A Veteran Radio Man Recalls His First Airshift

Over a span of nearly 50 years Bruce Hanson did about everything there is to do in radio, including significant stints with Westinghouse and Northwestern College Radio.  And he has a great memory!  The following is an account of his very first airshift:

The summer of 1961, after 2 years of campus radio experience (at WJSL, Houghton College), I landed my first paying radio job at a station in my home town (WJOC, Jamestown, NY).  Those few months, after graduating from college and before starting seminary (Bethel, St. Paul), were filled with stories..from the shrewd owner who surreptitiously transferred a huge amount of personal debt to the new purchasers of the station, to working with one set of co-workers one day and a whole new crew (replacements brought in by the new ownership) the next.  But, sticking to just the first week...I'll refine it even further to my first shift.

I was going to be working evenings that summer and an integral part of the evening shift was Yankees baseball.  I was on the edge of the control room chair that whole night...listening for network cues, inserting station IDs and ad copy, etc.  Things went well, but it was a stressful break-in experience.  The game ran long, taking us past our normal midnight sign-off.  So, at the end of the game I ran the post-game clean-up sweep (commercials, weather, etc.) and rolled directly into the sign-off copy, followed by the playing of our national anthem.

It was only after the Stars and Stripes began playing that I was able to lean back, take a deep breath, and relax.  Briefly.  About halfway thru the anthem, everything went silent!!  The song was still playing thru the console, but the air monitor was totally quiet.  I quickly checked what I could and saw that the transmitter (which was just off the studio) was dead!  It was now something like 1am and I debated my next move.  I decided I had no choice but to call the engineer and at least let him know.  He told me to wrap up and go home, he'd come in and take a look.  As I learned the next day, the transmitter cooling fans had frozen, causing the main output tube to literally melt!  He was able to make repairs and have things ready to go in time for sign-on the next morning.  I hadn't really thought of it this way until now, but if the station had been unable to go on-air the next day and they'd lost several hours of morning drive income..that first day in radio could have been my last.

Oh, and then there's the story about our news director...the one who kept a bottle of cough syrup in his desk to "clear his throat".  The cough syrup just happened to be the kind you had to sign for..."with codeine". 

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