.Please make point to download this week's editions of This Week In Amateur Radio and This Week In Amateur Radio International for the Random Access Thought!. On the TWIARi side, a submitted for your approval: What If. What if the 50,000 watt short wave radio giant WBCQ at 7415 KHz was, perhaps in a parallel dimension, a 70's vintage beautiful music FM station and This Week In Amateur Radio consisted of program elements reduced to thirty second stop sets in a string-driven musical ocean of Mantovani, Percy Faith and the 101 Strings?
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Actually, I wonder if anyone even remembers this once formidable format that became manifest in the mid 1960's, flourished the 1970's and died a slow and painful death by the late 1980's. Stations like WROW AM and FM in Albany, WKCI in New Haven and WEZG in Syracuse were just some of the remarkably successful broadcast outlets that were programmed by such top gun syndicators as Bonneville Broadcast Consultants, Master Broadcast Services and the Big One: Schulke Radio Productions. I remember these stations because I got a chance to sit in the air chair and make a living in all of them and now these many years since, I began to wax nostalgic, or at least I did in 2005 when I first produced this Random Access Thought. And now, four years later, while dusting off the cobwebs in the N2FNH Virtual Vaults, this lost treasure has been rediscovered and updated for air...or pod...as the case may be.
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Meanwhile on the TWIAR Ham Radio Service Side: The Virtual Wife! Fellow ham and close friend Jeff Bennett WA2AIB took to wife hunting in the twenty first century not too long ago, but inside of flowers and candy, he sweet talks his young lady with Ventrilo and Skype. If you don't know what these things are, you'll just have to download, listen and find out! This special Ham Service RAT is an interview I conducted with Jeff and his virtual wife Kristen and recorded around the same time I cut the "TWIAR In An Alternate Reality".
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If, for any reason This Week In Amateur Radio is not accessible or if you simply wish to cut to the chase, these two Random Access Thoughts have also been posted as mp3 files at http://twaud.io/users/N2FNH and http://www.twitter.com/N2FNH
10 comments:
N2FNH:
I most certainly do remember WEZG! As a young child growing up in Syracuse I've been looking for station ID's / air checks and (in a perfect world) playlists from WEZG from back in the day. I especially would love to find documented or audio material from the late 60's to late 70's. You wouldn't have anything like this would you? I'd could contact you somehow and I could certainly pay for copies of anything you might wish to share.. If you can please comment and I will send an email to your address from there..
Thanks for having such a fun and informative blog.
-Greg (monkeeboy)
Hi Greg!
With regard to audio recordings from WEZG, I am not sure what I might have off hand. I believe I do have a 5 minute overnight newscast from a Ron(?) Zimmerman. Since WEZG was programmed by Schulke Radio Productions, there were no playlists per se but there were tape schedules, some of which I do have. In fact, I have extensive documentation from SRP, Bonneville and TM which I may post post someday should I come across a scanner. Staff announcers cut so-called BUFFER and IMAGE IDs but the primary voice was that of Frank Harms, the station owner. I recently unearthed some old 10 inch reels: some SRP tapes and some airchecks but I believe those may be from WROW. I can go through some of the documentation (I'm doing that right now as I type). I don't have any indexes from the tapes but a lot of beautiful music format information. In the next few days, I'll see if I can find anything else related to WEZG. If nothing else, the beautiful music format was unique and had a super loyal (albeit 55+) audience. I'll check back here should I find anything like what you're looking for! Thanks for dropping by!
Bill.
Bill:
Sounds fantastic! The documentation you speak of from SRP, Schulke, etc would prove very valuable to me. If any WEZG airchecks or ID's you stumble across would be much appreciated. I can pay for photocopies in lieu of you having a scanner.. but how you wish to make these docs available is entirely up to you. A CD (mp3 is fine) of any audio in the same vein would be terrific if applicable.
I will also stay in touch with you through this comment page since I have it bookmarked in my computer.
Once again thanks for all you steadfast research and getting back to me in such a timely fashion.
Regards.
Greg
OK, stay tuned!
Bill.
Greg,
After checking the voluminous documentation I have here, there was nothing specific to WEZG or the Syracuse NY radio market. You had mentioned playlists. The closest I have here are a few tape reel indices from Churchill Productions, WPAT and maybe a few other syndicators. With regard to the library of recorded material, I have discovered some thirty five hour long reels so a search of these tapes will take some time when I actually have some time time to see what's on them. Unfortunately, none of these tapes were properly catalogued. In my younger days, these things were archived and given arcane reel numbers. 25 years years ago, I knew what my numbering system meant. Now...? Who can recall? SO, if you're willing to be patient, I'll see what I can find. Some of these tapes are old sound effects libraries and bloopers while others are not related to radio broadcasting per se. At one time I had a Scully 270 playback which ultimately failed and was no longer repairable. I still have a couple of REVOX decks here so give me time to lug out one of those and I will see what's there. There may be some short recordings from WSOQ's Sunday International programming but I can't guarentee. Remember, this was almost thirty years ago and all this also assumes these tapes are still playable.
Bill.
Greg,
Oh, I forgot to mention. Here's an interesting address to check out in the meantime!
http://www.easylisteninghq.com/syndicators.htm
Bill.
Thanks Bill. I have a few Churchill logs here at home and they are very useful. I would think any logs from WPAT are neat too..
As it pertains to the tapes you have there is absolutely no rush. Even if you don't get to it any time soon I still appreciate the effort.
I am a big fan of those old EZ stations and of another radio format that popped up in the late 60's / early 70's. I just found out the other week it was called the "good life" format. It was pretty much the MOR hits of the day from not only artists like Glen Campbell, 5th Dimension, etc but also current pop hits by Mathis, Bennett, Sinatra, etc. I am someday hoping to find more documentation on that format if you have nay suggestions.
I promise I'm not trying to bog you down in useless questions and research. I've had a wonderful time corresponding with you and I am grateful for your input. It's hard to meet like minds on this kind of stuff..
Thanks again!!
Hi Greg,
Sorry I have not gotten back sooner. Unfortunately, things are busy at this time of year and my available time for this blog is shorter than I would like. I have started going through some of the tapes. So far, I have not come across anything that relates to our previous conversation, so hang in there. In the meantime, as the Internet schmutz continues to pile up here, I have been forced to make it less easy to access the comments. If the schmutz continues, I will have to go to the "pending" option, which is something I would rather not have to do.
Bill.
No worries. Take your time. Any help would be appreciated!! I can see how all that spam in the comments would drive you crazy.
OK Greg,
It's been slow going since all these holidays are here and requiring my attention elsewhere. I know you stop by often so do me a favor and send me your physical address to n2fnh(at)juno(dot)com. What I'll do is send you some archival documentation that I mentioned previously until I can really spend more time with these tapes.
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