Farpoint Station

More Interesting Statistics

2012-03-06T06:26:00.000-06:00

On Facebook, everyone participating has some Facebook Friends.

Either you have asked someone on Facebook to be your Facebook Friend, or they have asked you to be their Facebook Friend.

When someone drops you as a friend, you can see the Friends count goes down, but may not realize which "friend" dropped you as a friend.

Then there's the Facebook Application: Unfriend Finder.

This little app's sole purpose in life is to show you who un-friends you on Facebook.

It doesn't work for finding who may have already un-friended you, but if you install it, it will keep tabs on who un-friends you from that point forward.

Here's my Un-Friends List today:

Merle Norman is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 28, 11:06p
Sarah Morrisey Gooch is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 20, 2:13pm
Bonnie Janssen is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 16, 4:35pm
Robby Miller is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 7, 12:32pm
Bruce Karo is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 7, 10:38am
Andy Melanie Utterback is no longer in your friendlist.
Detected on: February 6, 12:34a

I can only assume that something I wrote at MexicoMaxim.com or garyaleonard.blogspot.com didn't meet their approval.

And their reaction was to un-friend me.

That's fine.

If friends are defined as only those who accept hearing the truth, then so be it.

The truth can be painful. The truth sometimes hurts.

But at the end of the day, the truth is true because it is true.

And truth doesn't become any less true if we choose to ignore it.

Discussion here: More Interesting Statistics

So it goes.

-Gary

The Classes We Took

2012-03-01T16:56:00.000-06:00

On a beautiful March winter afternoon, with the sun shining, the wind fairly calm, and the birds singing, I was just sitting here thinking....

Some of those Logic, Philosophy and Ethics classes I took in college are finally paying off.

Too bad all colleges didn't make them mandatory.
.
So it goes.

US: One, THEM: Less than Zero

2012-03-01T06:12:00.002-06:00

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for this important update in the Battle Of US versus THEM.

In the ongoing battle between US and THEM, US scored small but important victories in a number of insurgencies this past fall and winter.

THEM got exposed for what they are and will never be the same again.

US will continue fighting on a smaller scale, but for now THEM is still pulling a few of the strings behind the scenes.

But US has had its share of notable victories.

And neutral outsiders have said the tide is turning toward US and that the overall groundswell of US will no longer tolerate THEM pulling the strings, and THEM have been seen more frequently in public walking away with their tails between their legs and their heads bowed down in shame.

US still has honor and integrity.

US has had a voice now.

US is stronger than it has ever been.

US will prevail in the end, because tomorrow will be a better day than today and good ALWAYS triumphs over evil.

THEM may have more shiny objects than US, but US knows that US doesn't need all those stinkin' shiny objects to be happy in life.

Score a BIG - 1 for US.

Score - LESS THAN ZERO for THEM.

Life IS good. God IS Great.

Tomorrow will be a better day than today.

Now back to our regular programming .....

So it goes.

-Gary

Hurry!, Hurry!, Hurry! Get 'em While They're Hot Off The Presses

2012-03-01T06:05:00.000-06:00

Here's about the most stupid email I believe I have ever received. And I'm sure every American will be all over this for those "high net worth people in Russia and China". Plus, isn't that an oxymoron?

From "Rodin, Anton" <zmed@nexxxxil.ru>"

"Dear Customers:

We are proud to offer our new directories with contact details of companies and high net worth people from Russia and China.

Please visit our website for detailed information.

ZakMedia, Russia."

Yeah, let me get back to you on that comrade.

So it goes.

Happy Leap Day!

2012-02-29T07:42:00.002-06:00

This is a leap year, so February has an extra day at the end, February 29.

This only happens every four years to keep our modern calendars on track with methods used by our ancestors to track the four seasons.

So today is an extra day in the year 2012.

Please do something fun for yourself today.

Please do something to help someone else today.

And if anybody want's to know why? Just tell them it's in honor of Leap Day!

And there are some years you would think would be leap years but they aren't IF:
"Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years." from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year

So it goes.

-GL

How Cool Is This?

2012-02-28T19:18:00.002-06:00

Just found these clips of the Allman Brothers Band from a 1990 and a 1991 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Wow!

More Interesting Visitors

2012-02-28T15:06:00.003-06:00

A couple of days ago, someone with USA Today spent almost 40 minutes looking at MexicoMaxim.com and garyaleonard.blogspot.com.

27 Feb 01:44:05 AM IE 8.0
Win7
1366x768 Mc Lean,
Virginia,
United States Usa Today (159.54.xxx.xxx) [Label IP Address]
garyaleonard.blogspot.com/
www.mexicomaxim.com/page/5/

Then there's this one that's been showing up repeatedly:

28 Feb 02:34:02 PM IE 8.0
Win7
1920x1080 Coraopolis,
Pennsylvania,
United States Harbison-walker Refractories Company (205.137.xxx.xxx) [Label IP Address]
www.mexicomaxim.com/
(No referring link)

I don't know who you are, but thanks for stopping by!

So it goes.

-Gary

Biggest Winner at the Oscars - Angelina's Right Leg

2012-02-27T06:31:00.002-06:00

The Academy Awards were handed out last night. Historically by and large a not real exciting thing to watch.

But then you have Angelina's Right Leg. Dressed in a black gown with a thigh high slit, Angelina Jolie struck a pose that was captured on film.

And now her leg has gone viral on the Internet.

Here's one of the funniest things I saw first thing this morning:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/legbombing

There's even a tool at that web site that let's you add Angelina's Leg to any photo.

Funny stuff.

-GL

Wouldn't It Be Nice If ....

2012-02-25T12:42:00.000-06:00

OK, I got the idea from watching Letterman last night.

But wouldn't it be great if all the gas stations started pricing gas per half gallon?

If nothing else, it would give the appearance of being cheaper.

Right now gas is $3.399 a gallon. Experts are predicting possibly $5 a gallon by this summer.

But if all the gas stations sold gas by the half gallon, then the current price would only be $1.699.

Doesn't that sound much better than $3.399?

And when gas gets close to $5 a gallon this summer, if it were priced by the half gallon, it would only be $2.50.

$2.50 sounds much better than $5.

Now I know the total for filling your tank wouldn't change, obviously.

But wouldn't it be nice to be able tell our grandchildren about the good old days back in 2012 when we only paid $1.699 for gas?

It just sounds better than $3.399.

It's a stretch, I know, but wouldn't that be somethin'?

Have a great weekend!

Life is good. God is great.

So it goes.

-Gary

Cosmic Karma?

2012-02-12T06:41:00.002-06:00

Solar flare stock image

An X-class solar flare could be headed toward Earth this week, that will have have the potential to interfere with radio and satellite communication.

Seems that Friday, the sun threw off a slow moving coronal mass ejection or CME, in the SHAPE OF A HEART!

And it's due date with Earth? Valentine's Day no less.

Cosmic Karma? Could be.

As Spock would say, "Fascinating".

The full story is here: Sun points a loaded gun at us at MSNBC.com.

So it goes.

The NFL Did Something Stupid

2012-02-03T23:21:00.002-06:00

Since I've been writing in my blog and at MexicoMaxim.com, I've pointed out some stupid stuff that people have done.

Some of that stupidity has been displayed on the Internet, some of that stupidity has been displayed by people in the national news and some of that stupidity has been displayed by our local media and by people here in Mexico, Missouri.

A couple of years back the NFL did something stupid.

They made people stop using the term "Super Bowl" unless they paid licensing fees to the NFL.

You used to hear about Joes's TV and Appliance having a Super Bowl Sale, or Eat at Joe's Restaurant having a Super Bowl Buffet Special.

We had Super Bowl Diamond Sales at Joe's Jewelry Store, and Super Bowl Car Sales at Joe's New and Used Autos.

All of that "superbowl-dom" helped to promote the "Big Game".

People had fun with Super Bowl Sales.

Radio stations had Super Bowl Parties.

Bars had Super Bowl Viewing Parties.

But then the NFL decided the term "Super Bowl" was copyrighted, by them, and nobody could use the term "Super Bowl" unless it was approved and licensed by the NFL.

That was stupid.

So now we have sales that say "Join us for the big game sale", and Sunday food specials that say they're timed for the "Big Game"

Bars say come watch the "Big Game" at Joe's Bar.

We know what the big game is. The NFL knows what the big game is.

And where people used to have fun with Super Bowl this or Super Bowl that, now we just have to get by with big game this and big game that.

It just isn't the same.

And the NFL took something that people everywhere used to have fun with and put it away in a closet so only the very rich can run Super Bowl commercials or have Super Bowl sales.

Because they're the only one's that can afford to run a :30 ad IN the Super Bowl. Last year CBS got between $2.5 million and $2.8 million per :30 second commercial.

People still watch the Super Bowl. People still talk about Super Bowl commercials.

But the average business person in this great nation can't have a Super Bowl Sale.

And if the Super Bowl cops are watching the Internet closely, this blog will receive a cease and desist notice from the NFL, because I'm not supposed to be using the term "Super Bowl" either.

So we'll all have fun watching the Super Bowl this Sunday and all those silly Super Bowl Commercials.

But now you know why you don't hear about Super Bowl this or Super Bowl that like you used to "in the good old days" before the NFL did something stupid.

So it goes.

New Scam For Broadcasters to Worry About

2012-02-01T07:25:00.000-06:00

Just when you think you've seen it all, a company called Mission Abstract Data is now claiming it's owed licensing fees for computer use at radio stations.

There's more from Tom Taylor on Radio-Info: http://www.radio-info.com/newsletter/html/tri-02012012.html

Mission Abstract Data has started sending letters to operators of radio stations claiming it's owed licensing fees for the use of personal computers by radio stations.

Just about any use of a PC in radio station, from music scheduling software, commercial scheduling, billing, cleaning the bathroom floor, washing the GM's car - ANY use of a PC in a radio station - is subject to licensing fees for Mission Abstract Data.

OK, the last two PC use examples from me are fictitious, but any other use of a PC in a radio station since the invention of the personal computer is trying to be covered Mission Abstract Data's patents.

It's absurd.

But some lawyers somewhere are probably going to make money off the whole thing.

The US Patent Office is reviewing the Mission Abstract Data Situation.

Hopefully broadcasters won't have to pay licensing fees for using personal computers in a broadcast environment.

They already pay substantial licensing fees for other things the general public would be amazed at.

So it goes.

Mexico, MO in the news but not in Mexico, MO last week

2012-01-29T22:35:00.000-06:00

Wednesday this past week, the St. Louis TV stations and newspaper were all over a story about the "Logo Hat Bandit" bank robber being apprehended after robbing 9 banks in the St. Louis area. Turns out the "Logo Hat Bandit" is from Mexico, Missouri. The picture of the bank robber in the news looked scary. I used the picture.

Where Do These People Come From?

I ran the story Wednesday after getting a news tip.

What did the Ledger do?

A small story buried back on page 5 (and no picture) in Thursday's edition. And the only story the Ledger had was an AP wire story, making it appear that no one from the Ledger even knew the guy had made the news in St. Louis.

Did the story make it to the Ledger's web site? Of course not.

A story that's in TV headlines and front page news in St. Louis involving a man from Mexico, Missouri is buried on page 5?

That's a disgrace to journalism and a disgrace to Mexico, Missouri.

The "Good Old Boys Network" being exposed and drawing national attention from the authorities is also a disgrace for Mexico, MO in that it's something the Ledger should have been reporting on decades ago.

I have a feeling we've only seen the tip of the iceberg with the "Good Old Boys Network" in Mexico, MO.

19th century English historian, British Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

That was a quote from a very long time ago and was a reference to Caesar, Henry the VIII, Napoleon and other "great men" in history.

It's a shame "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is still true today in Mexico, Missouri.

Indeed.

So it goes.

Poor Phishing

2012-01-15T22:40:00.001-06:00

I received not one, but two copies of the email below.

It appeared to come from this email address: info@support.com

But it really came from this address: helpdesks18@yahoo.com

That's a free Yahoo! email account commonly used by spammers and phishers to prey on unsuspecting people.

You may notice the English being used in the email is what we might call "broken English". Oy.

Also worth mentioning, the site referenced in the link you're supposed to click on (my3q.com) is in Hong Kong. I seriously doubt the real MiamiDade.gov website is using someone in Hong Kong for anything. (I say that because Asia and Eastern Europe are notorious for being the origination points of spammers and phishers).

So it goes.

"Dear Miamidade.Gov Account Owner

 This is to inform you that we are currently carrying out scheduled
maintenance and upgrade on our Miamidade.Gov Web mail service because of
the high amount of spam mails we receive daily and as a result of this,
our mail client has been been changed and your original password will be
reset.

 We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this, inability to complete
information on the form within 24 hours will enable message center render
your e-mail in-active from our database a Quarantine Maintainance will
help us prevent this everyday dilemma, to re-validate your mailbox Please
Click on the link below by filling information on the Form, by clicking
on the link below:

 http://www.my3q.com/survey/418/helpu/37799.phtml 

 You will receive an e-mail within 48 hours when your mailbox account is
moved to the new database, also confirm your email address and password
within 24hours later after you have provided us your account details for
upgrade by filling information on the Form you will then logging into
your web mail account at https://domainname

Thank you for using the our webmail Account Miamidade.Gov!
(@)2012.All Rights Reserved["Technical Support E-mail Router"®]Copyright ©
2012"

Hanneke Hardware Memories

2011-12-10T14:30:00.001-06:00

The first store opened on The Hill in 1927 and is still going strong today. Hanneke Hardware has 3 locations in St. Louis, now, but the one I remember is the one on The Hill. As a child, it seemed much like an old fashioned general store.

My dad went there frequently for DIY supplies, and once I was old enough to leave our small neighborhood just east of The Hill, I went there many times in my youth. The staff was always friendly and helpful, even to a little kid who didn't really know what he was doing most of the time.

And that's a great memory of growing up in St. Louis.

So it goes.

Amazing Concerts Growing Up in St. Louis

2011-11-27T17:56:00.001-06:00

I consider a big benefit to growing up in St. Louis in 50s-70s, was the opportunity see some amazing concerts.

One of the most amazing concerts I ever saw took place at the old Ambassador Theater on the evening of December 20, 1974. The show was Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders. Jerry Garcia kept incredibly busy with the Grateful Dead, but still found time for some outside projects like his work the amazing Merl Saunders.

The show was going to be a sellout. So the night before tickets went on sale at the Ambassador box office in downtown St. Louis, I loaded up my sleeping bag and joined a few hundred other people to wait on the sidewalk outside the Ambassador all night. One of the few times I got to see the sun come up at that time.

I would never dream of doing something like that these days. The crime rate in downtown St. Louis would prevent most people from sleeping on the sidewalk all night in front of a theater. But that in itself, was quite an experience.

Even more so, was the actual concert. The start time was supposed to be 8 PM, but Garcia's flight had been delayed. The producers asked the audience to be patient, assured us that Garcia was on the way, and there would be a show that night.

For the next 3 hours the audience passed the time by doing lots of visiting with other concert goers. There were people smoking and sharing opium, hashish and of course marijuana. The act of doing it at a concert like that was no surprise, but it was the amount of sharing I saw going on that amazed me.

Around 11 PM, the producers announced that Jerry Garcia was on the way. A short time later the band took to the stage.

Garcia was having trouble with a guitar string, but the guys manning the spotlights persistently kept them shining on him even though he was trying to fix a problem.

A few times he asked them to the turn the lights down. Frustrated, he finally said, "Can somebody dim those f_____ers, man, they're blinding me." And the spotlights got turned off.

I think the band played until around 2 AM that night and the audience loved every minute of it. And it's surely an opportunity I wouldn't have had if I had not grown up in St. Louis.

In our youth we did some dangerous things. Looking back, it's quite amazing to think we actually did some of those things. But we did and we survived in spite of the danger.

Life is good. God is great. Carpe diem!

So it goes.

Thank You, Mexico!

2011-11-27T10:31:00.001-06:00

To the good people of Mexico, MO, I can't say thank you enough.

While with the station, I know we did lots of good things for Mexico over the years, but I never really felt like we were "making a difference".

Now with my reporting at MexicoMaxim.com, some of which falls under investigative journalism, I feel like I am making a difference for Mexico.

The local media would never do anything remotely considered investigative journalism, out of fear of making someone, somewhere unhappy with their reporting.

But the joy of doing investigative journalism for Mexico is far more rewarding than anything I ever did in my 30+ years with the radio station.

In our youth we are considered idealistic. We have big ideas on how to change the established way of doing things.

As we enter the work force, those ideals often become lost in pursuit of other things - namely money and possessions.

To have the opportunity to return to some of the idealistic ideas I had in my youth, and to benefit the citizens of Mexico at the same time, is rewarding in ways that words can't describe.

And for that I say Thanks, Mexico! But saying thanks will never show enough gratitude for the way I really feel about life in Mexico, MO these days. How I now feel about life in Mexico, MO, - for that I will be eternally grateful.

So it goes.

Looking back, you think as a teen, Did I Really Do That?

2011-11-26T16:49:00.001-06:00

Gee, when you look back at some of the things you did as a teen, you start thinking, "Wow, I did that!?"

I went to junior college at Forest Park Community College in St. Louis for two years to get general studies out of the way before heading off to a "real" college. That was 1974-1976.

At the time, I was running with a group of geeks and into "recreational" drugs at the time almost every night. I was not part of what brought these people together in the first place, but most of these guys (and a few girls) had been through the "Gifted" program in the St. Louis Public Schools. That's accelerated classes for the super smart starting in grade school and continuing through high school. Some of these kids were taking Calculus and English Literature in grade school. It was an amazing group to be a part of - and looking back, we did some really stupid stuff. The kinds of things that, yes, we could have been arrested for a lot of it, but fortunately most of that group was never "caught" in the act - so we felt like we really got away with something.

One member of the group was considered a moocher. His family was poor and he was always looking for angles to get something for free. Mooching was just a part of his personality.

It was 1975 in St. Louis, and this "genius" stole a maid's master key at The Chase Park Plaze Hotel. Yes, the famous Chase Park Plaza Hotel. He considered it a way to always have a place he and his girlfriend could go to makeout.

Then he got the idea to make a movie.

So the group would go in to the Chase through the parking garage to avoid staff, then climb up the stairs to the top floors where the suites were. Sometimes we'd find a suite that was loaded with stuff like food and alcohol and I must admit that it was "fun" at the time.

I later found out it was also extremely dangerous and stupid.

One night the group of us had found a two story suite on the top floors. This place was posh. Very nice. So for about 4 hours we partied and basically trashed the place. There was some construction going at the time in the suite, so I don't think we actually harmed anybody's personal suite. But still....

Sometimes the staff would get noise complaints and we'd make a quick exit, running down the stairs and out of the parking garage.

Then that night in the two story suite, hotel security showed up at the doors on both levels. Holy cow! What to do?

We tried to be quiet while they tried to force open the doors and we headed out onto the balcony at the very top of The Chase Park Plaza. The moocher checked out a neighboring suite by climbing across the balconies. He came back and said there were two guys sleeping upstairs, but he thought we could get out through the lower level without being caught. So the group of us, mostly guys and a couple of girls, climbed precariously across the stone balconies. We went through some open doors of the suite next door and checked out the hallway. Security had either gone back for reinforcements, or they were in the suite that we had been occupying.

We made it to the to the stairwell and ran as fast as we could to get out of there.

We did not get caught that night, but it was close, and I never went back.

The moocher was using a Super 8 camera and a film editor he borrowed from me to make his big movie in The Chase Park Plaza.

Eventually he and his girlfriend got caught by hotel security and they turned them over to the police. But while they were being questioned by hotel security, there were a few times he said they stuck the barrel of a gun into his mouth to get answers, because that's how PO'ed they were. I mean we had been going into those suites for most of the summer of 1975, and it must have frustrated hotel security to not be able to catch us.

The police went to the moocher's house and found all of the film he had been shooting. But when they asked him who the other people were, he never disclosed anyone else's name. I lost the camera and film editor - but didn't get caught, even though police had film of all us in those hotel suites in the summer of 1975 at The Chase Park Plaza.

Looking back at that time now, I can't believe I was actually part of that. And as David Letterman would say, "Kids,don't try this at home!" Oh to be young and stupid. Wow.

But life is good. Carpe diem.

So it goes.

European Union: "Water is not wet"

2011-11-20T06:36:00.001-06:00

Here's one that's just plain bizarre. It makes you wonder - is the whole world getting stupid? It defies logic. It defies common sense. It defies the laws of science.

The European Union has gone on record publicly, officially saying that water is not wet. That there is no proof that water can prevent dehydration. That there is no proof that consumption of water can help hydrate the human body.

In fact, this is now law in Europe:

Drinking water does not ease dehydration, the European Union has ruled – and anyone who disagrees faces two years in prison.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063031/Dehydration-EU-says-CANT-claim-drinking-water-stops-body-drying-out.html#ixzz1eFUzd1O8

This goes beyond bizarre. But it's true:

Water is not wet ...

EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration

From The Telegraph...

EU officials concluded that, following a three-year investigation, there was no evidence to prove the previously undisputed fact.

Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.

Last night, critics claimed the EU was at odds with both science and common sense. Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.

“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.

“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”

NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.

The Department for Health disputed the wisdom of the new law. A spokesman said: “Of course water hydrates. While we support the EU in preventing false claims about products, we need to exercise common sense as far as possible."

German professors Dr Andreas Hahn and Dr Moritz Hagenmeyer, who advise food manufacturers on how to advertise their products, asked the European Commission if the claim could be made on labels.

They compiled what they assumed was an uncontroversial statement in order to test new laws which allow products to claim they can reduce the risk of disease, subject to EU approval.

They applied for the right to state that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration” as well as preventing a decrease in performance.

However, last February, the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) refused to approve the statement.

A meeting of 21 scientists in Parma, Italy, concluded that reduced water content in the body was a symptom of dehydration and not something that drinking water could subsequently control.

Now the EFSA verdict has been turned into an EU directive which was issued on Wednesday.

Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall said the ruling made the “bendy banana law” look “positively sane”.

He said: “I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what Brussels does best. Spend three years, with 20 separate pieces of correspondence before summoning 21 professors to Parma where they decide with great solemnity that drinking water cannot be sold as a way to combat dehydration.

“Then they make this judgment law and make it clear that if anybody dares sell water claiming that it is effective against dehydration they could get into serious legal bother.

EU regulations, which aim to uphold food standards across member states, are frequently criticised.

Rules banning bent bananas and curved cucumbers were scrapped in 2008 after causing international ridicule.

Prof Hahn, from the Institute for Food Science and Human Nutrition at Hanover Leibniz University, said the European Commission had made another mistake with its latest ruling.

“What is our reaction to the outcome? Let us put it this way: We are neither surprised nor delighted.

“The European Commission is wrong; it should have authorised the claim. That should be more than clear to anyone who has consumed water in the past, and who has not? We fear there is something wrong in the state of Europe.”

Prof Brian Ratcliffe, spokesman for the Nutrition Society, said dehydration was usually caused by a clinical condition and that one could remain adequately hydrated without drinking water.

He said: “The EU is saying that this does not reduce the risk of dehydration and that is correct.

“This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim.”

What's in the water those people have been drinking? Is somebody spiking their water with LSD?

So it goes.

Non-Smokers Rights

2011-11-18T09:51:00.001-06:00

In my interview with State Representative, John Cauthorn this week at MexicoMaxim.com, I posed the question, "Do you think Missouri will ever be a smoke free state, or is the tobacco lobby in Jefferson City too powerful?"

John's answer skirted both sides of the issue, and as a politician not wanting to lose any votes I can understand why he would answer that way.

But what about the rights of non-smokers to breathe smoke free air? 80% of the population does NOT smoke, don't we have rights too? Tobacco is the number 1 preventable cause of death in the United States. Tobacco use places a tremendous burden on the health care system. Why? Because many smokers don't have insurance, they're on welfare rolls, and taxpayer dollars are going toward their tobacco habits and the health care they will require as a consequence of tobacco use.

Today, 39 states in this country are smoke free - including most of the states that border Missouri.

Technically speaking smokers have no inherent right to smoke. The United States Bill of Rights clearly spells out ten fundamental rights of all Americans, and The Right To Smoke is not in the list. Nor has Congress since that time enacted any law or amendment guaranteeing smokers have a right to smoke.

80% of the population does not smoke. Isn't it time somebody started standing up for our rights (and health), too?

Audrain County will have a new Audrain County Health Board overseeing the operation of the Audrain County Health Department starting in 2013. That board will also have the power to enact ordinances that protect the health of all residents of Audrain County. Let's hope they have the wisdom to make Audrain County a smoke free county.

So it goes.

Socrates, Plato, Nietzsche, Rooney

2011-11-05T10:13:00.002-05:00

When history next takes attendance and makes note of the great philosophers through the eons, there's a good chance that Andy Rooney won't be on that list.

And that's a shame.

He took a simple premise, encouraging people to think about various topics and became an American icon. Actually, a worldwide icon. On Saturday Night Live, Joe Piscopo did satire on Andy Rooney's profound perplexities of life, and made "Did you ever wonder ...." a trademark associated with Rooney, although Rooney never began any of his essays with, "Did you ever wonder ....". But Andy Rooney did indeed make us wonder.

Since he began his short segments at the end of "60 Minutes" each week back in July of 1978, "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney" got people thinking about any number of things - many times speaking about one absurdity or another in life.

Topics like, was there a real Mrs. Smith somewhere making Mrs. Smith's pies? (The answer was no).

Commenting on things like the peculiarity of men wearing neckties to the even greater peculiarity of how banks choose their names, Newsweek once said that Rooney was a "homespun Homer", and declared him "America's Bard of Banality".

He once commented that he hadn't said anything on "60 Minutes" that most of his viewers didn't already know or hadn't thought. "That's what a writer does," he said. "A writer's job is to tell the truth."

So when the next round of history books make note of the great philosophers through time, there's a good chance Andy Rooney's name won't be included, after all it was only television.

And while that may be a shame, Mr. Rooney would probably be OK with being omitted from that list. Although we'll still be wondering about this absurdity or that absurdity for a long time to come.

Godspeed, Andy Rooney.

So it goes.

Why is Gas Always Higher in Mexico Than in Fulton or Columbia?

2011-10-27T17:04:00.011-05:00

That's the question I asked Ron Leone, Executive Director of the Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.

With him using what I'll call political doublespeak, I felt like I really didn't get an answer.

Ron Leone, as well as Tom May with MFA Oil in an email seemed to answer the question with -

"Because there is no competition we can charge higher prices in Mexico".

And using his own words, he says consumers should not expect gas prices to be similar from market area to market area (as in comparing St. Louis gas prices to Columbia) - but he also says "in the same market area they should be similar." Isn't mid-Missouri one market area? (That would include Columbia, Fulton and Mexico).

That reeks of price fixing to me. Listen to my interview with Ron Leone at MexicoMaxim.com and tell me what you think. Thanks. -GL

Edit: This evening GasBuddy.com is showing the same price for gas in Columbia, Fulton and Kingdom City ($3.199/gallon) while Mexico is at $3.269/gallon.

And it seems reasonable to me to expect gas to be higher along the interstate highway through mid-Missouri compared to other areas not near the highway - but such is not the case in Missouri. (Although that IS usually the case in most larger cities, like St. Louis)

So it goes.

What a Long Strange Trip - July 1974

2011-10-18T23:23:00.010-05:00

In the summer of 1974, a school mate of mine, Milton Lee and I decided to take a road trip to Los Angeles. We had the whole thing planned out - stay about every other night in a motel, and the other nights camp out somewhere in my tent. We left St. Louis and headed southwest on I-44. I forget how much cash we took with us, but it wasn't really all that much - when you think about being on the road for two weeks. Read more »

Mexico Maxim Has An All New Look

2011-10-17T21:10:00.005-05:00

I have moved the content at mexicomaxim.com to a new system. I hope you enjoy the new look.

Are Gas Prices in Mexico, MO Fixed?

2011-10-14T12:24:00.006-05:00

Back in the 70s there were laws protecting consumers from price fixing - but if you look at gas prices at all the stations in Mexico, MO on any given day, you'd think price fixing is OK these days.

House Calls

2011-10-10T13:55:00.008-05:00

In a recent post I wrote about my mother, I mentioned that she ended up with epilepsy several years after being hit in the back of the head by a baseball. I don't think the connection between the two was made back then by anyone involved.

In that same post, I mentioned the doctor made a house call the first time my mother had a seizure. Doctors made house calls back then after office hours.

My brother sent me an email a couple of days after that post about Mom's birthday, and wondered, "My goodness, how do you remember that kind of detail?"

New Direction

2011-10-05T10:12:00.003-05:00

My web site here, http://garyaleonard.com and http://garyaleonard.blogspot.com, has taken on a new (positive) direction. Plus comments, even anonymous, have been turned back on. Thanks all.

So it goes.

Turkey Buzzards Moving In

2011-10-04T18:20:00.007-05:00

On Monday, 10/3/11, I saw a group of migrating Turkey Buzzards roosting on a cell phone tower in Mexico, MO. I zoomed in on a pair on the far left hand side of the tower. The one on the right is apparently trying to answer the question: "How long can a turkey buzzard stay perfectly still without moving?" The one on the left is preening and finally decides to take a look at the comatose one, and the comatose one doesn't like being looked at.

The Many Wonders of Fall

2011-10-02T14:27:00.003-05:00

If you take a minute to look around, you'll probably see some of the many wonders of the fall season. Read more »

Birthdays you don't forget

2011-09-25T17:09:00.007-05:00

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. Read more »

11,000 Visitors Expected in Mexico

2011-09-24T16:48:00.003-05:00

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. Read more »

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

2011-09-19T12:58:00.012-05:00

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

2011-09-18T14:28:00.003-05:00

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

2011-09-18T13:08:00.006-05:00

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

2011-09-16T20:56:00.001-05:00

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

2011-09-16T10:27:00.014-05:00

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

2011-09-15T13:08:00.005-05:00

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"?

2011-09-13T16:59:00.004-05:00

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

2011-09-11T02:03:00.003-05:00

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

2011-09-10T22:52:00.001-05:00

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

2011-09-10T06:22:00.001-05:00

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

2011-09-08T18:39:00.009-05:00

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

2011-09-06T20:13:00.002-05:00

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

2011-09-06T18:05:00.001-05:00

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?

2011-09-02T12:03:00.000-05:00

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.

Do it yourself ground system

2011-09-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

Sometime about 1983 I discovered some of the ground radials for KXEO were literally disintegrating in the ground. I had been trying to track down why the KXEO AM signal did not seem as strong as it should have been in the Mexico area.

From 1948 until 1966, KXEO broadcast from a self supporting 180' tower in back of the station. There were 3 huge concrete pillars that served as anchors for the old tower. When they built the FM tower in 1966, they didn't bother to move the ground system - it was still centered for the old tower, now about 15 feet away from the new tower.

So the copper radials had been in the ground from 1948 until 1983. I don't know what the normal life expectancy of an AM ground system is, but the age of that ground system, along with it being centered for the original AM tower resulted in a weak AM signal.

Then GM Jerry Johnson, checked into what a new ground system would consist of. He found they'd use a 12' by 12' copper screen around the base of the tower, placed in sand, and silver solder 120 new 100' copper radials in a circular pattern away from the tower at evenly spaced intervals. Once completed, the copper screen would be further covered with sand, then a layer of gravel on top of that.

The cost for something like that? Around $12,000. Using good old Yankee ingenuity and our own staff, he figured the ground system could be done for around $7,000.

I believe it was the summer of 1984 that we set out to put in a new ground system for KXEO.

Jerry borrowed a tree planting attachment from his brother who worked for the Department of Conservation. The station bought a small John Deere tractor and he ordered in enough number 10 copper wire for the new ground system.

First order of business was the copper screen. We dug a 12' by 12' area about 6 inches down around the 400' KWWR/KXEO tower. then a layer of sand was placed in that area and the copper screen was placed on top of the sand. The screen was silver soldered to the large copper ground at the base of the tower. and we started the work of laying 120 100 foot radials that would each be silver soldered to the screen.

A copper spool was placed above the tree planter on the back of the tractor, the tree planter was lowered about 6 inches into the ground, then the tractor plowed a small trough while somebody fed wire from the copper spool and each radial was placed from the screen at the base of the tower out to 100 feet.

There were 4 big obstacles in the way of part of that ground system - the studio building, the parking lot, a lake and plowing through the old ground system. A 4 inch copper strip was laid around the perimeter of the studio building, tied by a copper strap back to the base of the tower. The radials were then burred as close to the building as we could get with the tractor, then dug in by shovel and silver soldered to the copper strap. On the far side of the building, a radial was placed from the copper strap out to a point 100 feet way from the base of the tower. So the building was an electronic hole in the ground system.

Toward the southwest, the radials had to go across the parking lot to near Highway 54. They rented a trencher from a local hardware store and the tedious task of making troughs for the radials 6 inches down across the parking lot got underway. That took a long time. It broke quite a few teeth on the trencher, but they'd get replaced and the work could continue.

Toward the north was an old railroad lake. So the radials were placed as close to the water as possible with the tractor, then hand dug to the water's edge. We used a small john boat to take to the radials out into the lake for their 100 foot length from the tower, and a rod was used to push the radials into the mud of the shallow lake bed. That took quite a while, too.

The ground system crew consisted of Jerry, me, Randy Johnson with Music Incorporated (which later became Sound Solutions), Kevin Johnson, Jerry's father in law, Junior, and some other Music Inc. staff members as time would allow.

That was a long, hot summer. Plus I still had my daily duties within the station to complete each day (as did Jerry, Randy and the rest of the staff). It was hard work, but we got the job done and felt good about it.

The AM signal for KXEO was finally centered on the newer 400' tower and new copper radials would serve as the ground system for many years to follow.

But that was only a hint of things to come. The following year a new 1000' tower was constructed for KWWR just west of Mexico, and on this project, the same basic station crew would be surveying the 40 acre plot to lay out the concrete anchor placement as well as building the wood frame transmitter building.

Hard work. Manual labor. Not exactly what I had signed on for, but it was rewarding.

About that same time period (83-84), we also undertook the major task of replacing the audio control consoles in the main (AM studio) and the smaller (FM studio). The old audio control boards were Gates branded consoles that were installed in 1966. But that's a story for another day.

So it goes.

Early days of localizing automation

2011-08-29T16:47:00.009-05:00

KXEO was automated with country music when I started in 1978. This was long before personal computers with their big hard drives and digital audio would become the norm in later years. Most music was on 10" reels of tape. When a tape ran out, you put the next tape in numerical sequence on the tape deck. The tapes were stored tails out - that meant when you loaded a tape deck, you had to rewind a tape entirely and then cue it up for it to be ready to play.

Every time a reel of tape was used, the songs would be played in the same order. But by using multiple tape decks, you could mix up the order of songs somewhat.

The station used an automation tape service located in Bellingham, Washington - BMI. I don't recall what the BMI stood for. It was not the BMI that does music licensing with ASCAP.

Each song had an announcer on either the beginning or the end, and the tapes were played so it appeared these guys had air shifts. They had big, booming voices with generic names - like Don Harris, Bill Jackson, Phil Thomas, etc. Every time a particular song played, the same announcer voice track played with it (since they were on the same tape).

The whole thing was localized with time tapes and weather tapes. The same guys that did the announcing on the music reels, also recorded big cartridge tapes with the time. They recorded generic weather, so you could have them saying "The weather should be sunny and pleasant today." The time tapes were advanced by the System 90 at one minute intervals, so just about anytime in the hour, the actual announcer from Bellingham on the music tape could announce the current time.

A few music tapes like current hits were updated every couple of weeks, others once a month or longer.

But some of the music tapes got old real quick. When an announcer said something like, "There you have Billy Crash Craddock, who drives the biggest, ugliest orange cadillac you'll ever see." and it aired multiple times a week, and for weeks at a time. It may sound like neat trivia the first time you hear it, but after the 7th or 8th time it got old.

When it worked, it sounded pretty good. KXEO had large market announcers on its little thousand watt signal in Mexico.

When it didn't work - it sounded just plain awful. And it didn't work FREQUENTLY. Static in the guy wires would cause the time tapes to run and run and run, so when things settled down, the time wasn't synchronized.

If you did'n't get it synced back up in time, you'd get a phone call like, "your guy better check his clock, because it's wrong!"

But country music only ran until October of 1978 on KXEO. Then the GM flipped the formats from AM to FM and FM to AM. The sleeping giant KWWR had been beautiful music (aka elevator music or Muzak) for a decade with virtually no advertising, while KXEO had been country music with news and sports. In October of 1978 the formats were switched. Country music was put on KWWR and beautiful music was put on KXEO. The switch took place in October, because at that time, October was Country Music Month, I believe some kind of tie in with Nashville..

We got a few phone calls but weren't by any means swamped with calls. People in Mexico were upset their beautiful music FM with no commercials was gone, replaced with country music. But people all around mid Missouri were happy to have country music on the FM dial. There was no competition for country on FM at that time, KWWR was the only FM country station around.

But that's the way it was back then. KXEO had been the money maker up until 1978 with KWWR just tailing along behind. Then KWWR became the money maker and KXEO was left to waste away. Beautiful music on an AM station - that was some stupid programming.

Thank goodness for change - BUT - KXEO changed formats 6 or 7 times around 1979-1980. Big band music from the 40s, popular songs done by other bands, popular songs done by the original band, middle of the road music - some popular, some timeless - solid gold rock and more. It took the dawn of a new millennium for KXEO to finally find its niche.

So it goes.

Is it cold in here, or are you just glad to see me?

2011-08-29T14:30:00.002-05:00

This map can't possibly be correct? Check out the cool breeze in Tulsa.

Spotted a few days ago on Channel 8's web site. I've got a screen saver that pulls in weather images from the Internet and the 31 degree reading in Tulsa caught my eye. I'm guessing that's the kind of thing they'll fix before the news at 10.

Apparently, it's not that unusual for there to be erroneous temperatures on the map.. Check out the jacket-weather temps in Kansas City and Birmingham.

So it goes.

Be careful out there

2011-08-29T13:58:00.003-05:00

Phishing is a popular way for scammers to try and get personal information from you. It may seem like a harmless link from a friend in an email, or a fake notification from Facebook, but there are ways to tell if it's legitimate or fake.

One good test is to hover your mouse over the link or button. Does it really go to the domain it claims to be from or is the link to some phishing site?

Ed Bott at ZDNet has an excellent article on phishing, including samples of real and fake messages.

Don't be fooled by phishing. Never click on a link or button in an email or message, unless you know where you're going.

So it goes.

You may need a different antivirus program

2011-08-28T13:59:00.000-05:00

So what's the best antivirus program? And to refine that question further for those of us on a tight or nonexistent budget, what is the best FREE antivirus program?

PC Magazine has recently done a review
:

Why should you try something different from what you currently have installed? Some of the malware and virus authors write their crapware to specifically disable some of the mainstream antivirus programs like McAfee and Norton. Once the antivirus is disabled, there's no telling what they can do with and from your computer.

One of the most popular FREE antivirus programs is AVG from Grisoft Software. I have used that one and it seemed pretty good.

Another FREE one comes from Avira. Also good and generally gets good reviews and high marks for detection rates.

And currently I'm running Ad-Aware Pro Internet Security. (not the FREE version, but I got it FREE).

There are others that are FREE, but these are the ones I've actually used. Why do they provide a FREE antivirus program? The catch with most of the FREE versions is they don't have all the features of the Pro or Premium version of the same software. So once you try the FREE version, you might be inclined to spend some bucks on the Pro or Premium version. The FREE version may also have "nag" screens to encourage you to upgrade to the Pro or Premium version.

And with some of the FREE versions, you may actually be offered the Pro or Premium version at no charge through TRIALPAY. TRIALPAY has literally hundreds of introductory offers from companies and manufacturers. Most require a credit card, even if the introductory period is FREE.

For example, one of the TRIALPAY offers is for Netflix. Although it was supposed to be FREE to try, two days after signing up for the free trial, my card was charged for a month of Netflix service. But that's the exception - most trial offers that have a no charge trial period, really are free of any charges.

When I went to download Ad-Aware Internet Security FREE recently, I was offered the Pro version at no charge through TRIALPAY. I chose to get PEOPLE and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY - no risk and no charge for the first 8 issues. If you don't cancel the subscription before you get all 8 issues, your credit card will be charged the regular annual subscription fee. So far no charges during the risk free trial, and I've got Ad-Aware Internet Security Pro installed.

Most experts advise against running more than one antivirus program on a computer - but I've run the free ones from Microsoft (Windows Defender and its replacement, Microsoft Security Essentials) in addition to another antivirus program with no problems.

Some malware threats are detected by both programs, but Microsoft Security Essentials has missed a few in my experience, so I wouldn't try to depend on Microsoft Security Essentials by itself.

FREE is good and Pro or Premium versions through TRIALPAY may be FREE or close to FREE. While the old saying is "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" - it's nice to discover FREE things once in a while that are really FREE.

So it goes.

Cutting edge

2011-08-27T21:26:00.001-05:00

As early as 1981 the station had a 10 foot C-Band satellite dish out in front of the building.. That first dish was provided by UPI (United Press International) and was a fixed position dish, it could only be pointed at one satellite. It used an LNA at the feedhorn and a low noise block down converter at the receiver to amplify the satellite signal. We received UPI's teletype news service via satellite and UPI Radio News. A unique aspect of UPI Radio News was that it contained no national commercials. So any ads that played before or after UPI Radio News were local. Prior to satellite delivery for data and audio, phone lines were used to get that information to radio stations - and phone lines were a monthly expense. Satellite delivery had no monthly expense.

It wasn't too much later that The Missouri Network and The Brownfield Network moved to satellite delivery. Much better audio quality than phone lines and no ongoing expense. Fortunately, radio was being served by one main satellite, WESTAR 3, and all the big networks, including what later became Learfield were on the same satellite. Later the networks would move to COMSAT 4 at a lower angle to the south than the WESTAR satellite.

The station added Mutual News in December of 1986. Mutual had national commercials and actually paid the station a monthly fee to air those commercials (based on ratings). That fee was called compensation and most networks eventually got away from compensation - and provided their services on a barter basis. Mutual News later become Westwood One and CNN Radio News and believe it or not, the station was still compensated several thousand dollars a month up until about 2008-2009

The great recession caused the bean counters at Westwood One to stop compensating stations in small markets - and suddenly, that regular income stopped. The compensation was tied to ratings, and through the years varied from as low as $20,000 annually to as high as as $43,000 annually. And it was paid monthly. Losing that hurt. A lot.

But being on the "cutting edge" with "state of the art" technology sometimes meant things went very wrong on the air. Mutual was fine up until July or August of 1987 when the temperature exceeded 90 degrees. Then we started losing the satellite signal every day about mid-morning. The solution? Put ice on the low noise block converter behind the dish to cool it down. The uber-smart people that designed the Fairchild satellite receiver used capacitors in the low noise block down converter that were affected by hot temperatures. So the block down converter was sent back to Fairchild to have the capacitors replaced with ones that weren't affected by heat. I think Fairchild was based in Arizona. So you'd figure they would be on top of the heat of the day thing. Apparently not.

Later satellite receivers used LNBs, which combined the function of the LNA and block down converter into one piece of equipment located at the feed-horn and they weren't susceptible to high or low temperatures affecting their operation.

It's been said that if you live on the "cutting edge", you'd better learn to deal with bleeding. We had a lot of bleeding in those early days of satellite delivery.

So it goes.

Keeping Otto Happy

2011-08-27T18:38:00.108-05:00

Not our particular system 90,
but one I found
on the Internet

Long before the advent of personal computers, some smart people in the broadcast equipment business came up with a dumb computer (by today's standards) to run an automation system. A rack of reel to reel tape decks, 24 cart carousels to play commercials, and a couple of tape decks dedicated to the station ID or weather were all controlled by those dumb computers.

The station here had a Harris System 90 for KXEO and a Harris System 90 for KWWR. Keeping Otto (Auto) happy was close to a full time job before they were finally replaced. Each tape deck source had a source card in the System 90. A red LED on the front of the card indicated when that source was ON and there was a toggle switch on the card to play the source into an audition circuit. Stations had Program and Audition circuits. Program was the on air chain, audition was used for things like recording music or voice or "cueing/previewing" audio prior to going on the air with an audio source.

Each audio source used an EOM (end of message) tone to tell the automation to start the next audio source. For the 10 inch reels of music tapes, the EOM was a 25 hertz tone. For Carts (Cartridge Tapes) the EOM was a 150 hertz tone that was not supposed to be on the audio track. EOM tones were supposed to be inaudible, but if you listened on a good enough system, you could hear the 25 hertz rumble and the 150 hertz hum regularly. Not just our stations, but almost any automated station.

This is closer to actual size than the one below.
Some IC's were about an inch long, sone half an inch.

ICs have a wide (side) part of the leg,
and a very narrow (front) part of the leg.
The thin part has just a fraction of the
surface contact area as the wide part.

The Harris System 90 was a DUMB computer. And I mean that in the best possible way. (not really). Uninterruptible Power Supply? Don't think so - the station had a 12 volt car battery (like the one that starts your engine) tied to each system to save the memory if the power failed. But since this was a dumb computer, the power fail circuit usually didn't work.

And the Sytem 90 functioned with RAM, random access memory, which would dump if there was a power failure or static in the tower guy wires.

In the design of the System 90, some "genius" at Harris used IC sockets that said "Made in Brazil" that grabbed the integrated circuit chips on the short side of the leg, rather than the long or flat side of the leg. So a little corrosion would cause an IC to stop functioning properly. ICs and sockets produced corrosion naturally over time. Harris had a term for what you needed to do to the circuit boards - "massaging the sockets". That meant pulling each IC out of its socket and putting it back in to restore contact. On a large circuit board with 50+ ICs, your fingers certainly got a workout from massaging the sockets. Eventually massaging the sockets didn't work.

So when Otto "dumped" - either by storm or poor contact, the entire day of automation programming for each station would have to be manually entered at the respective System 90 terminal. The GM's son worked nights for a time and got pretty quick at reloading the programming - he could have both systems back up and running in under 45 minutes. It took the rest of the staff much longer to re-enter the automation programming. The system relied on EOCs and EOBs to keep things on track. (End of cluster - the area in memory for commercial and music tape deck events, and End of Block -the end of an hour of programming and the beginning of the next. There were 3 ring notebooks with format sheets to show which event numbers got EOCs and EOBs as well as the audio source to make it sound like a radio station. And we weren't called DJs back then, we were known around the station as "programmers".

There was a light switch in a back room that powered a neon sign on the east end of the station building that said "KXEO Your Neighbor of the Air". The sign was not functional when I started in 1978, but there was a note taped next to the power switch that said "Turn this on and DIE". Seems when the neon sign got flaky, it would cause the automation systems to get flaky - starting and airing multiple tape decks at random. So they had stopped using the sign by 1976.

The AM tower was just behind the studio building, and it was isolated from ground to allow the AM signal to radiate. There were insulators on the guy wires spaced every so often. That spacing was a function of the wavelength of the KXEO signal.to keep the guy wires from absorbing all of the AM signal. But during thunderstorms, static electricity jumped across almost all of the insulators creating a pop-pop-pop sound, and a pretty light show with every thunderstorm that rolled by. That static electricity also caused the automation systems to get flaky, requiring manually playing a 10 inch reel of tape on both the AM and FM until Otto was happy again. And the static electricity jumping across the insulators usually started just before it would rain. Once it started raining, the light show stopped.

So with both stations automated, it was possible to leave the main studio for extended time periods. Each System 90 had a printer that used 4" rolls of paper. An automation event that played properly would print in black. If a source failed for some reason, it would print in red and you'd have to make up the commercial manually.

I was told our facility was "state of the art" for broadcasting. Maybe not in some respects at the time, but it soon would be.

So it goes.

Transmitters are like computers

2011-08-27T17:43:00.004-05:00

There will always be debate over whether you should leave a computer on all the time, or turn it off when you''re not using it. My experience has been that it's best to leave them on, because sometimes certain parts don't like the jolt of being turned off and then on - one part in particular would be the hard drive. They seem to last much longer when they run 24/7 as opposed to being cycled off and on. But that's not the "green" way to run a computer.

Transmitters are like that, too. When I first started working at the station, the AM and FM both signed on at 5 AM and off at midnight. All too frequently, one or the other transmitter would not come on at 5 AM, and the chief engineer would get an early wake up call. There was one summer, when we were short on staff, and both stations signed off at 6 PM on Sundays. "Normal" Sunday sign off was 10 PM. I can't imagine a station doing that now. The summer we signed off at 6 PM, we caught some flack from area pilots who were used to using KXEO as a homing beacon to find Mexico.

One important part of sign on and sign off was station identification, station ownership and power in a pre-recorded announcement. At sign on that was followed by the Star Spangled Banner. At sign off, the pre-recorded announcement was also followed by the Star Spangled Banner. There was a morning man at the time who would stand up from his chair and put his hand over his heart when the Star Spangled Banner played at sign on. There was also a flag pole out in front of the station, and on the station program log near sunrise time it would say "Raise Flag" and then near sundown time "Lower Flag".

The station actually had a full time engineer in 1978 - responsible for keeping all of the electronics working. From cart machines (cartridge magnetic tape) to audio consoles to automation systems to transmitters - there was usually something for the engineer to be working on.

The last full time engineer employed by the station supposedly was caught by the station owners making out with one of the phone sales gals in the basement. I don't know if that's true or not, but he was fired shortly after that. And that was the last full time engineer the station employed.

The engineer was already in trouble with the GM. It was 1979 and an FM station down the road in Fulton had gotten knocked off the air. They had a similar transmitter and our engineer offered to help get them back on and went to Fulton to work on the transmitter. There was nothing major wrong at the station here, but the GM was furious when he couldn't find the engineer.

The GM in 1978-1979 ate nails for breakfast and breathed fire. His management style was supervision by intimidation. If you rubbed him the wrong way, you'd likely end up with a new arse hole. He was downright mean to people. He once told me, "it's not a democracy around here, it's a fracking dictatorship, and I'm the dictator!"

His wife soon started working for the station, too. That's when it got interesting. She would zero in on somebody and all of a sudden that person wasn't worthy of further employment. I saw numerous employees fired by the wife/husband machine. And then she zeroed in on me and I confronted the GM about it.

I told him it appeared that "his wife would zero in on somebody, and before long that somebody wouldn't be working here anymore and I was concerned, because the current somebody is me." He said he thought I was mistaken but would "take it under advisement." She left me alone after that. The pair of them got caught by the owners trading advertising (90 second ads for a local home improvement store) for personal stuff - like new carpet for their house - and the wife/husband duo was soon gone.

A couple of years later, the new GM discovered I had a knack for fixing things (and had minored in electronics) - and suddenly I was the assistant engineer. The GM at that time knew electronics, so he was the chief engineer and I was his assistant. It wasn't very long until I was the one being called first when something was broken or wouldn't turn on - and soon had the title Chief Engineer along with Operations Manager. That was the start of being available to any of the staff 24/7/365 for any reason. Was there more money with that added responsibility? Not much. And looking back, not nearly enough for being tethered to the station 24/7/365.

Frequently I could take care of technical problems by myself, but occasionally I would have to call the GM at 2 in the morning to get a transmitter back on the air.

McMartin step/start and overload circuit. Each relay
had a pair of transistors and a diode that could be blown,
keeping the transmitter OFF.

The station upgraded to a McMartin BF-25K transmitter in 1980, giving the FM an effective radiated power of 100,000 watts. The McMartin had a tendency to fry its step/start circuit - the circuit that cycles everything on at the proper time and in the proper sequence. It would do that when it was turned on at 5 AM. It also did that sometimes during thunderstorms. We became pretty adept at replacing some transistors and diodes associated with relays in the step/start circuit.

Transmitters have long had what's known as a "Jesus stick". (Not using the stick you'd soon be "talking to Jesus.") It's a grounding stick to make sure all the big capacitors are discharged before you go sticking your head into a transmitter to work on it. There are lethal voltages or current in many transmitters - and they're designed to drain that voltage off when they're shut down. But in the broadcasting industry there have been many stories about a GM or engineer being electrocuted and killed by a transmitter if they weren't careful. I probably came close to touching the wrong place at the wrong time on numerous occasions, but I never got fried.

The McMartin used 3 tubes to produce 20,000 watts of FM power, a small IPA tube (intermediate power amplifier), the driver (medium sized power tube) and the final PA (power amplifier) tube.The final power tube in the McMartin BF-25K operated with 10,000 volts and 3.5 amps of current. If a capacitor held on to that voltage or current and you touched the wrong place in the transmitter you'd be toast pretty quick.

Apparently the BF-25K was a new design, because at some point, a larger power resistor was added to the circuit to drain off the residual voltage when the transmitter was shut down. This made the step/start circuit fry much less frequently, but it still happened.

We maintained the audio chain, sometimes
running tones of different frequencies on the air.
(ya, I know that's a TV test pattern)

Sometime in 1980-1 the station went 24 hours a day. The transmitters then ran all the time, except when shut down by me late Sunday night for maintenance on a regular basis. Frying the step/start circuit became infrequent - usually only during a thunderstorm. The AM and FM transmitters ran much longer between failures when they were running 24 hours a day instead of being shut down at midnight and back on at 5 AM. And I breathed a sigh of relief.

So it goes.

Float the studios on rubber and use sound proof doors

2011-08-24T10:00:00.015-05:00

KXEO is still in the original studio building from 1948. Additions were made later to accommodate a larger staff but the studios have remained nearly intact from a bygone era. Modern amenities were added to the studios through the years, but the underlying construction remains unchanged.

Earl Dougherty told me that KXEO had a pretty special studio foundation. As the building was located on a busy road (which turned into Highway 54) - great care was taken to isolate the studios from the surroundings.

Rubber was used between the foundation and the framing of the studios - to allow the studios to "float" above all of that road noise.

Each studio had a solid door with a small window and an interesting feature at the bottom. There was a rubber strip at the bottom of each studio door, controlled by a button on the hinge side of the door. When the door was closed, the button was pushed in and the rubber strip dropped down to further isolate the studios from any outside noise.

Although the doors were still there when I left, the rubber strips along the bottom of most of them had become non-functional, where the little button had eaten its way into the door frame over the years.

There are fairly large double pane plate glass windows between the 3 original studios, and the glass was installed at an angle to prevent reflective sound problems.

Little extras to make all of the studios immune to outside noise and control the sound captured by the main microphone in each studio.. And all of that care for a little AM station that gave Mexico a voice for its leaders, administrators, schools, sports teams and the whole community through the years. But it is sad to see KXEO largely ignored by the current owner - and it has been largely ignored since at least 1978.

The receptionist area has a house speaker system and a switch to play either KXEO or KWWR. One time many years ago the receptionist had it switched to KXEO when the owner came back from lunch. The owner came promptly into my office and said, "Shouldn't OUR station be playing up front?" Well-duh!

So it goes.

I went to junior college at an amusement park

2011-08-24T05:00:00.003-05:00

Click on picture for larger image

Well, not really, except it is true that Forest Park Community College was built on the site of the famous Forest Park Highlands.

A St. Louis landmark, the Highlands was open from 1896 until 1963. Long before Six Flags and Worlds of Fun, Forest Park Highlands was a magical place for young and old alike. There is a wonderful web site here: http://www.forestparkhighlands.com that has a lot interesting photographs, videos and history of the Highlands.

My older brother played baseball in the summer. Khoury League, American Legion, you name it, if it was baseball in the summertime in St. Louis, my brother, Bill was part of it in the years around 1960.

Dad helped out coaching and my mom would be right there in a lawn chair, watching all the action.

So I knew about the Forest Park Highlands even before I started grade school. (Many grade schools held their annual school picnics at the Highlands.) My brother played baseball on some of the baseball diamonds just across Highway 40 from the Highlands in Forest Park.

There was a huge roller coaster called the Comet. And the Comet had sounds. Even across Highway 40 and on a far baseball diamond, I could hear the sounds of the Comet. As the coaster's cars were pulled up to the first drop, there was a familiar clickity-clack-clack of the chain drive. And then a brief bit of silence when the cars were at the peak. And then dozens of screams of delight as the riders enjoyed the first drop

But at my first school picnic there, I was too short to ride the Comet (and probably too scared, too).. The following year I was still too short as well as the year after that - but - I was getting taller. At the school picnic in 1963 I just knew I'd be tall enough the following year to ride the Comet - but that never happened because of the fire.

Forest Park Highlands was a wonderful place to spend a day in those summers of the early 60s in St. Louis. You'd be so wound up when you got home at night that it would be hard to fall asleep. But sleep came - and dreams of riding the Comet.

July 19, 1963, Forest Park Highlands almost completely burned. The Comet did not burn and rubber was later put over the tracks to discourage anyone from trying one last ride. But the park was destroyed and there would be no plans to rebuild it, so it just faded into memory. But aren't those some wonderful memories?

So it goes.

Those Amazing Stories

2011-08-23T11:37:00.002-05:00

Some of the old-timers in small market radio, and they're becoming fewer and fewer due to age, have or have had some simply wonderful stories to tell about radio broadcasting in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Earl Dougherty had interesting stories about remote broadcasts that only got on the air because of a piece of tape and a wire, patching around bad parts to get a transmitter back on and much more. I wish I had written down some of his stories. His eyes lit up when he described in graphic detail how Yankee ingenuity was the only reason some broadcasts went on as planned, as far as the listening audience was concerned. The listener had no idea of the trials and tribulations that had occurred prior to a broadcast.

Kirby Allen, longtime voice of The Mexico Bulldogs, also had some very interesting tales about doing ballgame broadcasts way back. One I recall was about getting shocked from the microphone every time he touched it at one game, so in addition to figuring out how to do the game without holding the microphone, he also had to make sure his lips didn't touch the microphone. Kirby would tell stories like that and just laugh and laugh at it being amazing they survived some of those incidents.

Larry Weller had some strange stories regarding Earl Dougherty and Jerrel Shepherd. Separated by some 30+ miles, the two were rivals back in the 60s. Moberly had "red rover" remote vehicles, while Mexico had "red wagons". Moberly had Big K News (the K's from the AM and FM making a BIG K), Mexico had Double K News. Both men can be credited with some interesting achievements in small market radio - making money with events and broadcasts that had not been done before - some out of necessity and some out of glory.

Jerry Johnson had interesting stories, too. Like building the Bauer 1,000 watt AM transmitter from a kit in the 60s. The Bauer was still the backup AM transmitter in 1978 and frankly, sounded better than the Harris MW-1. But to build a radio station transmitter from a kit - it sounded like an amazing accomplishment.

Yes the stories were great - I only wish I could have dedicated time to record more of them "for posterity". The men involved could have written volumes of books about their adventures in small market broadcasting.

Which reminds me there were also women involved in some great small market TV and radio broadcasting in the 60s and beyond - women like Alvina Britz at Kirksville. I got to meet her once back in the 80s, but never got the chance to hear her interesting tales.

It's a side of radio that many people in the business now don't think about. It's a side of radio that many people at the time did not even know about - those great feats accomplished by small market broadcasters in the interest of serving the public interest and possibly making a buck or two.

Stories that will be forgotten all too soon because no one involved realized the significance of what they were doing at the time.

But I think that's human nature. To not realize the depth or magnitude of what you're involved in at the time and then getting too old or not having an interest in writing about it later on. And that's a shame.

So it goes.

Remember when ....

2011-08-23T08:11:00.001-05:00

When I first moved to Mexico in 1978, private line monthly residential phone service from Southwestern Bell was $9 a month. At the time, residential phone services were being subsidized by business customers to make phone service affordable for the consumer.

Once the breakup of AT&T started in 1984, the cost of phone service shot up fairly quickly. In my case, residential phone service went from $9 a month to $20+ a month, and eventually higher than that. No longer could AT&T leverage business customers as a way to provide affordable residential phone service. I always thought President Ronald Reagan was responsible for the breakup of AT&T, but that process had actually started much earlier: the Bell System divestiture, or the breakup of AT&T, was initiated by the filing in 1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice of an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T.

Prior to 1984, there was only one company providing long distance services nationwide: AT&T. There, too, residential rates were offset by AT&T's business customers. Before the breakup there was no "choosing" a long distance carrier - there was no plethora of long distance rates to wade through - we just had long distance services from "the phone company" and they worked.

At the time of the breakup, the government portrayed the breakup as being good for consumers - no longer would AT&T be a monopoly. I remember Southwestern Bell (in fact all of the Bell operating companies) as far back as 1970 using the slogan, "We may be the only phone company in town, but we try not to act like it," playing on the fact that the phone company knew it was a monopoly.

Was the breakup good for consumers? It's safe to say, "of course not". Residential phone services went up in price, long distance charges went up in price and business phone services went up in price. Thank you Feds for really screwing up phone service costs in America.

Prior to the breakup, radio stations frequently used a "phone loop" for things like remotes from a distant location. A phone loop had no dial tone, it was basically a pair of audio lines from point A to point B. Locally phone loops were used to provide a daily broadcast from the Central Missouri Livestock Auction, as well as rotate among churches in the ministerial alliance for a Sunday morning live church service broadcast.

A phone loop was something on the order of $25 a month prior to 1984. But then came the breakup of AT&T, and suddenly that same phone loop was going to cost $250 a month. The station could no longer afford to provide the phone loop as part of its broadcast service and the Sunday morning church service broadcast became history.

Phone lines were routinely installed and uninstalled for broadcasts like ballgames prior to 1984, because it was an affordable and cost effective way to bring distant games to the local radio audience. Those costs went up and quickly stations were scrambling to find alternate ways to provide remote broadcasts.

At the station here, a thousand foot tower was constructed in 1985 - a major upgrade for the station. As part of that construction, a Marti remote broadcast system - using VHF/UHF frequencies to send remote audio over long distances - was included with the new tower.

Marti remote broadcast systems had actually been around for quite a while at that point, larger stations used them to provide studio quality audio from remote broadcasts - providing sound quality that was not possible over phone lines or loops.

That Marti antenna was put 800' up the tower here to provide about a 75 mile radius for remote broadcasts, IF you could get the remote broadcast antenna up high enough and pointed in the right direction.

Eventually (around 1990) the station here installed a 40' telescoping mast in the station van, to aid in broadcasting from remote locations. That system was wonderful when it worked - but if you were covering any very long distance - it became a matter of IF the system would work from point A to point B.

One year, there were remote broadcasts from the Warren County Fair to the studios in Mexico via that Marti system. The following year, when the weather was different, the Marti system did not work over that great a distance. The year after that, I believe the system worked from there - so we never knew whether it would or wouldn't work until we tried it.

Once we started hitting more remote areas where the system wouldn't work, and with the high cost of maintaining that telescoping mast, the station soon moved to cellular phone service for remote broadcasts.

Over time, things like the breakup of AT&T, and later the consolidation of broadcast companies and consolidation in other industries have been portrayed as being "good for consumers". In hindsight, we know better.

So is it any wonder, one of the most terrifying phrases you may ever hear is: "Hi, we're from the government, and we're here to help!". :)

So it goes.

Michele Bachman may surpass Dan Quayle

2011-08-20T22:24:00.004-05:00

So it's America where anyone can aspire to be President. But it looks like Michele Bachman needs some serious coaching or tutoring on thinking before speaking. We haven't seen as many gaffes by a national politician since Vice President Dan Quayle. He was the nation's VP 1989–1993 under George H.W. Bush. Here's a refresher on some Dan Quayle-isms:

"The holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history." How about World War II history?

"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." Is that right?

Addressing the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," he said, "You take the UNCF model that what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." No comment.

Then you have this year's Presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail - and Michele Bachman blames her "busy schedule" for the gaffes. But they're right up there with Dan Quayle's gaffes. Here are a few from this past week:

"There’s a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline,” Bachmann said. “They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward."

Um, the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, so she must have meant Russia?

"You can’t do better than Elvis Presley,” Bachmann said, “and we thought we’d celebrate his birthday as we get started celebrating the ‘Take Our Country Back’ tour.”

Actually it was the anniversary of Presley's death this month.

Earlier this year, she was addressing students in New Hampshire, when she said, "You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord."

Probably referring to the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War which occurred in Massachusetts. Oops.

Bachmann also attributed interest in her misstatements to the news media.

Or look at it this way, "the truth is out there" (to borrow a phrase from the X-Files), but apparently it misses Michele Bachman more than most..

So it goes.

Will wonders never cease

2011-08-18T12:16:00.004-05:00

For those who may think I'm all bad -

After several months of the clock being 15 minutes behind on the TuneGenie plugin on the station web site, I emailed the folks at TuneGenie to see if they could help. They contacted the station and got the time straightened out. Surprising to me that no one at the station thought to ask for help.

"Thanks for the head up Gary, we've contacted Michael and got the time back up to speed."
-KS, TuneGenie

If I could do more to fix problems with the station web site, I would.

So it goes.

Amazing radar

2011-08-16T13:30:00.002-05:00

Weather Underground has some amazing radar images available (free). Like this one today from their

WunderMap®

So it goes.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone

2011-08-16T07:42:00.000-05:00

There's a song that goes something like, "you don't know a good thing till it's gone". There are many events and people from my childhood that wouldn't have much meaning or definition until later in life. In fact, when you're a kid, you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

It was 1960. I was 4 years old. Next door was a boy about my age, who went by Chippy (as in chip off the old block). Chippy was unique. He had been born with his feet turned backwards, and had undergone numerous surgeries to correct that major problem. He had casts on both legs from his toes to his knees that had rubber pads on the bottom, so Chippy got around very well. His little toes stuck out the end of both casts. The biggest problem for him with the casts was not being able to scratch an itch. Chippy was my first neighborhood friend and I didn't see him as being different - he was just like me, with casts.

If I remember correctly, Chippy told me the casts got changed every 6 weeks. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him - most of the other kids around treated him like he was an outcast. To be born with such a major problem with your feet, and then have kids your same age treat you like you're some thing - it just boggles the mind.

But Chippy had a fantastic attitude. He was always happy. I hope some of that positive attitude rubbed off on me. Chippy never acted like the casts were a handicap for him - he generally did all of the things boys that age do - including hitting a ball with his dad in the backyard.

I thought the summer of 1960 would never end. We had great times playing army in the backyard, playing with cars and trucks and tricycles and worms and rolly polly bugs. The Big Wheel had not been invented yet.

The days seemed long and I couldn't wait for the next day to get back out playing with Chippy.

And then .... a neighbor owned a Great Dane. They would routinely walk the dog past our house and let it poop in our yard. It was a lot of poop every time. (Great Danes have very large feces. I remember thinking at the time, "that looks like a people turd.") The dog pooping in our yard made my mom furious. One day, after the dog had pooped in our yard, she got some paper towels, scooped it up and put it between the door and storm door of the dog owner's place. They saw her doing that and called the police.

Chippy's mom said,, "Gary, you better come up here" and we went inside upstairs in their apartment. The front window was open so Chippy and I kneeled on the floor to be inconspicuous and we could see and hear what was going on out front.

My mom was explaining to the police officers that the neighbor's dog was frequently allowed to poop in our front yard and they just left it there and she didn't like it. The dog's owners said something about my mom being a "crazy lady" and should be arrested. The police got everyone calmed down and told the dog's owner's they should not let the dog poop in our yard ever again, and that Mrs. Leonard was not a crazy lady. The dog's owners were still mad, but they left and went back inside.

A short time later Chippy and I went back outside to resume playing. I thought, "score 1 for mom!"

The next year I turned 5 and started kindergarten. I went to Wade Public Elementary School. Chippy went to a nearby catholic school. Some time later that year Chippy and his parents moved away.

Fast forward to 1965. I was watching "Lost in Space" on TV when the phone rang. I grabbed the phone before my dad did and the voice on the other end said, "Is this Gary?" I replied, "Yes." He then said, "you probably don't remember me but this is Chippy." OMG, I couldn't believe it. My friend from a few years back was actually calling me to "catch up". We talked about various things for a while, Chippy said his family had moved to Michigan and I asked, "where's that?" (having never been out of Missouri). Then we said goodbye and I went back to Lost in Space.

Being 9, I didn't think to get his phone number or address and that was last time we ever talked. I don't know what ever happened to Chippy - but his friendship was priceless and unfortunately, would not be matched again in my life.

So it goes.

Trip down memory lane

2011-08-15T19:46:00.000-05:00

While cleaning out some files, I ran across this little gem (the home page displayed the current date, so even though the site is from December 2002, it's displaying the current date):

Most of the site from December of 2002 is available here: http://grandallusion.com/c96/index_122102.html

The site even had a button and a link for local weather back in 2002!

Good old Weather Underground.

If you click on the link above to see what the site looked like, the Weather Underground button still works.

See, it's not rocket science. :)

So it goes.

The Great Ballpoint Pen Caper of 1964

2011-08-13T17:13:00.003-05:00

This is a silly story, but it really happened. I've changed the name of my friend to protect the guilty.

It was 1964. We were 8 years old. Ron and I hatched this really stupid plan to shoplift a couple of ballpoint pens from Famous-Barr at Chippewa and Kingshighway. If we each had $15 ink pens - just think how much better our handwriting would be. And the other kids with plain BIC pens would be envious.

So after school one weekday we met at Central Hardware on South Kingshighway. The plan was to buy something inexpensive to get a Central Hardware sack, take the bus to Famous-Barr, and shoplift a couple of expensive pens from the stationery department.

Step one went fine - we had our sack from Central Hardware and got on the bus to Famous-Barr. When we got to the stationery department it was really crowded. So we decided to look around for a while and wait for the crowd to thin out.

We had to look very suspicious - two 8 year olds hanging around the stationery department for over an hour. I'll bet we stood out like a sore thumb.

The crowd finally dwindled down a bit and we made our move. Up the ink pen aisle, we each grabbed a pen and slipped them into the Central Hardware sack. We did it! We then headed toward the exit.

About 15 paces toward the exit and a man and woman came up behind us and grabbed us each by the arm and said "you're coming with us, boys." Uh-oh. The jig was up.

They took us down a long hallway and into an office. There they asked us to dump the contents of the bag out on the desk. I did. Then they picked up the ink pens and said "What are these?" Well, uh, uh. "We know you boys stole these in the stationery department, we watched you do it." We both said we were really sorry and would never do it again.

Then they said there were calling our parents to tell them what happened. First they called Ron's house. I think Ron's mom told him he would get an ass-whooping from his dad because Ron started crying. Then they called my mom. She told them "spank him good and send him home". They said the spanking would be left to my parents.

They told each of us to never come in to Famous-Barr again without our parents and then escorted us to the exit.

I thought to myself, "it could have been worse". Yeah we could have been taken to jail and locked up. But they just called our moms. That wasn't so bad.

By the time I got home, mom had already forgotten any details about what happened. So when dad got home, she had me tell him what happened. I made something up about Ron getting caught taking something and Farmous-Barr sent us both home and that was that.

Ron and I never talked about The Great Ballpoint Pen Caper of 1964. His parents didn't let him hang out with me the rest of that school year. We were never really friends again after that, even though we both attended the same grade school through 8th grade.

I would never forget The Great Ballpoint Pen Caper of 1964. And it did teach me to never try that again.

So it goes.

My first two wheel bike

2011-08-09T20:49:00.014-05:00

The Climatron, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis

I don't know why, but I have quite a few memories from when I was 4 or 5. We lived on a street that was all of one block long, bound on the south end by Shenandoah and the north end by Flad. In the middle of the block was our two family flat and the intersection with Cleveland that ran west. There was no house or apartment in front of our house, just Cleveland, which was one way away from our house. Behind our house on the other side of the block was Alfred Avenue which ran the length of the backside of The Missouri Botanical Garden.

Commonly referred to as Shaw's Garden (in honor of Henry Shaw.who was only 18 when he came to St. Louis, and became one of the city’s largest landowners by age 40. Working with leading botanists, he planned, funded and built the Missouri Botanical Garden, which opened in 1859). The delivery entrance for trucks was on Alfred a few blocks away, and the 79 acres of Shaw's Garden made a wonderful summertime playground as long as we didn't get caught by the employees. They tolerated us as long as we didn't tear anything up.It was always warm and humid in The Climatron, even in winter. The flowers throughout the garden were beautiful. There was a Desert house, a Rose house and numerous other types of displays that we could walk through. But The Climatron was my favorite place to go.

And would you believe, I punched in the address and Google returned a picture of the front of that two family flat. That was home from the time I was two until I went away to college.

I was 4 when I wore out the tires on the hand me down tricycle I had. For my birthday, Dad got me a two wheel bike with training wheels. It looked like this:

It wasn't very long until I wanted to try it without the training wheels. With an audience of several neighbors and my Mom, Dad held his hand on the back of the seat to get me started down the alley on just two wheels. He said I was doing great. About that time I looked back and saw that he let go of the bike about 20 feet ago and I was on my own. As I looked back, the adults yelled, "look forward, look forward!". Me and the bike crashed to the concrete of the alley.

Although I had a few scrapes, what was most upsetting were the scratches in the paint on the bike and bent fender. My new bike. Dad was able to bend the fender back in place, and in our garage he had some red paint to touch up the scratches. It was as good as new. I rode that bike hard. In the alley, on the sidewalk and occasionally into the street. It's a miracle I was never struck by a car. One winter I even tried to ride that bike in the tire tracks in the snow on the street. That didn't work too well, I decided I needed snow tires and I put the bike back in the garage until spring.

So it goes.

Forced busing caused heartbreak

2011-08-09T19:35:00.010-05:00

By the mid 60s, St. Louis was heavily involved in voluntary and forced busing of students from one school district to another in the quest for desegregation. But when busing started, inner city white and black kids were bused to other districts to achieve equality in education. (That's a picture of Wade Elementary on Vandiventer).

I attended the same grade school from kindergarten through 8th grade. It was about 5 city blocks from home and I walked to and from school. All the kids either walked, rode a bi-state bus (St. Louis Mass Transit) or were brought by a parent. Prior to forced busing, there was one "bully" in the entire school. Everyone knew who he was and most of the kids tried to avoid him. There was even one year, when he threatened to beat me up if I didn't hang out with him. My 4th grade teacher actually let me leave early at noon and when school was over to avoid a confrontation with the Bully because I was terrified of him. He once tried to drag me into the girl's restroom and push my face down into a toilet, but I resisted and a teacher came along before he could force my face into the water. The next school year, all the doors had been removed from the stalls in the bathrooms - probably so nothing funky could go on behind closed doors - and it coincided with forced busing.

Suddenly my seemingly quiet grade school now had dozens of "bullies". The principal referred to them as "those kids" and if there was any trouble, we were told to try and avoid confrontations. The principal, Margaret Woehr, was not happy with forced busing. Her quiet little grade school changed suddenly. She was a pleasant lady to a point - but the kids liked to call her Werewolf. One of the bused in bullies was Joey Davis. Built like a wrestler and dumb as a door knob. He carried a small paper bag in his pants pocket, and several times a day would bring it out and inhale from it. He had airplane glue in that bag. Joey dropped out of grade school before graduating.

Mr. Stumpe (STUM-pee) was principal when I was in kindergarten. He always wore a suit and had a crew cut. I had some monopoly money one time and he offered to sell me the school. I was 5 and thought he was halfway serious. The following year Margaret Woehr replaced him. But I digress.

Point A - Curb where my nose was broken, Point B - Corner Tim was standing on

While walking to school one day, a patrol boy, Tim Griffith, was getting some red hots from another kid. They were a few years older than me. The red hots were being poured into his red patrol boy helmet in his hands.
I don't know why, but as I walked by, I hit the bottom of the helmet intentionally and red hots went flying. Much to my surprise, Tim was furious and chased me up the block before catching me. He grabbed my shirt around the shoulders and threw me face down to the concrete curb. It broke my nose. This was just outside the girls playground and a teacher came running pretty quick and escorted me inside. They called my parents to come get me because they couldn't get the bleeding stopped.

That event would stay with me my entire life. In 7th grade a girl once said, "if your nose was a penis, you'd be a good lay." I didn't even know what that meant until a friend explained it to me. Needless to say I was devastated, particularly since I hadn't done anything to provoke her comment aside from being in the same classroom. In high school, I worked as an assistant to the guidance counseling office. I had to deliver a note to a particular teacher, Mr. Anton, that would excuse one of his students from school for some personal family business for the day.. I never had Mr. Anton as a teacher and had never met him. But as I handed him the note, he said, "Gee, if I had your nose full of nickels I'd be rich!", and the entire class laughed. I turned red and retreated from the classroom. I didn't have a snappy comeback, because he caught me totally off guard. I didn't expect anything like that to come out of the mouth of an adult.

Wade Elementary is also where I was exposed to asbestos. In the middle of the basement were the boilers that provided heat to the classrooms. A group of us guys were exploring around the boiler room, and one of the things we did was peel back the white asbestos from a pipe to see what was underneath. That event, too, would stay with me.Recent years have brought a diagnosis of "scarring consistent with exposure to asbestos" to my lungs from various specialists.

When busing started, the new kids were being bused in from an elementary school district about two districts away from Wade. And there were girls. New girls. One in particular caught my eye, Faith McEntire. She looked like a fairy princess. Long blonde hair, nice features and nice personality. I tried very hard to get closer to Faith. She pretty much ignored me. One Saturday a group of us boys went to the The Shenandoah on Grand for some movie or other, and Faith was there with some of her friends from school.. Usually we went to The Columbia Theater on The Hill, in the opposite direction of The Shenandoah and not quite so far from home. I had hopes of sitting close to her, but the boys headed to one part of the theater and the girls to a different part. I didn't pay much attention to the movies, because I was mainly there to see Faith.

I was heartbroken over Faith, and she had no idea.. I don't know whatever happened to Faith, but I hope she has had a good life. I certainly have.

So it goes.

Terminating rats for a beer, in the summertime, in south St. Louis

2011-08-08T19:26:00.005-05:00

This is a strange story - so I'll just jump right in.

In the summer of 1971 I was 15. Four places west of our two-family flat was a four-family flat. They were called flats because the roof was basically flat, with a slight slope down from front to rear. My folks owned the two-family flat we lived in - occupying the ground floor - while the 2nd floor was rented out. In most of the four-family flats you had 4 renters and they were often not kept in very good shape, inside or out.

Mac (probably 48 years old or so) and his family of four lived in that four-family flat four places west of our flat. (Names have been changed in this story so Mac and his family may remain anonymous.) There was Mac's wife, 11 year old daughter, 10 year old son, and the runt, Benny, 6. Benny was born with a cleft palette and Mac's family couldn't afford to get it fixed so most of the kids in the neighborhood always made fun of the way Benny talked. I didn't, because Mac and his family became friends that summer.

One evening Mac made me and another kid from the neighborhood, Johnny, an offer. He'd give us a beer or two if we would sit on his front porch after the neighborhood got quiet - around 11 PM - and shoot rats that came out of the crawl space in the four-family flat next to his. The weapon of choice was a CO2 BB pistol, nearly quiet when shot. His kids were sound asleep when all of this was going on.

Mac's family lived in the lower left apartment of this 4 family flat

So almost every evening around 11, we'd head down to Mac's for Rat Patrol. If we stayed very quiet on Mac's front porch, sure enough a little after 11, rats would start to come out from under the flat next door. Pop, pop, pop - "Got him!". Mac would laugh and his beer belly would just shake and shake. He ducked inside and got us each a beer. That first night I think we killed 3 or 4 rats. On subsequent nights the death toll would stay lower, only 1 or 2 for a while. And after a few weeks, we thought we had killed all the rats under the flat next door. Johnny only stuck around for the first few nights, then decided he'd had enough. From then on, just Mac and me on Rat Patrol.

But Mac had started something, giving each of us a beer that first evening, and the nightly beer continued for a little while. I continued going to Mac's apartment, watching TV in the living room in the dark as his kids slept. And there in the only light provided by the black and white TV, you'd see a roach scurry across the floor. Then another. and another. I got my fill of seeing roaches pretty quick and that was the end of the nightly visits to Mac's flat. How thick were the roaches? One early evening I stopped by and his wife had a pot of beans boiling on the stove. As I looked into the boiling pot, there'd be a roach float by every so often. Mac's wife fished the roach out of the pot and the family had those beans for supper that night. I never ate there, for obvious reasons, and soon stopped going there in the evening altogether.

About a year later, I heard Benny had run out in front of a car and was hit and killed. I don't know what happened with the rest of that family, but they moved somewhere else shortly after Benny's death because they couldn't pay the rent.

So it goes.

Memorable People

2011-08-03T17:25:00.002-05:00

As we continue down that road of life, we meet and encounter memorable people. Some are good memories, some are not so good. Here's a little story about 3 from college that weren't so good. My college friend Tim should enjoy this.

When I first enrolled at Central Missouri State University, I was coming from 2 years of junior college in St. Louis (very liberal environment), to CMSU (very strict environment). It was culture shock to say the least and my first experience at CMSU was with an older male counselor to get signed up for classes for the fall of 1976. I can't say for sure what his name was, so we'll call him Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith apparently got some kind of pleasure from having me repeat my social security number about 20 times. I mean, he probably had it memorized after the first 6 or 7 times (if he was slow), because my SSN is very easy to commit to memory. But there we were, filling out enrollment forms, and him asking repeatedly for my social security number. Toward the end of this session he inquired about my previous political science studies.

Even at Forest Park Community College circa 1974-1975, I didn't like political science because of the instructors. A woman instructor had a fairly severe speech impediment that made her difficult to listen to. Try concentrating on political history with that going on. The other political science instructor was a man, who was also a state representative in Jefferson City. So that made him an "expert" on anything to do with Missouri politics. Particularly on being able to greatly exceed the speed limit legally on I-70 and US Highway 54 when the legislature was in session. Guess that's one of the perks.

Back to Mr. Smith. I seem to recall getting a D in one political science class in St. Louis and a C in the other one I took. I still maintained an A- average in St. Louis. Mr. Smith asked if I had been tested on the Missouri Constitution? No, can't say as I have. Then he said that it was a requirement for graduation, so even though I had credit for two classes coming from St. Louis I would have to take a political science class at CMSU that would test me on the Missouri Constitution. When it came time for me to graduate I had fulfilled all my hours for a Bachelor of Science Degree, but had never taken a class where I was tested on the Missouri Constitution. I was actually worried they'd hold me back for another quarter just because of that - but that didn't happen. There was no requirement to be tested on the Missouri Constitution. Mr. Smith is most likely pushing daisies now.

As soon as I could I transferred to another counselor, John Prince. My memory of John Prince is this - I had to change classes after the first few days one quarter - I somehow got into a class that had nothing to with anything I was interested in. I stood outside his door patiently for about 5 minutes while he had his face buried in paperwork on his desk. I then cleared my throat and said, "Mr. Prince" and and without looking up from his paperwork he said "I don't even have time for you today. Go away!" So squeamishly I explained I had to change one class that morning and he finally looked up from the paperwork and assisted me. I don't know what John Prince went on to do, but he wasn't a very good counselor at times.

And then there was the spring quarter (right after spring break) when I had chicken pox. 22 years old and somehow I got chicken pox at college. By the time I was actually diagnosed with chicken pox, I had scabs all over my arms and face - and naturally had to miss at least a few days of classes.

Dr. David Eshelman taught classes in Mass Media - and specialized in broadcast law. He was a very "by the book" kind of guy. When I stopped in to tell him I'd be missing a few days of class it was very obvious by my appearance that I had a fairly severe case of chicken pox. He said something like, "that's fine, but I still need a note from your doctor if you expect to make up the test I'm giving Tuesday." OK, whatever.

Dr. E asked for my assistance with recording a vocal concert one winter evening - I worked part time in the Radio Lab at CMSU - and he taught me something that has stuck with me through the years. As we were wrapping up the recording, I started to wind a microphone cord around my left arm to coil it up - using my hand and elbow as a spacer for the coil. He quickly stopped me and pointed out that cords get twisted when you coil them that way - and showed me the correct way to coil a microphone cable. The same thing applies to extension cords - you should never just coil them around your arm - they will end up twisted.

Dr. E was a knowledgeable instructor - and he was very thorough in his approach to broadcast law. Unfortunately Dr. Eshelman was shot to death in the driveway of his home in April of 1993 (a former student was charged with murder).

Thanks for stopping by.

So it goes.

New Record High

2011-08-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

The official high temperature at The Columbia Regional Airport today was 108. That's a new record high. The old high of 104 had been set in 1991. The "normal" high for this time of year is 88.

A little diversion - building an ice castle:

The high tomorrow is only supposed to hit 93. Woo-hoo!

So it goes.

I got to meet Curly back in the 60s!

2011-08-02T12:41:00.003-05:00

The early to mid 60s was an innocent time, even in larger cities like St. Louis. In my neighborhood in south St. Louis, most of the kids about my age (5,6,7,8) were allowed to pretty much run free. It's not that our parents were bad parents, it's just that back then you didn't have to keep an eye on a child all the time to ensure the child's safety. Occasionally we'd play in the backyard of one of the kids who had a parent that stayed outside or within earshot while we were there, but most of the time we roamed the neighborhood and played in our various backyards without adult supervision. Most of us were required to stay within a block of home to facilitate being called home by a parent yelling your name.

It was a wonderful time. Summers seemed to go on forever. Most of us played from morning until evening, returning home for meals or the afternoon block of children's programs. It was a different time and a different environment for kids back then. And children's television was different, too.

From about 1959 until around 1968, on Channel 11 it was Captain 11's Showboat. Captain 11 was portrayed by the late Harry Fender. Of all the children's shows available at that time, Captain 11 was my favorite because it featured Three Stooges shorts as well as cartoons. Captain 11 would pretend to launch his paddle boat into the "old Mississloppy" for the daily cruise. He always had navigation challenges during the show and at the end would pull the boat back into the dock. As a child, I thought there really was a boat - but the show as hosted out of KPLR's studios.

There were other shows, too. Channel 5 had Corky's Colorama. Channel 4 had the SS Popeye (later called The Captain and Cookie). The channel 4 show obviously featured Popeye cartoons, among others. The channel 5 show featured a variety of cartoons. Channel 2 (and later on channel 30) had Mr. Patches.

The hosts of those children's shows were often local TV weathermen - who while in makeup or costume were very far removed from the world of TV weather and thrust into a daily environment of screaming children. (Some, if not most of these local shows had an in studio audience comprised of children).

Growing up in St. Louis - I thought these were the only children's shows that existed.

One summer while visiting a cousin in Rolla (circa 1963-64), he was very excited that we'd get to meet Curly, in person, at a local shoe store on a Saturday morning. Being a big fan of the Three Stooges, I, too was excited at the chance to meet Curly, not realizing that Curly Howard had died in 1952.

We got to the store and the line of children stretched from inside the back of the store all the way on to the sidewalk and about halfway down the block. After waiting in line for what seemed like hours, we finally got to the table at the back of the store to meet Curly. Much to my surprise Curly was the host of an afternoon children's program on KRCG, channel 13 in Jefferson City. He was autographing an 8 x 10 black and white photo of himself to give to each child in line. My cousin was ecstatic at the chance to meet Curly, me on the other hand tried to hide my disappointment that it wasn't THE Curly. Since most of these children's shows of the time were only on weekdays, if you visited a different city on a weekend you'd miss out. My cousin didn't know of my Curly and I didn't know of his.

Those children's shows were some classic local television, although I'm sure most of the weathermen in disguise were at least a little embarrassed to be delegated to hosting a kid show. I wonder how many volunteered for the children's programs, as opposed to being assigned a children's program as part of your contract?

If you Google the right search terms, you can actually find pictures and some clips online of these gems from 60s.

It's a time gone by, unfortunately, but it was wonderful while it lasted.

So it goes.

But you doesn't have to call me Johnson ....

2011-07-27T11:39:00.000-05:00

Yet more stupid stuff on the Internet.

A month ago I needed to find a replacement power supply for my son's notebook computer. The notebook had been a hand-me-down when I got something newer and faster. I searched using Google and found a supplier with a replacement power supply that matched the specs of the old supply. Although the replacement was priced well, what I didn't realize was that it was shipping (free) from Hong Kong. So it took almost 3 full weeks to arrive via USPS.

This morning I got an email from the supplier. It was an invitation to fill out a customer satisfaction survey and get something free.

The email address was mine, but the greeting within the email was clearly created for someone else.
______________________________________________________________
Customer Service Email

Dear Frank Skobel,

Thank you for shipping at DinoDirect.com. Did you get the Colorful Crystal Mud as Free Gift with each of your order? We would like to know your satisfaction about it and sincerely invite you to join our satisfaction survey. Your feedback is very important for us to serve you better.
______________________________________________________________

There really is no end to stupid stuff on the Internet. It's everywhere, everyday, every time you use the Internet.

So it goes.

Update

2011-07-26T19:41:00.002-05:00

So tonight I log in to my web host's control panel and before it takes me to the control panel, I get the following screen:

And this was at the bottom of that page:

Yeah, no thanks, I'm not interested and probably never will be after this stunning display of stupid stuff on the Internet.

So it goes

It never ends

2011-07-26T08:13:00.005-05:00

I guess somebody, somewhere is trying to prove that no one has a corner on stupid stuff on the Internet.

Here's an email I got from SiteLock today:
______________________________________________________

Hello Gary,

Your complimentary one-time SiteLock Advanced scan of www.kdghafdhsflafhl.com has completed. SiteLock has scanned your site for application, cross-site scripting, and database vulnerabilities and found no issues. To access the detailed report, please log in to your control panel and click the SiteLock link.

In your SiteLock dashboard, you can review the results of your scan and sign up for these comprehensive scans as an ongoing service.

Thank you,

The SiteLock Team

______________________________________________________

Apparently this "advanced scan" from SiteLock is something provided by my web host. But you've got to wonder where they came up with that domain.

"SiteLock has scanned your site...." No, you haven't. That's not my site, and that site doesn't exist. What you have done is something stupid on the Internet.

Now I am rushing to the SiteLock web site to sign up for their service. NOT!

"It's not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you."
-- Frank Zappa

So it goes.

The Talent Show That Could Have Been Great

2011-07-19T16:07:00.008-05:00

Around 1981, a company named Special Promotions, Inc. started a country music talent contest called Country Star Search. That first year it was actually called Ray Price's Country Star Search - adding the country star's name to the credibility of the contest. The second year it was re-branded the Country Showdown and offered a national recording contract and a big cash prize to the national winner. Radio stations nationwide held talent contests over several weeks in their communities under guidelines specified by SPI. We were there from the beginning, helping to build the Country Showdown into a major attraction for radio station listeners and country star wannabes. The success of the showdown was made possible by small and large stations across the United States.

The first year the local contest was held at the Attic Lounge located at the Villa Motel. Almost all of the station staff was there - in addition to about 10 contestants and their fans, plus the sponsors we had joined with locally. A few minutes before the contest was set to begin I asked the GM who was going to emcee the contest? He said, "You are!" And that was the first time I appeared in front of a crowd representing the radio station. I was terrified, but by the end of the evening it was actually going well. The final night of competition was held at the Liberty Theater before a packed house. It was a fun event to be a part of.

We recorded most of the local contests and played them back on the air on Sunday afternoon. Winners of the local contests advanced on to the state contests - which were held at Silver Dollar City and the State Fair in Sedalia among other locations.

But then the head of SPI, Dean Unkefer, allowed Jerrel Shepherd's group of stations to participate and most of them were located near other stations. So the other stations, including us, protested to SPI that the contest was no longer "exclusive" to our stations. Keep in mind this was after the showdown had continued to build for several years.

The following year, Dean Unkefer chose to sign ONLY with the Shepherd stations, cutting off the very stations that had helped to build the contest. Kirksville, Eldon, Sedalia and Mexico were all cut off from the contest. Dean Unkefer told me he had never had a pain in the ass like the Missouri radio stations before. And the following year, the Shepherd stations were no longer interested in the contest. Guess what? The original showdown stations were no longer interested in dealing with Dean either.

Although it's been around for 30 years and is still going on - you don't hear about the showdown contests like you did back in the early 80s in Missouri because of Dean Unkefer. He owns SPI and is probably a very rich man by now. But some of the stations he pissed off 25 years ago still want no part of his contest.

So it goes.

Turn Signal Conundrum

2011-07-11T14:05:00.001-05:00

I think I've finally figured out why so many people fail to use their turn signals properly.

Money.

There was a time, if your tail light burned out you could buy a replacement bulb almost anywhere. Hardware store, grocery store, department store, etc. And the bulbs were cheap - something like a buck and a half for two bulbs. You could pop open the trunk, undo the light socket and replace the bulb in a minute or two. Almost the same with pickup trucks - usually two or three screws, undo the socket and replace the bulb.

Then some genius re-designed the tail light, after what, 60 plus years of simple do-it-yourself bulb replacement.

Now cars have a tail light "assembly", and good luck getting it out to replace a bulb. There's a good chance you can't replace the bulb yourself. It might be next to impossible except for the dealer, and now that whole tail light assembly can cost $80-$100, if not more, if one 75 cent light bulb goes out.

Some recent model years have switched from incandescent bulbs to LEDs - and LEDs don't burn out as easily as a light bulb. Since LEDs should last much longer than bulbs - that's a good move.

So I think the reason so many people fail to use their turn signal properly all comes down to money. They fear using it may burn it out quicker and who really wants to pay $80 to replace a burned out tail light?

And then you've got those maroons who have a burned out tail light and have no intention of getting it repaired. I've known of people who could well afford to replace a burned out tail light - $80 is just a drop in the bucket, but they don't get the light replaced on the principle of the cost. Why shell out $80 when all that's wrong is a 75 cent light bulb burned out? Never mind that it's the law to have a working turn signal and use it properly. Never mind that a family's safety could hinge on that burned out tail light and that family could be yours. Never mind it's the right thing to do.

Get the tail light replaced. Use the turn signals properly. Pretend you have at least an ounce of intelligence in all that gray matter between your ears.

So it goes.

The FCC and License Renewal

2011-07-01T14:29:00.006-05:00

The next license renewal period for all radio and TV stations in Missouri isn't until 2013, but some parts of the license renewal process are ongoing. I went through an FCC inspection about 8 years ago. It was the first time in at least 25 years that the FCC had inspected the station I worked at. The station passed the FCC inspection with no problems - it was a stressful situation but the FCC Inspector was very nice in how she handled the inspection.

All broadcast stations (radio and TV) are required to keep public files - certain information pertaining to station operation from the past (what the station has done for the community of license) and present (what the station is doing for the community of license).

One key part of the public file is an FCC publication called THE PUBLIC AND BROADCASTING: How to Get the Most Service from Your Local Station.

If you have a local station, I encourage you to look at its public file - you may find some interesting information. In my 32 years in radio at the station, there was never a request from the general public to view the public file.

The public file should be available at the licensee's main studio and specifically here's what the regulation says:
"The public inspection file shall be available for public inspection at any time during regular business hours."

For a station that's on the air 24 hours a day, the FCC would generally see regular business hours as any time, although a station may claim its normal business hours are 8 AM to 5 PM weekdays. Even if only the part time weekend on air help is working, the public file should be available to the general public.

What's in the public file? Here's a pretty good list (you can click on the Public File link to see it full size):
Public File

Most stations should be willing and able to show you the public file - since that's what's required by the FCC, but some may not be very accessible.

Every station is licensed by the FCC to serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity."

You can help determine if any broadcast station is fulfilling its obligations as a licensee by reviewing the public file. This is important any time, but even more so at license renewal time.

If there is a problem viewing the public file or something is missing from the public file, you can file a complaint with the FCC.

You can be a part of your local station's operation in a significant way by asking to see the public file. If any required item is missing from the public file, the station could be fined. If it turns out the station is not serving the "public interest, convenience and necessity" the FCC license can be taken away. Operating a radio or TV station is much more than just owning a building, transmitter and tower.

Certain parts of the public file contents are also required by the FCC to be available on every station's web site.

How Do Radio Ratings Work?

2011-06-07T18:47:00.007-05:00

Arbitron is in the business of gathering and selling radio listening data. They provide data on who is listening to which station at what time of day. That's quantitative data. Abitron also provides qualitative data - exactly who are the people listening to radio? .... what are their ages, lifestyles, education, home ownership, automobile ownership and much more. They have been the major player in radio ratings for decades. There have been a few competitors, like Birch, but most of the competition has never lasted long. Can you say monopoly?

For years Arbitron has used a diary method to gather data - a sample of the population in a rated market keeps details of what stations they listen to over a period of several weeks. In the past Arbitron had spring surveys and fall surveys. Then in larger markets they added winter surveys and summer surveys. Some markets are in a ratings survey period year round. The big problem with diaries is that people aren't always meticulous about how they fill them out; and for any given area, a very few diaries are extrapolated to provide general audience trends. In recent years, Arbitron has been rolling out the Portable People Meter (or PPM) - an electronic device that records actual listening data for the person it's assigned to.

Over the years there have been stations that start a contest on a Thursday - and usually at 20 minutes past the hour. Why? Arbitron's ratings week starts on Thursday and stations get credit for listening broken down by quarter hour. In the Arbitron game, 20 past the hour gets a station credit in two quarter hours. That's why you'll hear things like the "Really Big Giveaway" starts Thursday at 7:20 on KABC. One extremely popular ratings gimmick has centered on 7:20 AM Thursdays - the Birthday Giveaway. "If your birthday is in this envelope when we open it at 7:20 this Thursday morning, you could win $10,000." In this example are the words "if" and "could" - meaning someone may or may not win $10,000. Under FCC regulations, stations are supposed to be completely honest with all of their contests - in most cases the FCC expects stations to have a list of rules and qualifications for any given contest available to listeners - so the unsuspecting listener can see "the fine print". If there are loopholes that get the station out of having to award the big prize in a contest, they'll be spelled out in the contest rules, or should be.

Geographically, survey areas are divided into metro survey areas (MSA) - larger cities and the county they're located in, and total survey areas - all of the counties that make up a particular radio market (TSA).

In Missouri, a county may have a population of several hundred thousand people, but Arbitron data is often comprised of the diaries from only 20 to 40 actual listeners. Larger metropolitan areas have a higher concentration of diary penetration, but it's still only fractional compared to the total population.

You're probably thinking all this data gathering and compiling is expensive and you're right. Who pays for all that data and technology? Radio stations and advertising agencies are Arbiton's paying customers. And how much does all of this data cost? By and large, radio stations would prefer that you not know who much the data is costing them. Why? It's very expensive. For a small market station that's rated in a TSA or MSA the annual cost of Arbitron ratings is often more than the annual salary of many of that station's employees. So they'd prefer you and their employees not know how much Arbitron data costs. Arbitron has a confidentiality clause in their contracts, so stations legally can't say how much they're paying.

I can only speak from experience. For a small market broadcaster in the 80's - Arbitron had a fairly economical package called the county by county ratings. The data was actually over a year old for each year's publication - so the spring 1987 ratings data would be published in the 1988 county by county book. The county by county book for Missouri in the 80's cost us around $1200 (per year). But that was only gravy for Arbitron at the time - the real paying customers were and are the subscribing stations in an MSA or TSA. Once a station shows up in a rated MSA market - they can no longer buy the county by county ratings - they have to pay for MSA and TSA data if they wish to use Arbitron data.

Arbitron data is based on an annual fee, and stations are given the option to pay that monthly for any given year. Arbitron has long had a built in annual price increase in their contract - so for example with a 5 year contract, year 1 is the least expensive and year 5 is the most expensive.

The station contract with Arbitron ended in the Spring of 2010. At that time, Arbitron data cost the station somewhere in the ballpark of $36,000 a year. And that's actually more than twice the amount of many employee's annual salary - so Arbitron cost is not something most stations want to talk about. Arbitron proposed a new 5 year contract for the station that would have seen that annual cost exceed $55,000 a year in the 5th year, and the only person in the station making that kind of money is the owner.

Stations use ratings data to increase ad sales - more listeners mean higher advertising rates - but there's a point where Arbitron can be just too expensive for the return on investment and Arbitron hit that point with my former station in 2010.

Advertising agencies - whose customers are retailers, companies and corporations - use ratings data to determine which station provides the best value for their customers.

Ratings data is expensive. Too expensive for many smaller stations. And those stations will usually point out the flaws in Arbitron's methodology - like the sparse number of actual diaries involved in ratings, or the ability to manipulate the numbers to show what somebody wants to show. Arbitron would likely argue the latter of those is a feature, not a flaw.

While usually only one station can be number 1 in terms of total listeners for a given time period, you can use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to show a particular station's strengths. For example: number 1 among men, 18-34 years of age who are employed full time, make more than $45,000 a year, drive a pickup and live north of the Missouri River. And there really are advertisers who are interested in reaching the top station with those kind of demographics.

Ratings are one big, expensive game - played by Arbitron, radio stations, advertising agencies and the people listening (or not listening) to radio.

The overall number of people listening to radio continues to decline - as people turn to other sources for entertainment and information.

So it goes.

Cicada Factoid

2011-06-04T11:06:00.001-05:00

If you live in Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas or several other mid-south states, no doubt you've heard the cicadas this spring. This year we are blessed with the 13 year Great Southern Brood Cicadas. While you may find their mating call annoying, they do have a couple of positive aspects. Right now it's a virtual all-you-can-eat smorgasbord for birds and other critters that can feed on the cicadas. And some experts say they may be as thick as a million cicadas per acre in some forests. As the bugs mature and die, they'll provide the equivalent of about a pound of fertilizer per square yard over the forest floor.

I've perused the Internet searching for interesting facts about the periodical cicadas and here is some of what I found:

This year (2011) the Great Southern Brood is out across some 14 states.

Overall, there are some 30 broods of 13 year and 17 year cicadas. The 17 year broods are located further north than their 13 year counterparts. The last time the cicadas were here, both the 13 and 17 year varieties appeared in 1998. So while this year we have the 13 year cicadas, the 17 year cicadas will return in 2015.

They are sometimes called locusts, although they are not in that genus, but are cicadas. They pose no major threat to vegetation although laying their eggs may damage some young trees.

They don't bite or sting, but they do have what look like barbs on their legs so they can be uncomfortable on sensitive skin. They aren't attracted to humans, although they may be thick enough to collide with you at some point. (They aren't attacking you).

Their life cycle is something like this: They emerge as nymphs from the soil where they've lived for 13 years feeding on plant roots. The white, adult nymphs shed their exoskeleton after about 6 days and as black and red adult cicadas live for about 5 weeks. During that time they mate and produce eggs. The eggs will hatch nymphs and the nymphs will burrow into the ground where they'll stay for the next 13 years, only to emerge and start the cycle again.

Experts don't know why mother nature chose 13 year and 17 year cycles, and why (for example) there are no 5 or 15 year cicadas.

Cicadas have been eaten in China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, Germany, the Congo and in the United States. In North China, cicadas are skewered, deep fried or stir fried as a delicacy. Sparky's, a local ice-cream shop in Columbia, MO, began serving Cicada ice-cream in 2011. Yum-yum! (NOT)

So enjoy one of nature's many wonders while they're here. They'll be gone by mid to late July and this particular variety won't be around again until 2024.

So it goes.

Adventures in Moving

2011-06-03T14:13:00.000-05:00

I think it's safe to say that moving is never fun. Whether moving your household or your business there are lots of loose ends you won't see until they hit you in the face at midnight on a Friday during your move.

So, while moving is never fun, it CAN be an adventure. After all life is an adventure and moving is just another little chapter in the overall life adventure experience. Mark Twain said that two things in life are certain – death and taxes. I'd add moving to that short list, because even if you've found your dream home in your dream location – you'll be moving at some point. To something better, something bigger, something smaller. Never say you'll you'll never move. Even if you expire before you move – somebody is still going to have to move all that stuff.

Rule number 1 in moving – downsize before the move. You've got stuff you don't need, stuff you don't use and face it, some stuff that should have been thrown out a long time ago. Don't move anything that you don't really need to move – sell it, craigslist it, ebay it, give it away, donate it, dispose of it. It'll make your move a lot easier.

Rule number 2 – get some help to move. Even if you think you've downsized to the point that you can move everything yourself – plan on getting some help for the move. You can't do it all yourself and you'll probably run out of time – so ease the pain a little by planning ahead to have some help with the move.

Rule number 3 – never believe what the phone company promises about service at your new address. I called AT&T well ahead of our move to see if high speed DSL was available at the new address. Two days later I received a call that a technician had tested from the new address and DSL would be available. So everything was set to be activated on the last day of our move. A technician was supposed to install DSL between 8 AM and 5 PM on the day of the appointment. But a letter from AT&T that week said that since I already had the DSL modem, no technician visit would be necessary and my high speed internet would available after 8 PM on the day scheduled. Guess what? 8 PM rolled around on that Friday and the DSL light on the modem was still flashing red. So I call the number listed in the letter. After talking to someone with a Malaysian accent I got transferred to the “proper department”. The automated voice at the other end of that call then informed me that office was open from 8 AM to 7 PM central time Monday through Friday. Oh, I get it – service will be activated after 8 PM – an hour after everyone goes home so there's no chance of getting anything straightened out till next week.

It rained a couple of times between Friday night and Monday morning. Each time it rained, the DSL light on the modem would change from red to green about once a minute. Not a good sign. It looked like the modem almost had DSL sync but only when it rained.

Monday morning I am told there was a discrepancy in the order for service, and that it had been automatically rescheduled from Friday to Wednesday. Logically, it seemed to me like if they couldn't do it Friday, they should do it Monday – but this is the phone company.

Wednesday afternoon a technician shows up. After several trips between his truck and the back of the house where the phone stuff is, he tells me he's having trouble getting DSL sync. It works from the box at the street, but not at the box on the back of the house. Then he adds, even IF he can get the DSL signal to sync up – I would only have access to the SLOWEST speed that AT&T offers for “high speed” internet. While better than a dial up connection, it's way slower than the 6 MB service I had previously – all of 768 KB or a little better than 10 times the speed of dial up. And that's IF he can get it to work at all. I would consider accessing the world at that rate to be only a last resort. I've been spoiled by a high speed Internet connection for about 10 years. The thought of dial up (56K) or low speed DSL (768K) would seem like taking a step back in time to before high speed Internet was available.

I also told the tech that somebody had called to tell me that a technician had tested DSL from the new address and there shouldn't be any problem. He said he didn't think AT&T had done that for a few years (send a technician to verify before the installation). So in his opinion, no one had tested to see if DSL would actually work at the new address until he came out.

After he left – and that's without DSL working at all – I call the cable company to verify if their high speed Internet is available at the new address. Yes it is – and their 8 MB service would be $10 cheaper for the first three months as an introductory rate and the installation would be free. The only glitch with the cable company is that they didn't have an opening in their schedule until the following Wednesday. I considered that minor at this point, since it looked like AT&T couldn't provide DSL service and I had been managing this far with no Internet access – a few more days was no big deal.

While I say I had no Internet access – I should clarify. At least 3 households in the neighborhood have WI-Fi connections that are not password protected. But I tried not to take advantage of their wide open connections and only connected long enough to retrieve and send email several times a day. About 12 wireless routers show up in the neighborhood, 3 of those without passwords – so about 25% are running a wide open wireless Internet connection. That's never a good idea even if you trust all of your neighbors. If somebody wanted to steal your identity, a wide open wireless Internet connection is like hanging a “Welcome” sign outside an open door. I'd like to advise the people that aren't password protected they should lock down access to their router, but the 3 open routers are using generic names – either the brand of the router for the SSID (as in Linksys), or something like “Router” so I have no easy way to identify them. A wide open router means my connection to the Internet was not encrypted either – so that's why I limited what I was doing on the Internet to just email. I can't thank those neighbors enough for having an unprotected wireless connection – it sure helped me – but the first order of business for anyone with a wireless router should be WPA or WPA2 encryption.

Wednesday morning the cable tech shows up to install cable Internet and an hour later I'm back on the Internet with an 8 MB connection – faster than the DSL I had at the old address.

So that's a bit of what I learned from our move. And even though my wife says we aren't moving again (anytime soon)– I feel like I'll be better prepared next time. At least that's the plan.

So it goes.

Stupid Stuff on the Internet

2011-04-27T22:22:00.006-05:00

I changed web hosts this week for the sites I host. If you've ever done that, you may know that it's not always pain free to change hosts - there are usually lots of "gotchas" that you don't foresee. Like stupid stuff buried in the fine print that you didn't notice before you signed up with that new web host. Or claims that they do things or have services that turn out to not be true. I've been there, done that and got the t-shirt more than once since I've been on the Internet, so changing hosts is not only something I dread - I'm now very careful, or try to be, before I change hosts.

My old web host was imhosted.com. I had been with them for years - after starting out with a couple of smaller hosts. They were far from perfect. They have no telephone support available at all, and that's something that probably should have steered me somewhere else, but I thought I could deal with email only support.

But then when I did need support, I'd get email responses with sentences that didn't exactly make a whole lot of sense - it was obvious that English was not their primary language. Email responses that would end with something like - "We have done the needful". Nobody who speaks English talks like that. My guess is they used some translation software to get from something that made sense in their language to something that sounded pretty stupid in English. Just about every support email response I ever got from them ended that way - and from different support people - with names like Sam, Beth, Bob, Sue. Come on now, when you say something like "we have done the needful" I now damn good and well that your name is not Sam.

So when I decided to switch web hosts this time, of course I couldn't call imhosted. So I went to their support site, logged in, and attempted to submit a support ticket. Only this time, after clicking on submit ticket, I was presented with this page:

Notice the last sentence there, "you can submit a ticket by selecting the appropriate department below" followed by nothing but blank space. Yes, file this under stupid stuff on the Internet - there is no department below to select from.

And this from a company that makes money by being on the Internet. I think that's really dumb.

And that's why I'm glad I switched web hosts this week. Not so much because I expect my new web host to be perfect or a whole lot better than imhosted.com - but because imhosted.com has done more than their fair share of stupid stuff on the Internet with me. It was time to move on and put a different "Kick me" sign on my back.

Who is my new web host? I'd rather not comment here. But I'm relatively sure they'll do their share of stupid stuff on the Internet at some point as well. So it goes.

Keep it simple, stupid

2011-02-20T16:58:00.008-06:00

A few years after I got into radio, I had a mentor named Jerry Johnson. Jerry was already at KXEO when I started, but it wasn't until he became general manager that he became my mentor. I'm not sure either one of us knew the exact moment when he took on the role of mentor, nor I to be his student, it just happened as we worked together to make KWWR and KXEO great radio stations.

Jerry was general manager and chief engineer for the stations. I had minored in electronics in college to back up my main studies in broadcasting. So every chance I got, I was alongside Jerry when something needed fixing. Soon I was involved in repairing the Harris System 90 automation systems (one for KXEO and one for KWWR), the audio control boards, the transmitters and anything else that needed fixing at the stations. And over time I became the first person to call when something needed fixing. I could call on Jerry if I got into something over my head and he would take the time teach me some new aspect of repairing the equipment so that maybe next time I wouldn't need to call him.

As I worked in programming and engineering over the years, I learned that If I could show Jerry how replacing a worn out microphone would make the morning DJ sound better (and do a better job), or showed how a new piece of audio processing equipment could keep our sound competitive with the stations in St. Louis or Kansas City would be a valuable asset to the station he would give the OK to proceed.

We did that with hiring people, too. If I found somebody that would be an asset for the stations, and could "sell" Jerry on the idea of making the stations even better - Jerry had no problem in that area either..

With Jerry as General Manager, me as Operations Manager, a sales department that hustled and a programming department that got it right most of the time - the stations had never sounded better.

I think the concept of "can't" wasn't in Jerry's vocabulary. Under his leadership, the stations covered the dedication of the Clarence Cannon Dam at Mark Twain Lake (which is a story all by itself), the stations got in on the on ground floor of the old Wrangler Country Star Search - building up quite a program to recruit and showcase local country music talent. When the AM ground system of wires was found (by me) to be rotting in the early 80's, Jerry headed up a team of us at the station to install an entirely new ground system, using mainly afternoons and weekends, a small tractor and a modified tree planting device borrowed from his brother Jim. We laid in 120 120' copper radials spreading out from the AM tower. When the FM station applied for and was granted a construction permit for a 1,000' tall tower just west of Mexico, Jerry again led the team of us and we surveyed the 40 acre tower site, marking the locations for each concrete anchor point for the guy wires, we built the wood frame transmitter building one summer, in preparation for the new tower. It was tough getting the regular daily radio station business done to a point we could spend those afternoons and weekends on construction - but it was exhilarating.

I'll never forget his rule of keeping it simple - and that applied to everything, from employees to listeners to contests, the audio chain or the transmitter plants.

While many people like to think the stupid in Keep It Simple Stupid doesn't apply to them, that's actually where it should be applied first - from the top and then right on down the line.

Here's an example of KISS in action....Jerry pointed out to me that the National Weather Service apparently loved statistics. "The dryest ...., the coldest ...., the hottest summer on record since 1896". And in forecasting a 20% chance of this, a 50% chance of that, an 80% chance of the other. Jerry said when you boil it all down and get rid of the statistics, all people really want to know is: Is it going to rain?, or Is it going to snow?, how hot or cold is it going to be this morning compared to this afternoon?

So instead of the weather forecast and information being a jumble of statistics - which people are not likely to remember, just KISS - is it going to rain today?

People don't usually talk in statistics - :"There's an 80% chance I'll get hit if I cross before that big bus goes by, but only a 20\% chance of being hit if I wait for the crosswalk sign."

Jerry believed in applying KISS to all aspects of the weather. While the National Weather Service may issue a forecast something like this: "A 30% chance of showers today, a 20% chance of showers tonight and an 80% chance of rain tomorrow" - that's using statistics (probabilities). and not KISS. A more natural or conversational way to state that same forecast would be something like this: "There is a slight chance of rain through tonight and showers are likely tomorrow."

Us common folks are far more likely to remember the KISS methodology to the weather forecast than the forecast that has statistics.

While some translate KISS as Keep It Simple (for) Stupid, Jerry taught me the real meaning is Keep it simple, stupid, where stupid more times than not is yourself.

So it goes.

What happened to network compensation, commercial time limits per hour and The National Anthem?

2011-02-07T15:51:00.013-06:00

TV stations are still familiar with the term network compensation, but fewer and fewer radio stations are getting this source of income anymore.

There are several ways stations (TV and radio) enjoy affiliation with a particular network and how the money may flow one way or the other. For the rest of this discussion, I'll stick to radio, since that's what I'm most familiar with.

1) Straight barter. In the world of "just" barter, the programming a radio station gets from a network is given in exchange for the network commercials sold by the network and aired on the network and the station with the programming. The local station gets the programming, along with some local "avail" slots that can be sold locally by the station. In a typical hour of entertainment programming, the network may get 6 minutes or more, and the local station gets about 6 minutes, sometimes more. That keeps the programming to commercial mix at somewhere around 12 minutes of commercials and 48 minutes of program per hour. And 12 minutes of commercial time per hour is keeping with the programming philosophy of most stations these days. But there are exceptions, local stations can usually insert more commercials, especially if the programming is pre-recorded, which will then cause some hours of programming to run longer - a 2 hour program may run 2 hours and 20 minutes, a 3 hour program may run 3 and a half hours. This is at the expense of the listener since commercial breaks are longer than intended, but make the station owners more money.

2) Barter and compensation. In this arrangement, the compensation can work two ways - the station gets avails and some form of monetary compensation from the network (the most common way), or the station gets local avails and has to pay the network a fee for the programming content. If the programming is in high demand by local stations - this may be the arrangement - where the station pays for the programming.

3) Straight compensation. In rare situations, a network may pay to get a program aired by a station, if the station has demos (demographics=listeners) the network desires and the network can't get to the listener any other way. Or a station may pay the network or program supplier for the programming, if the local station believes the programming is worth paying for to present to their listeners.

Prior to the 1980s, it was common for networks to pay compensation to stations - because the networks believed the local listener was a valuable commodity. Which network aired on a particular station was tied to how much money a given network was willing to pay the local station. This was the basis of network provided programming on radio for many decades - until the the networks got "wise".

In the 1980s the networks started finding out that their programming was valuable enough to stations (keep in mind stations had local avails to sell even back when the networks were paying compensation) that stations would keep the network programming even if network compensation was taken out of the picture.

As time progressed, fewer and fewer small and medium market broadcasters were receiving network compensation.

In the days of network compensation - even in fairly small markets, network compensation could have been $30-70,000 per year (if not more).

Small market stations that were able to hang on to network compensation until recent years were very lucky and very few. This is a cash cow that has dried up for the most part at the small and medium market level.

Most stations get their network provided programming on a straight barter basis - rarely does any compensation take place one way or the other in the 21st century. But the barter way of doing it, has allowed stations to continue to receive high quality programming - far beyond the capabilities of their local staffs - and that's worked out well for the networks, the stations and the listeners.

Stations that have a 12 minute limit on commercials per hour should stick to that limit - regardless of the time of year or the demand for ad time (eg. political season).

There have never been laws or regulations regarding how many minutes of commercials a station could air in any given hour - most broadcasters used to abide by the NAB Seal of Good Practice - no more than 18 minutes per hour for radio and no more than 16 minutes per hour for television. A code that was adopted specifically with the idea to keep the government out of setting any national standard rule or regulation.

As radio stations became more competitive for listeners ears - they took it upon themselves to decrease the minutes per hour "guarantee" of no more than X minutes of commercials, or always an X minutes of music or programming per hour. This has worked well for advertisers - fewer overall commercials that your commercial has to compete against in the hour and for the listener - a basic code of ethics to give the listener the best ratio of programming versus commercials.

Now its common for station group owners at the national level (eg. Cumulus, Emmis) or regional level (eg. Zimmer, GoodRadio), to have a code of no more than 12 commercial minutes per hour as a guarantee to advertisers and listeners.

For stations that don't stick to X minutes of commercials per hour - that works against the advertiser and the listener. For the advertiser it means more ads per hour where your one commercial can get lost in an ocean of commercials. For the listener it means a higher price is paid in time spent listening to commercials versus time spent listening to programming - which also hurts the advertiser.

Oh, and The National Anthem: Not too many years ago radio and TV stations shut down at some late hour every night, and then powered back up by 5 or 6 AM as most Americans were waking up. And most stations aired our National Anthem at sign off and sign on time as a daily tribute to our country and its people. But then came satellite and cable television stations and networks running 24 hours a day and that led to the local station broadcasting 24 hours a day as well, which in turn pushed the National Anthem out of daily programming on radio and TV. Most of the nation still slept overnight after working day shifts, but stations found late night to be new territory for airing commercials - whether anyone was seeing or hearing those commercials or not.

OK, we know what HD TV is, but what is HD Radio?

2011-01-21T19:58:00.005-06:00

Broadcasters have been slow to embrace HD Radio for several reasons.

But first, let's step back and look at what happened to your local television stations. For several years there was a "push" for TV stations to start broadcasting a digital signal - which would then enable them to broadcast programming in high definition. The FCC got involved and assigned new channels for existing stations and for a period of time TV stations were broadcasting an analog (the original type of TV signal) and a new, digital signal. New TVs or tuners were required to receive the new digital signals, and in most cases, the digital signal was transmitted at lower power than the old analog signal. Theory is digital should work equally well with less power - not sure of the new math used with that idea. But one thing about digital signals - it's either on and looks great, or it's off and looks like "Signal Lost". No more ghosting, static or noisy video - it's now either there, or not, with nothing in between. The FCC set a time frame for TV stations to make the switch to digital and turn off the old analog signals, with the idea that some of the now freed up RF spectrum where the old signals existed could be used for things like public safety (police, fire, etc). Making the switch to digital has been expensive for TV stations - but they really had no choice but to make the FCC mandated switch.

Along with the change to digital - the aspect ratio of the TV picture also changed from the longtime 4:3 ratio (that's 4 units wide and 3 units high) - making for a slightly rectangular picture - to 16:9 closer to the widescreen images we get at the movie theater. (16 units wide and 9 units high). Modern film and filming techniques are widescreen, so the newer widescreen TVs give us more of the picture at home.

Although the digital TV signal makes it possible to broadcast a high definition signal, digital doesn't have to be high definition. So TV stations now have a main channel, which is mostly high definition, although at lower quality than it's capable of to make room for a couple of digital sub channels. The sub channels are often not high definition, but where TV stations used to just have one channel per station, they now have up to 3 channels per station. The sub channels are often used to broadcast 24/7 weather, or one of the lesser networks in a market, like CW or MyTV.

While there is no universal standard for HDTV in the US, most stations and networks choose either 720p or 1080i with a 16:9 wide screen aspect ratio. The highest quality high definition available is 1080p - not broadcast very often because of the bandwidth required - but lots of TVs support 1080p as do upscaling DVD players and Blu-Ray players.

Keep in mind, the FCC forced TV stations to switch to digital - or we'd still likely be watching that old noisy analog video we grew up with.

But, I digress. How does this relate to HD Radio?

HD Radio, or digital radio has been available to radio stations for several years now - but your local station may or may not be broadcasting digitally. And therein lies the rub - there are several reasons why any given station may not be broadcasting a digital signal.

First and foremost - the FCC is not mandating radio stations to broadcast a digital signal (yet). Because of that, the people making radios - namely car manufacturers have been slow to embrace HD Radio because of the lack of stations broadcasting HD Radio.

Second - stations can't just buy a digital transmitter, plug it in and start broadcasting digitally. The FCC has authorized a system called In Band On Channel, where the new digital signal is broadcast in the same RF energy bandwidth. A company named iBiquity stepped in to offer a digital standard for the new IBOC (In Band On Channel) digital broadcasting. So far, iBiquity is getting licensing money from several sources - transmitter manufacturers - to allow them to incorporate the iBiquity based IBOC radio system in their transmitters. A radio station would then need to buy a digital transmitter, a high or low level combiner to get the signal to the broadcast antenna with the old analog signal and possibly other equipment PLUS pay a licensing fee to iBiquity on an annual basis for the privilege of broadcasting the new digital HD Radio signal. And like Television, the new digital signal allows for a couple of digital sub channels for use by the station. So then a single FM station could have 3 channels of programming (and 3 sources of revenue). iBiquity is also getting a percentage of the revenue gained by using the sub channels And let us not forget the people making HD Radios are also paying a license fee to iBiquity.

Larger stations (larger markets) saw some value in having 3 stations (channels) where one existed before and have been implementing HD Radio for a few years now. Associated with that, the car makers are finally starting to put HD Radios in new cars.

So why isn't station A broadcasting HD Radio, while station B is broadcasting HD Radio. Keep in mind, the FCC is not mandating radio stations to broadcast digitally (as they did with television), and unlike television, there are licensing fees every step of the way to digital radio for iBiquity. And those licensing fees are in addition to the new expensive digital transmitter, the expensive digital combiner and anything else required to get the digital signal out there with the analog signal. Like television, digital station power levels are significantly lower than analog power levels and that's been a major fly in the ointment for AM Radio - so far digital on the AM band has lots of problems compared to the analog signal. Overall (AM and FM), it's hard for many broadcasters to justify the expense of adding digital when very few HD Radios exist, and unlike TV, broadcasters may be reluctant to add the sub channels because iBiquity is there wanting a share of the revenue.

At a minimum, a radio station is looking at spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars to add HD Radio - with no immediate return on that investment.

A successful Classic Rock station could add HD Radio and put out a subchannel with Southern Rock or a subchannel with 80s Rock. A successful Country station could add HD Radio and put out a subchannel with Classic Country or a subchannel with Red Dirt Country.

In addition to the cost of the equipment and licensing fees to add HD Radio, there's also the added cost of operating the new subchannels. It would be like operating 3 radio stations where 1 existed analog, and with group owners, would be like operating 9 radio stations where 3 existed analog.

So, for the most part, money, or more specifically lack of money has stalled the rollout of HD Radio. HD Radio exists in larger cities where stations have deeper pockets (of money), but is still slow to come to medium sized radio markets, let alone small market radio.

The FCC really screwed up on digital radio by allowing iBiquity to charge license fees here, there and everywhere. Transmitter manufacturers pay iBiquity, radio stations pay iBiquity and radio manufacturers pay iBiquity. And its "licensing" - it goes on and on and on.

May God help radio if the FCC ever mandates that radio stations switch to digital broadcasting. And may the government provide funding for stations to make the switch. Without some kind of funding, HD Radio will continue to move along slowly as long as station owners and group station owners are satisfied with the status quo world of analog.

TV is primary source for weather information

2011-01-05T13:23:00.007-06:00

A new poll by Rasmussen shows that most people rely on local television for weather related information.; But what's really surprising about the poll results is the extremely low percentage of people that rely on radio for weather information.

Another surprise, is that in reporting results of the poll, Radio Business Report apparently didn't notice the disparaging news for radio, but instead pointed out the small percentage of people who rely on newspapers for weather information.

The poll asked respondents to identify their primary source of weather information. Television was listed by 54% of those responding, while radio was listed by only 5% (that's right, just 5%), and newspapers were at the bottom of the results, listed by only 2% of those responding.

My take: while TV should be no surprise in the poll results - local TV does a very good job of covering weather in the 21st century. As a mostly live medium, radio is close to last with newspapers, and that's sad news on the state of radio today The newspaper results are not unusual - considering newspapers have always chronicled history - but radio has long been a medium for live, breaking news and weather.

Here's how the poll shaped up, asking people to identify their primary source of weather information:

• 54%: local television
• 20%: internet
• 19%: cable television
• 5%: radio
• 2%: newspaper

The Studio - Part 2 aka The Transmitter

2010-12-29T00:06:00.004-06:00

In 1967 I constructed a make-believe studio in my bedroom. Over the next year, or so, I actually took that to the next level with some help from Radio Shack.

I discovered Science Fair P-Box kits and started buying them on a fairly regular basis. Building them was fun and they usually worked as advertised. I can remember building the AM radio kit, the FM radio kit, the metronome kit and the goofy neon light kit among others. Here's a link to some info about those old kits: Click here.

I also built the AM wireless microphone and the FM wireless microphone. As I recall I never got the AM version to work, but the FM version worked perfectly. Here's the manual for the FM Wireless Microphone:
28-109

If you read between the lines, you can see that this is actually a small FM transmitter. And here's where I took my bedroom studio to the next level. By 1968 I had a stereo record player that had an output on it, a tape recorder and a microphone. I actually fed audio from the record player, as well as the mic amplified by the tape recorder into that little FM transmitter and started "broadcasting" from time to time.

I could receive the signal up to 5 city blocks away from my house - pretty amazing for that kit. My record library was very limited, but an album side would play for more than 15 minutes on its own. During that time period, there were companies that sent audio presentations on a flimsy tear-out record in the mail - so I even had commercials. One I remember is Cherokee Village Resort in Arkansas. These tear-out records also appeared in magazines and books.