[BC] What brought me into radio

[Steve Atkins]

I'm digging these golden nuggets of personal radio history!  Any stories 
from the West Coast?

Mine began with a close family ham friend teaching, encouraging, 
co-building projects and going to swap meets.  I think about 9 or 10yrs 
old, Mom took me to the convention center for a home show maybe (?) but 
for me, the star attraction was the glass booth KNX had on display and 
their monitors were playing.  There was a guy sitting at the controls 
reading a magazine.  I asked, "who is he?". Oh, I was told, that's the 
Engineer. Woops...there it is!  Get paid for that?  Sign me up!  Little 
did I know then huh.

A high school buddy (born with the "pipes" so necessary then, already 
had on air experience ... in Okinawa.  What?  Does that count?  Yep, 
'cause he let me in the door during his weekend shift and soon after 
('64) I'd be signing on that 100kw in Glendale, CA (as I celebrated my 
high school graduation).   And like they say, you never forget your first.

The rather small building on Adams St. resembled a museum of 1940's 
technology.  The laundrymat next door shared a wall and when those 
dryers began hammering away, it was never ideal shall we say.  We were 
light on the limiting and leave it to an untrained breathy woman's voice 
on those 44's to blow us right off the air.  As I recall, it took 2 or 3 
minutes to get it back up.  Early RCA console, 3 16" Gates tables and at 
least 6 Ampex 300s in the racks. Came in handy as a live tape delay.  
Just thread tape from deck 1 to deck 4, 5, or 6; viola, variable delay!

There was a manually engaged "Spotmaster" cart deck; yes just one as an 
experiment.  After all, this silly abuse of tape just might not catch 
on.  Lessons there and trips to Mt. Wilson made for quite an education!  
Oh yes, of course Ivan Perry's theory class at Don Martin (corner of 
Hollywood and Cherokee) cinched the ticket.

-steve