[BC] when you had to bunk at the station

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

My first venture into a real radio station was as a runaway and I stopped by WTAG-FM on Asknebumskit Hill in Paxton. The Engineer in charge showed me around the facility. He had to keep a transmitter log every 30 minutes, at which time he would read the meters on a huge General Electric Model 4TF5A1 Phasotron transmitter and type the log.

The engineer was surprised that I, then fourteen years of age, would tell him how it worked! This seemed like such a fascinating job that I just HAD to have that kind of job someday! Note that my family did not even have a FM radio at the time and most of my neighbors, as well as my parents, did not have television sets.

It was only four years later that I became the Chief Engineer of WARE in Ware, Massachusetts. The transmitter was on Coy Hill in Warren and I now had the awful job of sitting transmitter-watch at the transmitter site when its pattern was nighttime directional. I am one of the many who petitioned the FCC to allow nighttime remote control and, in fact, helped to create a new radio class of radio person, the "combo-man!"

The transmitter site, however, contained a toilet, shower-stall, heat, and running water. That was all I needed to create a transmitter-site apartment. The transmitter, a Raytheon RA1000, was in my kitchen. What had once been the control-room became by bedroom. This meant that the $85.00 per week I earned did not have to be used for housing. Eventually I "graduated" to WDEW and earned $100 per week and the station was a day-timer! That is when I was able to have "nightlife," but I wasted it designing a transmitter, the Johnson Associates RBJ-1C.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Timothy West" <n3drb at comcast.net>

Is there anyone here that worked in the biz back when at least one  
real live person had to be at the transmitter site full time and  
maybe have some good stories to relate? When did they get rid of the  
requirement?

Tim