[BC] What brought me into radio

[Rob Atkinson]

When I was around 8 to 10 years old, my family attended a church in
Park Forest IL that had part of its early Sunday service broadcast on
a local 1 KW daytimer in Chicago Heights.  Starting at 9:30 they'd
tape part of the service, 30 minutes worth by stopping and starting a
reel to reel tape recorder and it was usually done so well it sounded
like a normal one hour church service in half an hour.   The station
was WCGO (now dark) on 1600 kc running Gates gear from a two tower
unlamped DA south of town on IL hwy 1.  Of course as a kid I knew none
of these details, they came later.   Those were the days when people
listened to daytimers, which carried local information and news, and
no one minded much when they signed off at sunset.

Anyway the church production setup was homebrew, built by a guy who
was on the faculty of the U. of Chicago, and there was a very nice
mixer console he made in the balcony of the church, and the whole
place was mic'd well, whoever ran the board wore headphones to monitor
the audio (it also controlled the PA system), and you stopped and
started the tape from the mixer board.  The tape recorder and all the
other audio gear was in two racks in a room to the rear of the
balcony.  Oh how I wish I had that gear now.   From what I remember it
all looked like first class stuff and all vacuum tube audio.  At 10:30
every Sunday morning some volunteer would get the tape and rush it to
the station for broadcast at 11 a.m.   Whenever my dad volunteered to
make the tape run, I'd go with him because I'd get to see the
station's studios, which were in a strip mall on Joe Orr Rd. in
Chicago Heights.

Oh boy, that was to me, real broadcast radio.   Walls and ceilings
covered with acoustic tiles, the ones with the linear pattern of holes
in them, a front reception area no one ever seemed to use, and a long
hall down one side of the station's building space with studios one
behind another opening off it.   First Phone tickets in frames hanging
on the wall, S55 mics with the cast metal mic flags bearing the
station's call letters, racks of gear and patch panels, and the huge
turn tables with green felt, guys wearing loose neck ties, cigarette
smoke everywhere and AP and UPI printers hammering away in their own
room only somewhat muffled.   Even on Sunday morning people were
bustling around and it was exciting and to a kid, a Big Deal.

We never hung around very long on Sundays but around 50 years later, I
still have clear memories of the experience and I still have the
infection.  I don't know if radio is like this today for kids or not,
but I hope there is something out there that is just as enthralling
for them.   Anyone who comes across something in life that sets them
on fire, and becomes a passion for them, is very fortunate in my
opinion.    Without radio I think my life would be much more
impoverished.

Rob Atkinson