South and Central Jersey Radio of the 70's

[bigjay]

 :)Folks..THIS is exactly what I was talking about in one of my posts above. Getting inside info about REAL people who toiled in this industry her in NJ. THIS is what this type of community is all about. I am so glad that people all over the state are getting to hear about these pockets of very talented people who graced the airwaves over the years. Now let's hear about the Trenton/Princeton area stations. How about the Camden stations? WRLB? WJLK? WHTG? WCTC? WERA? Stations in Salem? Mt. Holly? Sussex/Warren? This is like a history book in the making. I think that the NJ Radio Museum would be a WONDERFUL repository for all of these stories. I wish there was someone who could put all of this wonder history together and make it available online in a much longer form. I know Pirate Jim has SOME info on his site but he's kind of abandoned it for lack of time. OR..is ALL of this stuff just for the few who actually DID all of this as our means of making a living? Does the average radio fan who reads this stuff REALLLY care what happened in 1972 at WOND? I don't know.. Perhaps you NON professionals can give us some advise here. We don't want to BORE you with all this minutea..unless you like it. Help us out here..
BE BIG
www.reelradio.com ==The Time Machine LIVES

[Earlyriser]

I did time in the AC market. First job out of College. Andy Volvo hired me for WMID  evenings in June '80 for the stellar salary of 175.00/week. I was the 2nd highest paid guy on staff! Moved to AMD one month later. Moved up to Phila. to WUSL at summer's end.  Since then, WKHK, WYNY, WNBC,WCBS, NYC. WJMK, Chicago, and now in Orlando at WMMO.

Many lost nights at the Shore Tavern and elsewhere. Fun stuff!

I actually auditioned at the Jersey 101. Guess I didn't get the job, but I remember the PD. Red headed guy. Seemed like a great concept.

[amfmsw]

Mt. Holly?  Those WJJZ Washington House studios were so bad at the end.  When "Eddie and the Cruisers was in town to shoot at "Rydell Hifgh (Rancocas), they wanted a vintage look radio station for a few scenes.  The wiring would not handle the lighting load, so they drove to AC and shot at WMID.  It was a toilet.  Frozen in time. 

My first day, I spotted an RCA 77-DX being used for a DOOR STOP!!!  I reclaimed it and used it in my News Booth and production.  Awesome.  Installed a Kahn Symetric-Peak and rebuilt a Gates Sta-Level to replace the totally shot CBS Volumax.  It was a sweet combination, and loud. 

The transmitters were on Burlington Island in the Delaware River...4 tower directional.  Totally vandalized by partying teens (they're lucky they didn't kill themselves), it could not get up to licensed 5kw.  But the Vanguard 1kw backup was a workhorse.  Weekly tower readings and emergency repairs involved driving from Mt. Holly to Burlington Marina, loading tool into the boat, and ROWING out to the island.  The motor had been stolen or broken so many times, the owner would not buy another.  Then shlep back to the boat, row back, unload tools and chain boat, and drive back to Mt. Holly.  We got $35 extra in the paycheck for each trip to the island. 

But at one time, in 1965, this place must have been a jewel...all  Gates package

The owner lost the license for "lack of candor" to the Commision in hearings involving a cable franchise.  Dave Kerr, the GM/PD did the final sign-off (The Beatles "The End"), while I took one final set of reading.  Then I cut the plate high voltage at sundown, 11/1/82, and the filaments one minute later.   WE knew it would never return to air.

Mike Venditti later used that same mic at WIBG in Ocean City.

[bigjay]

Earlyriser..please contact me privately.. bigjay6@comcast.net
Thanks..
BE BIG
www.bigjayandanita.com

[Tom McNally]

I lived in Mt. Holly and  visited WJJZ in the Washington House when I was 16,
Tom Wahl (who I knew from CB radio) was on the air, and Pat McCall was
hanging around taking meter readings, as someone with a first class license
had to be there at that time.   The next station I visited was WIBG in Philly,
and did a videotape tour for my Rancocas Valley Regional HS journalism class.
The tourguides were John Record Landecker and I.  We interviewed the
guy on the air and Peter Jackson in news, and the owner - Buckley.
It was a lot of fun and I wish I still had that tape, and of course, has
a machine it would play on.

Eddie and the Cruisers trivia ... the station in the movie AMFMSW refers to
was visited by Tom Berenger's character Frank Robbins, and the DJ was
Joe Pantoliano's character, Doc Robbins.  The OUTSIDE of the station ...
seen here:  http://mcnally.cc/pics/wrhe.jpg
was an abandoned building on Route 9 in Linwood, formerly the office
of Hagerthy Fuel Oil.  The big WRHE (Asbury Park in the movie) sign was
only up for about a day - probably rented letters from sign company, and
the building was demolished right after that.   The inside was WMID - a
shot shown here ... http://mcnally.cc/nixie/eddie.jpg
I have the panel seen behind Doc Robbins, with three meters on it,
and made a clock out of it (later found the shot in the movie)

By the way ... the high school was referred to as being in
Vine-Land in the movie, and as mentioned by AMFMSW was
Rancocas Valley ... I have a feeling the classroom they used
was my journalism class room ... not positive ... but kinda cool anyway.

[amfmsw]

Yeah, after I wrote that, I thought I got the name of the HS wrong.  Rydell was in Grease.  I remember those E-V DS35 mics...never did like them.  I'm no baritone, and you had to use them like a toothbrush to get any bass out of them.

I had a similar tour of WIBG for my basic electronics class at St. Aloysius.  I was a Junior at St. Pius X, and was asked to tutor kids struggeling with algebra, math and applied theory...I wasn't a total slacker yet.  But we had no such celebrity as Scott Walker/JRL "Records really is my middle name".  Archie Sitchel, the CE, was our guide. He showed us the water cooled tubes in those gorgeous BTA-50/10 RCA transmitters, bitched about how the jocks were all going deaf as he was building a Heath-Kit 20 watt rms headphone amp.  At one point he took us through the basement conduit system and gave each of the kids a 40 watt flourescent bulb to hold on one end to light the way.  The RF field was so high, the bulbs lit!  They were amazed.  Archie then gave a two minute talk to the kids on how inportant math would be in their life, and how he used it everyday.  They caught onto Ohm's Law real fast after that.  I had forgotten all that.  Maybe my life in this crazy industry wasn't a total waste.

[Tom McNally]

I didn't get a transmitter tour ... the PD - I can't think of his name
at the moment said "that's all boring stuff in there"  haha

One funny thing we did in Buckley's office when we interviewed him ...
he said "let's do a skit"  and had his secretary pretend to be sitting
on his lap, and we "interrupted" them as we came in ... it was
pretty good.    The towers were right out his back window, and
that 50,000 watts got into my microphone so you heard
"Carry On" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young pretty loudly
in the background.   Every time I hear the song to this day
I think of that.

[HarrytheK1]

Tom -

I never did work at WLDB, although I did go there once to inquire about a job.  My memory of the station is somewhat sketchy being that the one time I was there was more than 35 years ago.  I have a memory of meeting the owner (I think her name was Dorothy).  I remember her as an older severe woman with a full head of grey hair and if I remember correctly we sat and talked at a table in the "studio," because there was no other room besides the studio.  Plus, the station was in a trailer which sat in an empty lot, and, if I recall, in this time before Atlantic City casinos, the area around the trailer was pretty desolate.  I think the board op was playing ET's.  The station had a "Twilight Zone" feel to it. 

Ironically, I later worked with the guy who was the board op that day and we still stay in contact.  His name was (and still is) Al Sergi.  Al deserves a lot of credit because he figured out how to play the game of radio.  He got out of radio to take a real world job in NJ, and while working at that job he bought a radio station in West Virginia.  He sold it less than 10 years later and then bought a 50,000 watt FM and its AM for a song and dance.  He fixed it up, started making lots of money and now owns 6 stations on 10 frequencies in central WV.  His stations are very involved in their communities and Al still does air work as he gets ready to retire.  So, even though it does take a major commitment as well as a willingness to take chances, you don't have to be Sumner Redstone or Lowry Mays to run a station the way you want it run.

By the way, my good sir, for the record, I was NEVER late for an air shift at WMGM.  Of course, I wasn't one of the guys who had to drive 60 miles to work.  I had to drive 120 miles to work!  If I hadn't come down the night before to sleep on the floor at the home of a friend of a friend of a friend, I would leave New York about 6:30 on Saturday morning to make sure I had time to get gas, make a few coffee stops, avoid any possible traffic, and get to the station early enough to put together a few sets and pull the records for those sets.  So, Tom, that couldn't have been the reason you always seemed so…how do I say?…detached whenever I came into the studio.  Maybe it was because you had one of the cars that would sink into that quicksand of mud in that so-called station parking lot

WMGM was too long ago for me to remember what I got paid.  I know it was unbelievably low, although it's hard to believe it was as sickeningly low as $2/hour.  Wasn't minimum wage higher than that? 

At any rate, does anybody know what weekenders are getting for on-air shifts at Jersey radio stations in 2008?  Just how much, if at all (allowing for 36 years of inflation) have things changed since 1972?  Needless to say, I wouldn't expect anybody to tell us what their hourly wage is, but can some anonymous poster give us a range for the current weekender pay rate?  It might even be good info for those kids at home who are reading this and thinking of making radio a career (if there are any kids left who haven't been talked out of that idea yet).

Also, Tom, can you give any tips or advice on how to get jobs without resumes or airchecks?  That probably won't help kids looking to get into the business, but it might very well help experienced professionals who are looking for their next gig.

[deff junction]

WLDB was quite an operation. I visited back in 1972 and it amazed me that they had no cart machines. Someone told me they would record spots onto a cassette machine and hold it up to the mic. Sometimes you could hear any conversations when the mic was supposedly off. I heard Dorothy and the jock having a loud argument one day. I also heard that when the audio got scratchy, Leroy Bremmer would go out to the transmitter and rap on it with a baseball bat to shake out any dust in the contacts. Don't they make aerosol cleaners for that? Give it a good shot of Blue Shower. One time, they couldn't pay their FCC fees and the other stations in town got together and paid them for her figuring that with WLDB staying on the air,it was one less competitor.Or was that a radio urban legend?
They had a weird format or formats. CW one time,the next,it was big band and they carried NBCs Monitor.SHe sold out for something like $50,000, hooked up the trailer and moved out to the midwest.

[Tom McNally]

You've heard quite a few urban legends !

No cart machines, correct ... BUT ... no cassettes either.
They had Gates Spot Tapes, when they broke the spots were
played from reel.   A few times when the main reel to reel broke,
they WOULD play a back up machine through the mike.
You can see some info on the Spot Tapes on teh web page,
it was basically an attempt at competing with the cart. 
It held 101 spots of up to 90 seconds.  They had two.

I never heard the one about the baseball bat ... Leroy was a good engineer, so I doubt it.

I don't think the story about the FCC filing fees is true, they did run into a little
trouble after Leroy died and she didn't know what to do ...

She sold the station for a respectable (at the time) $ 170,000 or something.
Yes ... the trailer was pulled wayyyyy out west to Egg Harbor Township, to
Ocean Heights and English Creek Road, and not immediately, the new owners
used it until they finished a new studio.

There is some WLDB history at:  http://mcnally.cc/wldb.htm

I have some more stuff to add, courtesy of Owen Keating, I just haven't gotten
to it.   By the way, I got some nice emails from Mrs. Bremmer's grandchildren,
who never knew her, but found my web page and got to learn about her.
I also got a nice email from her son, known as "Mr. Moore" who you'll see
on the 1955 web history.