My reasons for Banana Belt Radio and KLNJ-DB.
As many of you know already from my posts in the past on this forum I once worked in Radio.
My reasons for Banana Belt Radio and KLNJ-DB.
As many of you know already from my posts in the past on this forum I once worked in Radio.
I really don’t want to bore you with all of that stuff again.
However, whilst working in Radio I became very aware of what is really going on.
Radio has been invaded and run into the ground by the corporate world.
The bottom line thinking from these mental midgets has taken Radio and made it even more boring than TV.
The Automation of 90% of the Music stations took the soul out of radio and made people look for other ways to entertain themselves.
And AM has turned into the one-size-fits-all medium.
Rush Limbaugh on way too many stations and Coast to Coast chasing big foot on 500 plus stations , along with the pointless Left vs Right garbage has made AM even more boring than it’s FM cousin.
I can see where this is all going and it won’t stop as long as the Corporations have free rein over all of the media we see and hear.
This includes TV and many of the internet based radio stations.
I Heart radio is one of these medias that is just an extension of the same old AM and FM yawn stuff.
Back when I started KLNJ-DB I was trying to keep my old DJ gig at KNRY going in some sort of fashion.
I wanted to keep playing the Artists I was trying to promote and wanted to help music escape the dark world of Corporate music.
Somehow I found the Part15.us site and started to try to understand how to make these flea powered stations become more like a real radio station.
At first I felt that Micro Stations had no future due to the fact they have such a small power level.
But as the months have gone on I started to see the Rangemasters and Talking House transmitters, along with the SS Trans, and I started to see what we could do.
We could take these little stations and link them to multi transmitters, and low and behold create a real and powerful medium for the future of radio.
After a few months of thinking I started to realize that not only can this be done , but it absolutely should be done.
Take a look at some of these micro station websites and see what these people are doing.
A few of these stations are full service radio stations that support the community that they are part of.
I have seen some light at the end of the tunnel with some of these stations.
I now believe that we can stage a great comeback for the AM Medium if we all work together at
this.
We need live DJ’s and we need local sports and local shows produced by people who understand the market they are in.
We also need to work together to bring more content to each others’ stations.
Take the Low Power Hour for example.
That show offers each station a look into what we all can do with part 15.
I listened to the Low Power Hour show one and it taught me so much that I now understand how we can do this.
Shows like this are what we need to cross promote each station with.
Example: The Low Power Hour comes from AM KDX and when it is played on end80 or MRAM 1500 it shows the audience of these stations what is out there.
Perhaps you don’t really want to do a show like the Low Power Hour , but perhaps you can do a country show or an oldies rock show or whatever makes you smile.
Give it a name and send it to all of the Part 15 stations and watch it grow.
I will be offering both the After Dark show and the Motorsports show for download and also offer a live stream when the shows are live.
What I really want to point out is that we can make a very good thing out of Part 15 and we can bring people back to radio.
We can make a living at this if we work hard and use our stations for the good of our communities.
Perhaps you just want to have some fun with your station?
That is great and it does matter, Every single Part 15 station matters.
I just wanted to share this with you all.
I truly believe in Part 15 and I want to add some good thoughts to the discussion.
Let”s work together and make this great for all of us and our communities .
Sincerely,
Lefty Gomez
Mr. Gomez your message is well received.
We may be talking about low power, but we are talking about high energy.
Creative energy.
The corporations cannot understand creativity, because creativity cannot be converted to cash. But here's the secret.
CREATIVITY IS THE KIND OF THING WORTH BUYING WITH CASH.
Why is this? It is because cash alone is not satisfying. When you try to have fun with cash the only way to do it is to spend it on something creative.
Corporations are called "individuals", but they are psychopathic individuals that require special zoning to keep them out of residential areas.
The only true individual is the one with a desire to broadcast good music and useful announcements without asking anything in return.
We may not know where we are during our lives, but we deserve good radio while we're there.
The video linked below shows one example of a highly successful radio station as it operated in the 1960s, when I was a staff engineer there.
But listener tastes, management concepts, and budgets change over time, and eventually those all converged to a point where now there is less "live" programming on WJR, and their ratings are well below what they used to be then.
The video very well portrays a time when major stations like WJR utilized talent and personality to give themselves a polished but warm quality.
The managers who selected the talent were a special class who understood how to find the right people and utilize them.
One day an advertising salesman decided they could do it all without the talent.
And to these sales types the engineers looked like they had it too easy, and their ranks got thinned out.
Am I hitting all the right chords?
Lefty, long ago as a student I was "Chief Engineer" of a student run carrier current AM system on a large college campus. The technical challenge of covering the campus was similar to that faced by part 15 AM operators today in that each transmitter would cover only a single dorm because of the way the power was distributed.
It was necessary to place a transmitter in each dorm and connect them to the studio by means of leased private telephone lines. The lines were the major drain on the budget costing about $100 per month per line back in the '60s. With today's internet and WiFi equipment this linking of the transmitters should be less expensive and a particular transmitter system can be expanded to cover a large area.
Your mention of each of us broadcasting the Low Power Hour and your programs brings to mind the origins of the radio networks and this can be a good way to build a part 15 network as well as to make is easier for individual operators to provide quality programming. Let's remember that there will be no listeners lest there be broadcasters.
I don't know what the potential for the public acceptance of this is but if the demand is there then there is a way to make it work.
I find your comments and attitude encouraging and though my interests are mainly in the technical sphere I would like to try to make things happen.
Neil
In the video the antenna up atop the Fisher Building was a TV antenna, but the camera person probably didn't know that.
Where is the actual WJZ AM 760 tower?
J.P.McCarthy was caught smoking in the studio in his first shot, something that became a big no no in recent years. That yellow scum from the smoke gets caked on the walls, furniture, suits and equipment, and causes connections to fail.
If my memory is still half-patched it seems that the Lone Ranger Network Show was produced at WJZ. I wonder if Rich ever knew the Lone Ranger?
The antenna on the Fisher Building was the RCA "Pylon" FM transmit antenna used by WJR-FM (50 kW ERP on 96.3 MHz).
The WJR (AM) transmit site is located near Trenton, MI, southwest of Detroit.
The Lone Ranger originated at WXYZ radio in Detroit.
Here is a link showing some of the control room equipment at WJR back in the 1960s:
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/detroit/WJR%20MCR%20&%20Antennas%20%281964%29.pdf
Carl , Neil , Rich .
Thanks for the comments and the pics and links and good thoughts.
Neil you are talking about the early networks or at least how they worked.
That is it my friend that is the answer.
However unlike in the past where you had CBS and ABC and who ever else was around back in the golden age , I don't think anyone should have ownership of our little network.
I say let it be free form and let the talent of the Artist and the engineers show the beauty and talent of Radio.
Going back to the power hour . Those shows with Part 15 news and some flash Frisbone are what's so cool about that show.
I think Carl has put a damn good example up for us to learn from.
So if you have a station get that show on it.
Because it will bring people to your station.
Rich thanks for the links and sharing the golden days of Radio.
Come back my friend , We can make this truly fun again.
That floor of racks in the 1960s was engineering heaven.
I bet now it's reduced to an unmanned computer station.
The view of Karl Haas, the classical music guy, in the video, was belatedly educational for me. Despite being somewhat knowledgeable about the art scene, I had personally never heard of Mr. Haas in the 1970s when his post-WJR career had him doing a daily hour program via 10.5" reels of tape for non-commercial stations, but it came during a decline in classical music broadcasting and I was envious because the station paid $35 a day for the Haas hour while I got about half that much per hour.
Our public station switched to all NPR and Mr. Haas was dispensed with.
And here is the facts of what happened to the great WJR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WJR
Notice who owns the station , who is played on the station and I see why part 15 really is the way out of this nightmare.
WJR , KGO , KION , KDON and so many others are doomed.
The Big one in Colorado KOH was one of my favorite Stations when I picked them up on skip back in the 80's . Now they are a carbon copy of the others .
Where is Travis T Hip and wolf Man Jack when you need them?
Lefty, you have tripped a memory by mentioning Travus.
Tell us what you know about him (don't give away any secret confidences)and if I have anything to ad I'll say a few words.
Mr T Hip was on KFAT when I was in my teens , He would talk about all of the stuff going on with Politics and then play some killer blue grass or blues music.
He was the real deal for me back in those days.
Dr Donold D Rose was also on KFRB back in those days and I remember listing to him on AM driving with my Girl Friend going to school . He was a hoot.
Pop Radio at that time was a lot of fun and so were the FM guys doing blues and Rock . KOME back in the day would have a jingle that would say , Don't touch that dial it has kome on it LOL.
Music was a blast and the Radio Stations were all independent of each other.
It made for some good listening in those days.
KGO and it's all talk format was good in those days also .
I started to learn how to have empathy for others from KGO.
You see it really did matter and we need to get back to Radio being part of the community .
When he was known by his "real" name he was Chandler Laughlin III and is linked on Wikipedia with "The Red Dog Saloon" in San Francisco, where he brought in the rock bands that went on to make history.
For awhile he was on KDNA "Free Form" in St. Louis, then KFAT in Santa Cruz, California, which went off in the early 80s.
A new free form station popped up in Freedom, California known as KPIG, where Travus phoned in a daily news and commentary from his final home in the high dessert of western Nevada. His news shows were posted to archive.org (they are still there) and carried daily on KDX.
In spring this year he died.
The KFAT call letters are now assigned to Anchorage, Alaska.
Yea I know he passed a few months ago . The Pig is a clear channel station , how ever they the powers that be seem to be leaving it alone sort of.
Those call in's were great.
Long live KFAT !!!!
KLRB Carmel by the sea was another great station in the 70's that played Real Rock N Roll.
Oh how I miss the good old days of Radio.
But perhaps we can bring a new golden age of radio with our flea powered stations ?
There's been discussion before about creating a network of low power stations, the most recent was for a network of long wave stations. I even set up an ftp for it.
Lot's of interest, next to nil participation.
At any rate, it's still a great idea and one not to be abandoned.
RFB