize" - supposedly used by station staff in some giveaway with the staff on location at area businesses where winners would get to reach in and pick from one of the three pockets.

But at the time - the early 80s - it all looked like trash. And that's what happened to most of it when the basement was cleaned up to actually start using the space for offices.

The only item that remained in the basement was one of the filing cabinets for the 16" transcriptions. It was still located behind the furnace when I left. But there were no discs in it.

I wonder what other treasures were hauled off to the dump back then.

So it goes.

State of the Art Audio Consoles

In 1966, when the FM was added to the AM, lots of new equipment was purchased. Some of that had to be made to control two radio stations at the same time. I would guess there were not a lot of manufacturers making audio consoles for an AM/FM controlled from the same central point, but one that did make an audio console designed just for that purpose was Gates/Harris. (Harris purchased the Gates company in 1957 but continued to use the Gates name until sometime in the 70s). In case you were wondering, MOST AM/FM stations at that time had an AM studio and an FM studio and separate staffs for each, although some might have worked on the AM side some and then move to the FM side or vice versa. But here one person was expected to monitor and control the AM, the FM, or both together, or both separately at the same time. Over the years monitoring and controlling two radio stations in the same studio was certainly challenging.

There was a set of switches at the middle of the board (under the VU meters in the picture) that controlled
putting audio on AM, FM or both at the same time, or taking the board entirely out of the circuit and
allowing automation to feed directly to the processing equipment.

The AM (main) studio had a Gates Dualux II when I started there. The Dualux II was an impressive looking audio console for the time period. While most audio control boards were set up with a program set of channels and an audition set of channels, the Dualux was designed for an AM/FM controlled through one audio console. The Dualux also took automation into consideration and could be switched out of the program audio path entirely - allowing automation to feed directly to the on air path without tying  up an audio console. That meant that during automated periods, the Dualux could be used to record commercials, music or interviews. The Dualux was still in the main (AM) studio when I started in 1978 - although it appeared to take its share of abuse through the years.

One of the overnight guys later suggested renaming the studios, Studio A, Studio B and Studio C - which we did (thanks Mark). The main studio where both stations could be controlled was labeled Studio A.

A Gates Statesman audio console was in the FM studio (later called Studio B) when I started in 1978. It too was showing its age. The high frequency response of both audio consoles was not what it should have been, because the capacitors in the audio circuits had been drying up for more than 10 years.

In the news booth, later called Studio C, was a Gates Producer audio console. The Producer was mono, while the other two were stereo audio consoles. And like the other two, the Producer had its share of abuse over the years.

And would you believe the audio lab at Central Missouri State University (where I finished college)  had a Producer and a Statesman audio console - so they were already familiar to me when I started here.

The GM and I ran a partial "proof of performance" on the air chain around 1982 and found both the Dualux and the Statesman had poor audio response on the high frequency end.

The annual Proof of Performance was an FCC thing. When done correctly it verifies that the on air audio chain of equipment meets minimum specifications. You were supposed to measure things like frequency response, noise level and separation among other things.

A Proof of Performance was required once a year back then, as well as any time there was a change in audio consoles, transmitters or antennas. I believe the current state of affairs is that a proof is only required when replacing a transmitter or antenna.

One interesting thing to note about the Harris Medalist 10 channel console in Studio A - was the fact that Harris, nor any other manufacturer was producing an audio console designed to control an AM and an FM at the same time through the same board by 1983. We modified the Medalist, adding a third VU meter on the right. The program stereo channel was assigned to KWWR (the red switch on each source), while the audition channel was assigned to KXEO (the blue switch on each source). Additionally we added 6 position double throw push button switches to both Medalist consoles, so they could be switched out of the audio path and let the automation feed directly into the processing.

Those Medalist consoles were still performing up to specifications when I left in 2010.

The news booth (Studio C) got a small stereo console made by a company that later went out of business that replaced the Gates Producer.

And we added Studio D after the turn of the century to allow the recording of commercials in two studios while Studio A was on the air.

The FM studio, Studio B, had been one large room up until automation was added. At one time there was a baby grand piano in that studio - which was still in the basement and painted pink when I started in '78. The baby grand dated back to a time when radio stations provided live music for at least some of their programming. When automation was added, large floor to ceiling plate glass panels and patio doors were installed in the FM studio to isolate all of the automation equipment from the actual studio.

Glass was far from perfect for its acoustic qualities - but it allowed one to see both the AM racks of tape decks for automation, and the FM racks of tape decks for automation.

In this picture I grabbed from the Internet,
you can see reel to reel tape machines, his
hand is in front of a dedicated or regular
studio type cart player and above the guy
are two carousels.

So at a time when "live" radio was using carts (cartridge tapes) for commercials, in either 40 second or 70 second lengths, how were carts played through automation? They were called Carousels and consisted of a big circular drum with metal slots for 24 carts. When called upon, one slot would pull in to a tape head and capstan to play on the air. Carousels and the System 90 were a nightmare. A carousel was capable of taking a finger off if you got it in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't lose any fingers, but did get my share of cuts and scrapes.  So using multiple carousels, our entire commercial inventory was in the automation system. The entire commercial inventory was also on carts in the studio for live or live assist use.

For what it's worth, the man who invented the carousel for automation, William Edison Moulic Jr passed away last month at the age of 94..

And where automation used to take up the whole room with racks of tape decks, an entire automation system (music, commercials, voice tracks) can be set up in one personal computer now.

So it goes.

The Days of Teletype Machines

Long before the Internet and long before satellite delivery of data, radio and TV stations as well as newspapers relied on teletype machines for delivery of news services.

These were large, noisy machines that had a typewriter type mechanism in a metal housing, paper was supplied in a thin cheap quality off white newsprint type paper that came in boxes and sat under the teletype machine. Data was transmitted to the machine over a dedicated phone line and speed was limited to about 60 words per minute, or about 45 baud. That's 45 baud. Early personal computer modems were 300 baud, followed fairly quickly by 1200, 2400, 9600 and 14,400 baud. Speeds over traditional copper phone lines eventually reached 56,000 baud - but those teletype machines were fed data at 45 baud. That was slow - but about as fast as a good typist could type.

AP, Associated Press, and UPI, United Press International used similar machines to transmit news to newspapers and broadcast stations. Everything the news service produced was printed. I hate to think how many tons of paper were ripped from teletype machines and thrown in the trash because it was something of no interest to a particular newspaper or broadcast station.

The National Weather Service also had a data feed called The Weather Wire and used a machine somewhat like the AP and UPI teletypes. The weather wire used rolls of yellow paper (yellow so you knew it came from the weather wire and not the AP or UPI machine).

Both types of machines used a black or black and red ribbon. As part of the fee that stations and newspapers paid to AP and UPI, paper and ribbons were supplied for their teletype machines as part of the service.

Paper and ribbons for the weather wire had to be purchased. But the weather wire at that time didn't transmit nearly as much data as AP or UPI - as there were circuits for each state. So Missouri had a weather wire fed by the National Weather Service offices in Missouri that concentrated on Missouri weather.

AP and UPI also had their data delivery separated for newspapers and broadcast use. The newspaper data feed had a lot more information than the broadcast wire feed - so broadcast stations weren't stuck printing out  reams of paper for stories that would only be of interest to the print media.

The machines were noisy enough and produced enough heat, that they were kept in a small room dedicated to the teletype machines. Radio and TV newsrooms sometimes used the sound of teletype machines in the background for breaking news.

Here's a short video of a working AP teletype machine from that time period:



Typewriters were used to write local news for on air use and archiving stories consisted of saving boxes of printed stories in the basement. Newspapers also saved stories on paper. Where old news stories were stored was called "The Morgue". The station kept local news stories in The Morgue for a year or two and then old stories were put in the trash.

The news services turned to satellites for delivery of their products in the early 80s and satellite technology made much faster data speeds possible. Faster data speeds made teletype machines obsolete. Teletype machines were replaced first by fast dot matrix printers and about that time paper and ribbons were no longer supplied as part of the service - but everything the news service fed was still printed. Eventually personal computers found their way into the newsroom, and news service data was captured by software that allowed the printing of only what was needed.

Third party companies wrote that early news service software and most software also had the capability to write and archive local news. The station first purchased a Dell 286-12 personal computer around 1986/87. That computer was expensive, over $2,000 for the computer and a printer, but the computer paid for itself in the first year of use by not printing everything that the news service fed. We used a program called Mercury, written by a small company out west. This was before software like Windows made multi-tasking (running more than one program at a time on a PC) possible - so that Dell only captured UPI news and the weather wire but it did allow the writing of local news stories.

David Gerstmann started a company called WireReady in Medford, Massachusetts around 1987 that specialized in capturing news service data and writing and archiving local news. His company would later add audio capabilities to the same program allowing stations to replace cartridge tape machines with computer based audio.

Eventually the news services had their own software - for a price - but many broadcast stations already had software like WireReady - so they weren't interested in the news service software.

Although many of the software companies, like the one that produced Mercury, are long gone, WireReady is still around today. Their software not only captures news service data, ControlReady is an automation system - allowing the automatic recording of news and program feeds and more recently WireReady has moved into the television newsroom business. That lets TV station capture and edit news service data for on air use, write local news and even incorporate video as part of the WireReady system.

A lot has changed since the days of teletype machines. But change is good. Newspapers and broadcast stations saved a lot of money and lots of paper with computers. In that respect, they were "Green" a long time before being Green was cool.

So  it goes.

An "Official" Missouri Highway Map, a projector and "Color" Weather Radar

Back before the Internet, and before TV stations made daily use of radar imagery, there were a few radio pioneers like Jerrel Shepherd in Moberly - who took aircraft radar and adapted it for use covering the weather on KRES and KWIX. The small circular green and white radar screen was used along with paper maps to plot thunderstorms as they moved across Missouri. The radar screen itself didn't have a map, only circles and compass headings. So storms on the radar screen were plotted onto maps to show their location in relation to communities and counties in central and northeast Missouri. At the time, even the National Weather Service was using this type of radar and plotting storms onto paper maps.

This made Moberly's weather coverage very unique at a time when even TV stations didn't have ready access to radar for use in tracking storms. As I recall, even radio and TV in St. Louis and Kansas City weren't using radar for live weather coverage during severe weather.

In 1978 the GM at KWWR-KXEO was Larry Weller. He had worked for Jerrel Shepherd in Moberly for about 12 years in the 60s and 70s. He wanted KWWR-KXEO to cover the weather like KRES-KWIX, but  radar wasn't in the budget - so that goal was nearly impossible. We tried, though. We'd monitor the Weather Wire closely for watches and warnings and get those on the air as soon as possible. Weller would be at home monitoring KRES and the local TV stations - and if we didn't have a watch or warning on the air as soon as somebody else - he was on the phone chewing somebody at the station out for being so slow.

Then in the early 80s a company called Enterprise Electronics in Enterprise Alabama developed a system that would allow radio and TV stations to access National Weather Service radar. In Mexico, we purchased an Enterprise system that allowed us to dial in to a coupler and access National Weather Service radar in Columbia, St. Louis and Kansas City. The system used an electronic map overlay and real time radar data in color - different colors for different storm intensities - much like the radar we're used to seeing on TV and the Internet these days.

The Enterprise system was expensive - somewhere around $18,000. But we secured an exclusive color radar sponsor and that covered most of the cost of the Enterprise System. I believe the first radar sponsor was First National Bank in 1981. The following year the exclusive sponsor was Lake Village Motel and Restaurant at Paris. The year after that and in subsequent years there was no exclusive sponsor.

The maps, for Columbia, St. Louis and Kansas City had to be custom made. We borrowed a special projector from the school system and using graph paper taped to a basement wall at the station, I spent several weeks building the 3 maps for use by KWWR and KXEO. The graph paper had squares - where each square represented one square mile. With great care I projected the map image onto the graph paper and used a pencil to fill in squares for state lines, county lines and some cities. The graph paper was then used by Enterprise Electronics to program a static overlay map for their radar system.

Using a phone and modem, we'd dial in to a coupler at Columbia, St. Louis and Kansas City. The coupler would stay connected for about 5 minutes at a time. There was no such thing as a fast modem in 1981, so it took nearly 3 minutes for one complete update of the radar image. After 5 minutes, the coupler would  disconnect and we'd have to dial  back in. We had our own private phone numbers for the 3 radar locations, so we never encountered a busy signal.

Prior to the breakup of AT&T in 1984, the phone company used to offer foreign exchanges. That's a local phone number in a distant city that would act like a local line in that city. KWWR-KXEO had a foreign exchange number for Columbia, to avoid long distance charges for radar calls. The cost of a foreign exchange per month was less than the long distance calls would have added up to. But then came the breakup of AT&T and the cost of a foreign exchange line became prohibitive and we were stuck with long distance charges anytime we accessed radar.

We promoted having color weather radar - to make us unique from KRES-KWIX which only had black and white (green and white) radar. This caused some amusement in the broadcast community and with listeners who wondered why a radio station would promote color weather radar.

We soon discovered the meteorologists at the Columbia National Weather Service office would stop the Columbia radar from scanning to "interrogate" storms. Interrogation of a storm was scanning the storm vertically to determine its severity. Any time they were interrogating storms, we couldn't get an updated radar image. So we'd end up dialing in to St. Louis. Neither St. Louis nor Kansas City stopped their radars to interrogate storms and the NWS folks in Columbia insisted it was necessary to save lives. Never mind making the radar image useless for any TV or radar station accessing it.

In the mid 80s, Bill Ellason at Ellason Avionics in St. Louis was marketing a small radar system to radio stations. The cost of this system was around $10,000. Although it had a color image, this radar was actually a step back compared to the Enterprise system, because there was no map on the radar screen, only mileage rings. We'd use the data on the radar screen and plot storms on a large topographic map that was in a glass frame in the main studio. This radar was located on top of an 80' tower at the studios and was totally under our control. But this was not a precise system and any time it rained hard at the studios, the radar would be attenuated making it pretty well useless until the storm passed by Mexico.

TV stations and cable companies had access to National Weather Service Radar in the 80s. I don't know why, but TV stations rarely used radar for live coverage of storms and warnings. Perhaps network  programming was more important than the weather, but it wasn't until after the turn of the century that TV stations really started to use radar effectively.

It took them a long time to see the value in something radio had been using for a couple of decades. But that also made radio the first choice for live weather coverage anytime of the day or night.

The Internet would change all of that, though, making radar and weather data readily available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. The days of radio and TV having a unique tool to bring weather coverage to listeners and viewers were soon in the past.

That's a shame really. There was something exciting about describing radar images for our radio audience and watching storms in real time. Those were some interesting times. One night, about 1983 or so, a storm system stalled over mid Missouri. A line of severe storms that had started in the evening hours continued well past midnight as the line of storms was not moving on east. I had been doing weather radar coverage from sometime early in the evening, until 3 or 4 AM. The line finally started moving east and severe weather moved out of our area. I finally went home and got some sleep before coming back in to work later that morning.

It was an exciting time to be in radio. Weather coverage like that doesn't exist on the radio anymore. TV stations provide limited live weather coverage. People turn to the Internet for radar and weather data.

So it goes.

Is Netflix in Trouble?

There could be trouble ahead for Netflix. The popular DVD and streaming service recently raised rates, effectively doubling rates for anyone who wanted to continue with 1 DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming.

That was a deal breaker for me. Netflix had long touted the streaming feature as FREE if you signed up for their DVD service. Doubling the rates while the recession of 2008 continues is just dumb.

Now STARZ has announced its ending it partnership with Netflix.

See: Netflix, Starz to break up: One crazy ride ahead to Feb. 28

As if the churn rate from doubling rates wasn't bad enough, the end of the relationship with STARZ could mean more trouble ahead for Netflix.

Where once there was no competition - there are competitors everywhere now - from DVD rental to on line streaming. Netflix should have had a plan to keep existing subscribers happy. Doubling rates was definitely not a good plan.

So it goes.