October 12..My "Radio Anniversary"

October 12 will forever be the day I'll remember as my first day in the radio business.

Back in the late 70s, the FCC still required taking a test in order to receive a license, which was then required of all employees of radio stations whose dutoes included transmitter operations
and/or monitoring. I'd been studying and studying for that test..

..and the rule changed. By 1979, that test was dumped. I applied for, and got, the restricted radiotelephone operator permit. Good for a lifetime. I still have it.

I also KNEW the rules behind that permit. I applied for jobs at every station in town. I got
nowhere. I applied again at a few. Lather, rinse, repeat. I applied SIX times at WTAL and
was hired for part-tome overnights, running the board for the Larry King Show on Mutual Network.

My first night on the air was Octover 12. At 3:06 there was a break for a 30 second local spot and 30 seconds of weather..the weather was a live read.

Talk about nervous..I was shaking as I read that forecast. But I did, and hit the network right on time.

I spent a year at WTAL, learning as much as I could. I helped pick out oldies..produced PSAs..
did other dayparts..and loved it. When the station was sold to new owners, an impending format change made me realize it wasn't going to last. It didn't, and my last day on the air at WTAL was October 12, 1980. It was a much sadder day than October 12 of the year before.

I returned to FSU to work on my degree in communications, and also did work for community group ECHO, the FSU Media Relations Office, and in 1983, I joined WCVC, where I worked
until mid-1988.

In 1990, I bought carrier-current AM station WKJO in Deltona, Fla., which sounded great in Deltona. It didn't get out of my yard when I moved it to Tallahassee. Nevertheless, I ran it
until 1995, when I sold the transmitter to a campground preacher.

I returned to WCVC in 1996, and became an acting station/sales manager until 2001. When
it switched to a talk format, I ended up resigning, and founded Delta Star Radio of Florida, Inc.,
that year. Delta Star's first venture was an Internet station, which launched July 9, 2001,
streaming a contemporary Christian format..manually by feeding CDs into the computer's CD player because I couldn't get the software to work that would allow me to just go "live." Boy,
did that get old fast! By 2002 I'd figured it out enough to run a 5-disc CD changer over the stream.

2002 was also the year I returned to WCVC for the third time. It was a financial failure under talk because no one knew how to sell. It reverted back to Southern Gospel and Christian talk - a little better than talk, but a shell of its glory days of the mid 80s.

WJJD was birthed in 2003 as a Part 15 AM station running on 1160 kHz. The coverage was pretty good for Part 15 - sometimes up to 3 or 4 miles. I ran a classic country format, and Southern Gospel on Sundays. It even made some money.

I knew the end was coming at WCVC, as the management emphasis was money, not programming, not serving the public, or anything else. It existed to stuff the owner's pockets with money. Realizing that a satellite receiver would ultimately replace me, I put my retirement into place and retired from the commercial radio business in July of 2004.

Meanwhile, WJJD 1160 was rolling along good. I was getting a bit of ad revenue here and there and an anonymous donor gave us about $650. I upgraded some equipment and did some work to enhance the signal. It broadcast through the storms and hurricanes and never missed a beat.

The Internet streaming station was faltering. Local Christian stations had come in and we were
just over 0 listening hours each month. I pulled the CCM, stunted with oldies, and took the stream country as WJJD The Country Giant in 2005. The stream continues to operate
as country WJJD today.

1160's demise came in the form of an overnight thunderstorm. Unknown to me, the coax from the transmitter to the tuning box was damaged, and when I signed on the morning of April 10, 2005, there was no "load" for the transmitter. I ordered more tubes - it blew them, and I had to
conclude that I wasn't a good enough engineer to fix an internal problem. 1160 went on the air for a mere three minutes on April 25 before the last tube blew. I traded the transmitter to a
fellow Part 15'er who could fix it for other gear.

This year, I realized how much I missed being on the air locally. The interruptions on the Internet stream ("Are You Still There") had me running back and forth to the computer to keep the stream running. Frustrated, I saved up over several months and bought a Rangemaster.

And, on September 16, 2007, I began broadcasting a variety format on Musicbox 1610. I'm lovin' it!

Since today's October 12..my radio anniversary..thought I'd share these highlights with you.