[BC] Celebrating My Radio Anniversary..

[Mike McCarthy]

I forayed into radio at 13 when I entered the control room at my future 
high school.  Was a DX'r when I was 10 using a ball type Panasonic 
radio.  It was REALLY cool hearing WSB, WBAP, WOAI, KMOX, KOA, et al. and 
then looking up their locations on the map. Almost a ham at 11 (missed the 
Novice code test by 1 dit).

I'll never forget my first vision of the dancing VU meter on the old Gates 
console with a pair of SP10's on either side of the board feeding an 
Audimax, Volumax and a resurrected CCA tube exciter used as the TX.  We had 
a SM5 for the main mic.  The station sounded really good for a HS station.

That was 30+ years ago and have worked with many many mentors along the 
way.  And even though I'm through a good portion of my career..er 
avocation, I wish to work with many more mentors until I can no longer lift 
a screwdriver.  Even if the mentor is a protege'.

MM

At 08:43 AM 10/5/2007 -0500, JYRussell at academicplanet.com wrote
>Hey Paul -
>   4 years.  hmm. That was about 16 years ago for me.  Went from overnights
>to middays, and picked up most of the production (voice) for the stations,
>plus eng. and a few dollars.   Radio is a weird world sometimes.
>
>    There used to be an old saying about knowing how good you were in radio
>by the size of your trailer. (Because of the folks moving from here to there
>to chase jobs up from market to market. ) Folks would last a year or two at
>some station,  then move for one reason or another.  Are you planning to
>move around??  I know one or two that played that, and in the age of
>computers, the jobs aren't paying all that much anymore, until you finally
>get 'a big one'.
>   Out of the same room in the same facility, I know one person on air making
>15$ and hour, the other made 300$ per day.  The 300$ a day kid quit, she
>'didn't like what they were doing to her'.
>
>I vowed to myself to do it a different (the harder?) way...
>I live here... so I worked here.
>
>As a station, we pretty well locked out all the competition in our market
>for many years, until we got the corporate buyout / LMA stuff, and a
>horrible GM, who made enemies with nearly everyone within earshot.
>
>I had payed off my home, bought a vehicle or two, earned a small retirement
>sum.  Made it to about 2005 1/2 before the corporate mess finally moved me
>to contract work.
>Thats ok for micro small market, ain't it?  I got away from him, he went out
>of business... now, now I'm doing the tech/eng, and some voice, I miss the
>midday shifts... but at least I'm still in the game.
>
>   I guess my next project will be to upgrade my board and soundcard at home,
>and get an agent for that part of things, though  I don't like what they
>charge -  if we can bill enough it will be worth it.  Unless I can latch
>onto a good engineer and solid work with him, where I can grow that end of
>things.
>
>   In the meantime... think about all the signals we've sent out of the
>atmosphere that are on their way to Jupiter or Pluto right about now...
>
>Do you suppose anybody else will ever hear them??
>They are out there, along with all the other voices from years well past...
>and well in front of the voices yet to come...
>
>Jason R.
>
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