[BC] True Radio Confessions

[David Reaves]

I was the CE for WETT 1983-5, during one of its "good" (FCC- compliant) times.

As I recall, the town of Ocean City was one of those places that
becomes empty after Labor Day until Memorial Day. And I mean EMPTY.
It's very hard to keep a fully-staffed radio station those nine
months out of twelve when the bottom drops out of the income. The
upside is you could rent an apartment for almost nothing. You just
can't expect keep the same lease after May 31.

So the story I always heard was that WETT's prior non-compliance may
have had as much to do with a desperate local economy as it did with
lousy management/engineering.

Though the old DA site had served the south end of the city well,
reality was that over time the city had stretched up ten miles north
along the beach to the Delaware border, while to the south was only
the unpopulated Assateague Island State park. Lots of wild ponies,
but no people.

By the time I got there, the place had been rebuilt by new owners
with an entirely new transmitter site, with two new patterns (DA-2)
which were much more appropriate to serve the populated areas. They
also bought an FM, which helped keep the cash flowing in the lean
months. The new operation was clean and well made, especially
considering it was for such a small facility.

I measured WETT's monitor points regularly and legally, and the
phasor always held within tolerances. We had a timer with a flashing
"change pattern" light in the control room, and I know we changed
patterns because, since the night (500w) signal was much more
concentrated over the actual COL than the daytime pattern, it would
have been obvious and counterproductive to do otherwise.

When Resort Broadcasters (Elek Seymour) bought WETT, we took it from
a full-time live operation to live mornings with satellite/automation
the rest of the day. Elek brought us the lousiest, used beat-up piece
of crap automation system I'd ever seen and asked me to make it work.
Which I did, and it did work most of the time. We named it "FRED" 
(F-- ing Ridiculous Electronic Device).

After I left for greener pastures (WASH-FM), I got word from the PD,
Richard Remsberg, that one day a station promo cart refused to recue,
and over the satellite music could be heard, repeated again and
again..."There's nothing quite like 16-AM." A truism, for sure.

I could have stayed in Ocean City forever, but the Big City was
calling, and I was more than happy to pick up the phone. I learned a
lot in my days at that place, and I'll always fondly remember WETT as
the only radio station I ever worked at where I could show up in
shorts and flipflops and not raise an eyebrow.

Kind Regards,
David