A Blast from the Past

The final story on today’s PBS News Hour was about the comedian, Dave Chappelle; and much of the story was about his living in a small town, Yellow Springs, Ohio, and how he had helped the local NPR affiliate, WYSO, build a new facility.

I worked for WYSO briefly in the mid 1960s while it was still owned and operated by Antioch College.  This was way before NPR and PBS; and WYSO was still a little 10W station with a studio and a control room in a second floor corner of one of Antioch’s administrative buildings.  I had a show in which I played classical music because I could pronounce the composers’ names.  (Yes, I was a geek before that was cool.)

I can still remember the control room…the board with all the knobs and switches, a couple of turntables to the left, a couple of Ampex 350 tape machines to the right…it was all broadcast quality equipment.  My only memory of the town is a bar and restaurant a short walk from the college that had really bood pizza and where an 18 year old could buy 3.2 beer.

Great Moments in Broadcasting

KRAB 107.7 FM Seattle - The Doughnut shop

I remember KRAB (FM, Seattle)1 with its programming of Indian classical music, a pipa concert, two hours of Korean temple bells2, things like that, often with European classical music and country blues mixed in.

I remember the old Collins transmitter that sported serial number three, and that we finally had to get a new exciter for since nobody made phasitrons any more.

I remember the antenna up on the telephone pole that you had to go hit with a two-by-four on those rare occasions when the snow started sticking.

And I remember one night when everything, except time, stopped dead.3  What happened was that the accumulated muck and filth in the old converted doughnut shop (sans janitor) had caused the blower that cooled one of the power tubes to stop blowing; and the melted and mangled 7C24 became an objet d‘art that hung around the station for months.

So now you know what I consider my salad days.

1Yes, I was there, although the picture at the top of this post is from before my time.  I’m on the cover of the August ’71 Program Guide just left of the gate.  I’m sitting on a big metal box that housed the electric company’s transformer that supplied power to the transmitter.

<aside>
Hey, PZ:  do you remember Jon Gallant, a biology professor at the University of Washington?  He’s also in the photo.

I heard rumors, not confirmed by me, that the fellow on the far right, Tiny Freeman, was the engineer in the opening title sequence of Petticoat Junction.  It seems that he was one of the few people who could still safely operate a 4-4-0 American at track speed.
</aside>

2One of KRAB’s more infamous programs:  the kid playing the temple bells tape thought, “That was cool; I’ll turn it over and play the other side.”  Uh…it was a full-track tape, and so he played the whole thing backwards (and thought that was even cooler).  That was before my time, but it was a well-established part of the station’s tribal lore.

3“…everything, except time, stopped dead” shamelessly borrowed from an essay by the late Greg Palmer written during his time as station manager.  I’m pretty sure it was in a KRAB Program Guide, but I can’t remember which one and can’t find it.  In any event, that wonderful turn of phrase is not my work.