I know
I’ve told you I was a Radio Broadcaster on Terrestrial Radio for 25 years or
so. Of course, I am still a radio person since I have Swisssh and Starlite
Radio.
A day
ago, I was reading on a site for “old” radio people about the changes in radio
today as compared to what it was like in yesteryear. Now, some of this stuff
will be foreign to those of you who were never broadcasters but back in the day
I was familiar with these terms and associated equipment. I understand all
these things that pertain to radio.
None of
them exist in today’s high tech radio world.
Computers
rule!
So here
goes.
Back in
the day we didn’t have computer programmes or digital recorders.
We use
tape machines.
Think
Black and White TV.
8
Tracks.
Cassettes.
All have
disappeared from the face of the radio broadcasting world today.
At
various stations I used Ampex and Otari reel-to-reel tape machines. We used 8
inch reels of tape for the most part but sometimes we used 10” reels to run a
programme for 6 hours or so. The 10” reels were massive and were held on the
Ampex machines with big grey-coloured things we called “hubs.”
The
tape was made- for the most part, by Ampex or Scotch.
After
the tapes were used for a few months, they would get brittle and break.
This
caused many problems especially when I worked at a station in Midland that ran
two hours of religion every weeknight.
I “prayed”
that the tapes would not break while playing.
Occasionally,
they did.
I would
quickly try to re-thread the tape back onto the machine.
By the
way, the tape split- usually, when I took a pee break.
Anyway,
I would get the programme back on air as the phones were ringing off the hook.
The calls were usually religious cronies telling me I was going to Hell and
that Satan was forcing me to break the tapes.
Indeed!
Like I
needed that agro!
On tapes
liked these, production was also accomplished.
Usually
the 8 inch size tapes or smaller.
Items
like grease pencils, splicing tape and razor blades were all used to produce
radio commercials. There was no quick, easy editing done on a computer like in today’s
world because- like big screen TV’s, it just didn’t exist.
Hey, we
never even had cell phones in the 70’s and 80’s.
Imagine….and
phones had holes on them to dial a number- not buttons.
That’s
another blog right there!
In the
studio music was played on records placed on turntables.
When
one played a 45 rpm disc, a 45 adapter had to be placed on the turntable to
fill in the big hole. Long playing albums didn’t require the adapter- nor did
78’s- which I never played on the radio.
Thank
goodness!
Commercials?
We
played those on machines called “cart machines”. They sort of looked like 8
tracks but had only small bits of tape on them.
20
seconds. 40 seconds. A minute or two.
Some
stations recorded top selling, charted songs onto these carts and played them
on the cart machines to save wear and tear on the 45 vinyl discs.
Discs
could sound scratchy after a hundred plays.
Some
45’s were made of better quality vinyl than others.
We had
“pots” on our boards in the studio.
Not of
the kitchen variety.
These
were knobs used to turn levels up or down for mics, turntables or cart
machines. When I first started in radio I operated an old RCA board with big
black knobs and tubes inside.
The
tunes frequently burned out and you would lose sound to a turntable or cart
machine. While you struggled being “live” on air with only one turntable, the
station engineer would crawl overtop of you, open the back of the board and
replace the tube.
Fun
times!
Do you
remember typewriters?
They
kind of looked like computers- only without the tower and the internet.
We used
to type words on typewriters.
They
didn’t “save” the information we wrote however.
News
stories.
Show
prep.
Death
notices.
Stuff
like that.
Typewriters
also had something like a tape inside, only it was called a ribbon. The ribbon
had ink on it and when a typewriter key hit the ribbon, the letter of the
alphabet you hit on the typewriter keys displayed on the piece of paper you had
rolled into the typewriter’s innards.
Sounds
confusing- doesn’t it?
The
keys looked just like today’s computer keyboards and are in the same place-
except for digits such as the dash or the dollar sign- which one always had to
search for along the keyboard.
In the
newsroom we had a huge Teletype machine that brought us up to the minute news
and weather. It was like a computer only it was large, gray in colour and made
of heavy metal. It clacked away all day and all night. Now and then one had to
re-fill the teletype machine using huge rolls of flimsy paper.
I
remember the paper would get stuck as it was printing the 1030 News Summary
which you needed in order to read the 11 o’clock news!
Oie!
We had
another phone dial that was used twice a day at radio stations. It was on the
transmitter board usually out in the hallway at the radio station. One had to
“dial” up the power of the transmitter in the morning and “dial” it down at
night.
In
Canada AM stations had to cut power at night so as not to interfere with other
AM signals. AM signals travel quite far at night. That’s why in the Central
Ontario area we were inundated with signals from big Radio stations in the U.S.
That’s when
our music industry was lost.
Everyone
listened to the big American stations because local stations played religion or
some crap music at night- like Peggy Lee or Percy Faith.
Funny,
today I like that “crap” music. Problem was this gave our music an American
twist. We gave up on our own artists.
Things
have changed in the last few decade though.
We have our own Canadian music stars who not only sell records across Canada but
perform around the world.
Still,
many stations rely on American Stars and content.
Just
looks at their station websites.
Pictures
of Artists are usually 90% American.
Canadian
Music and artists still take a back seat today to anything American.
I don’t
know why. I blame it on Music Departments, Programme Directors and music
surveys.
Patch
cords were used to bring in programmes from national networks or to take one
studio off the air and put another studio “live” to air.
It
looked like a Bell Canada board.
“Number,
please…”
That is-
if you know what an old Bell Canada board looked like.
There
have been many changes technically over the years.
It’s a
whole new ballgame with computers and computer programmes.
That’s
why I can run two radio stations from one studio using 3 or 4 computers. My
stations can be heard all around the world whereas a station like CFOR in
Orillia- where I worked on-air back in the 70’s, barely got as far south as
Barrie.
Oh yes,
finally, to end our broadcast day we usually played O Canada when we went off
the air at midnight. It was usually pre-recorded on a cart and played on a cart
machine. The National Anthem was pre-ceded by an announcement saying something
like:
“CFOR
1570 in Orillia has now completed its broadcast day. We will return to the air
at 6 a.m. Have a good evening.”
Cue
music: O Canada.
