[BC] Re: How we got our first break in radio....

[Jerry Mathis]

I became interested in radio at the age of 12 or 13. I had been shipped off
to a religious boarding high school in the backwoods of Tennessee. This was
a place where you worked to pay a part of your education. We weren't
supposed to have radios, but I managed to smuggle in one of those
6-transistor radios that were common then. At night, after lights out in the
barracks type dormitory, I'd lay there and listen to WLS. Chuck Buell was
the usual DJ, although I remember John "Recordings" Landecker. I also
remember the news guy: Lyle Dean. He had the DEEPEST voice I ever heard on a
radio station (insert your own joke about "b**** down to here"). As I lay
there each night, I started wondering, how does a signal from Chicago get
all the way out here in the backwoods of Tennessee? As fortune would have
it, one of the teachers at the school was a ham, and ALSO the Chief Engineer
of the local radio station (WORM AM & FM) in Savannah, TN. I started hanging
around with him, and he started taking me into the radio station with him.
His name was Albert Nielsen. He became my "elmer" and helped me obtain my
ham license and eventually my 1st Class RadioTelephone Permit.

After I graduated from the Academy, I went to college in Chattanooga. There,
they had what was at the time the most powerful FM radio station in
Chattanooga (WSMC-FM). I finagled a job as a DJ on that station, working
mostly the sign-off shift, 10PM to midnight. That was the first radio
station my voice was heard on. I was mostly interested in radio, and not
much else in College, so my first year was also my last. After that one
year, I moved back to Savannah TN and got a job at WORM. First as a DJ, then
the boss let me get into Engineering.

Sadly, my elmer never progressed much beyond vacuum tubes. To him,
transistors were 3-wire fuses. IC's were spiders, to be swatted on sight. He
also was the biggest junk collector and the worst "jury-rigger" I ever knew.
I think he had a motto, never fix anything right if you can rig it to where
it breaks down regularly. In spite of all that, he and I went on to build a
NCE station there at the school (WDNX). After his death about 10 years ago,
the school moved forward and built the station to its full 100 KW licensed
output, and shortly after put up a new tower.

I've been involved in radio all over West Tennessee. Savannah, Waynesboro,
Jackson, Milan, Dyersburg, Somerville, Adamsville, Mt. Pleasant, and
Lobelville covers most of it. I was twelve years in Indiana, 5 years in East
Tennessee, and now I'm in Mississippi.

--
Jerry Mathis