What have you been doing?

Blogwatcher Don Hammond suggested something neat.  What happened after AFRTS for you?  For myself, I knocked around in radio in Massachusetts and NH for another dozen years.  I had two goals, to get into Boston and to get crazy high ratings somewhere.  Pretty quickly I was at Curt Gowdy's WCGY-FM with his daughter as the PD, it was an interesting place.  Numbers were low, but a lot of fun.  The kind of place that seems extinct now. Few years later, it was to WSRS-FM in Worcester.  Station never had a lower than 40 share back then and all of the Boston stations banged in to the market.  It was a good run and AFRTS made it happen.  Now I do internet and telephone support for Comcast.  Why isn't there anything fit to listen to on the radio?

Charlie Tuna 1973

Just picked up some wonderful 1973 transcriptions.  Here is the first of the Charlie Tunas.  In 1973 the show was only 45 minutes with a lot different feel to it.

Charlie Tuna 181 1973 side one

Tim let me know that Charlie's getting another award!  Lifetime achievement Award from the Route 66 Rendevous association.

If you're in San Bernadino, September 16-19th.  Route 66 Rendevous

Johnnie Darin

Talk about someone who's worked everywhere, it's Johnnie Darin. KIIS; KRLA, 1968-71; KDAY, 1971; KROQ, 1972-73; KNAC, 1975; KGOE, 1975; KNX, 1976; KGIL, 1976-83; KJOI, 1978; KBLA, 1989-92; KGIL, 1993; KFWB, 1998-2008.  At last call John was living in Utah.

Johnnie's back with another blast from the new 1973 set.

Johnnie Darin 1973

Con Victor, a sus ordenes

I just received a bunch of 1973 shows which are coming up. We ran TWO latin shows at the same time? I didn't know this.

[translated]

Latino! A special program, presented five times a week. With Victor, at your service.
"Victor" was Vance Graham.  An announcer who's career went back to WWII when he was doing news at KMPC.  Later he worked at KFI.  Prior to Latino, Vance did the "Bolero Time" program for AFRTS.  "Vance Graham Bolero Show"  was a daily feature at KTYM Los Angeles in the 1950s.

Latino 1973

The other show was Viva!

Viva! 1973

AFN Europe 40th anniversary

In 1983, AFN was 40 and published a booklet about their history. Bernhardt sent a scan. It's a great history of the early years of the network and writeups of all of the stations. They do say that the Alaska network was first (It was really the Canal Zone). A very good read.



AFN 40th Anniversary

Bonus Country Corner

Thanks for listening, I just finished the transfer on this the disk was a bit rough.



AFRTS Country Corner 1967 Joe Allison

Morning People

Garry asked about presenting more of the AFN local shows. Midnight in Germany and time for "Morning People" with Chris Hall filling in. Here's a scoop of AOR.

AFN "Morning People" with Chris Hall 1978

Chris checked in "Where'd you get that tape?".  I'm hoping for an update.

Herman Griffith 1966

It's easy to see Herman Griffith as the voice of a community in 1966. There's a lot to his presentation that others refined and copied. Let's take a listen.





Herman Griffith 1966

Herman talks about Savings Bonds, with an interest rate very similar to 2010...

Frank Bresee and the Golden Days of Radio

Frank Bresee did the Golden Days Of Radio from 1967-96. GDOR was actually the last program recorded for the network under the old system. Earlier this year, Frank had a stroke and is in rehabilitation. We send our prayers. After AFRTS he did basically the same program for yesterdayusa.com and kept the memories coming.

Golden Days of Radio

John Doremus

Talk about a way with a story. I started with the network after John Doremus did these for us, but in the states these sketches in sound ran overnight in the biggest markets on the biggest signals. Mr. Doremus was also doing similar programming for the airlines. Relax with John Doremus.

John Doremus 1967

John Doremus in Wikipedia

 

AFKN Beginnings

FEN says as part of their history that they established stations in Korea after WWII. Here are the stations that we had right after the war. During this timeframe, we used American sounding call letters:

WVTQ - Osaka (Japan)
WTVA - Tokyo (Japan)
*WVTP - Keijo (Seoul Korea)
WVTO - Omura (Japan)
WVTH - Hachinohe (Japan)
WVTC - Nagoya (Japan)
*WLKJ - Gusan-dong (Korea)
WLKD - Sapporo (Japan)
*WLKC - Pusan (Korea)
WLKB - Niigata (Japan)
WLKE - Sendai (Japan)
WLKF - Kumamoto (Japan)
WLKI - Fukuoka (Japan)



Were they still there in 1950? I asked blogwatcher Palmer Payne:

I've been told that Armed Forces Radio Service had some sort of presence in Korea just after the end of WWII, when the XXIV Corps was in command of the troops but that it went out of existence when Korea Military Advisory Group (KMAG) took over sometime in the late 1940s. AFRS had no facilities in Korea when the 8214th rmy Unit was formed in Yokohama, Japan in late August or early September, 1950. In October, 1950 "Korea Armed Forces Radio Service" (a.k.a. Korea AFRS) began broadcasting from the American Embassy (Banto Hotel) in Seoul. After we bugged out in early January, 1951 we became Kilroy AFRS. Kilroy settled in Taegu. From that sprouted Vagabond which went to Seoul soon after the city was recaptured early in 1951, Homesteader to Pusan in the summer of '51and Gypsy, somewhere to the Northeast of Taegu also in the summer of '51. I rotated back stateside in Oct. '51 when all of the stations were still part of 8214th A.U.and still under the umbrella title of Korea Armed Forces Radio Service. Some time after that there was a change to Armed Forces Korea Network (AFKN), probably due to some newcomer influenced by the European operations of AFRS, known as American Forces Network (AFN). Incidentally, it was noted during the 50th anniversary of the Korean War, ten years ago, that the 8214th A.U. was the only unit still in Korea dating back to 1950. Always a pleasure to hear from you.

Palmer

History of AFRTS, the first 50 years

History of AFRTS was published by AFRTS in 1993 to celebrate the anniversary. It's been impossibly out of print. This is a reprint. If you'd like to read it online Click here

Happy Birthday AFKN 1969 with The Southern Gentleman

Here's the second part of the 1969 Tony Booth aircheck. Some really good radio.

AFKN Tony Booth 1969


A biography of Tony was included a couple of weeks ago.

Your airchecks are welcome. Drop me a note:

afrts@live.com

So where do these things come from?

The first time I saw an AFRTS transcription I was a teenager. My cousin was in the Air Force in Vietnam and brought back a handful. He was given a tour of AFVN and it was a huge moment for him. Someone at the station had given him some real AFVN records, they were very special to him. I'm sure that happened many times. AFRTS has closed many stations over the years. I'd be surprised if 90% of the disks were destroyed at any of them. By the 1980s, the DJ shows were either RP or RU series. Every station received RPs, played them and then were supposed to destroy them weekly, but if someone really liked the jock some of the disks may not have died under the hammer. The RU disks went from station to station, but somewhere was the last station... The Veterans Administration Hospitals had their own little stations well into the 1980s with no staff or accountability. The AFRTS-LA jocks were sent courtesy copies of their shows, some saved them, some didn't. A lot of people taped the shows in the barracks on their personal recorders.

We jocks at the stations taped our shows and sent them to friends and family and/or disected every break trying to get better and make a career of it.

If you have some programs or airchecks, a lot of us would like to hear them. Drop me a note at afrts@live.com

Jim Pewter

When we ask enough, there are answers. Mike Brown checked in to say that Jim Pewter worked at Radio Cavalier in the 1964-65 time frame. By 1967 Jim was doing the AFRTS-LA show. Something I hadn't heard was that Jim worked at the station with the late Richard Nader. Nader was responsible for the big oldies rock and roll shows in the 1970s

From 1967, here's Jim Pewter



Jim Pewter #51 part two

Very cool pictures of the station at koreatourofduty.us

Roger Holste?

Just received this, the Korean Won dates from the mid 60s. He apparently did time at AFKN and AFVN.

Tom Campbell

Time for another trip down memory lane with Bay Area fave, Tom Campbell (for Cal Stereo). Here's a neat 1975 show..

When Tom got out of the Air Force, he got a gigs in Shreveport, Minneapolis (The Twin Cities connection continues) and Dayton. 1967 it was to San Francisco where fame struck. between radio and agency work he bounced around southern California including for us at AFRTS

Tom Campbell 1975

Does anyone have an address for Tom Campbell???

Gene Price 1974

Gene Price always had a fun show, characters, comedy. Leonard Finsterwald says listen now!

Gene Price 1974

AFN Country Roads

We sure played a lot of country. AFRTS spread the Gospel of the Opry worldwide. Every station seemed to have a local country show. From Frankfurt, here's Airforce Sergeant Harry Johnson. It's time to travel Country Roads.




AFN Harry Johnson 1980 Country Roads

Polka Party

Dick Sinclair was one of the original AFRS team.  Before anyone was deployed in 1942 the unit trained at the Fox movie studio in Hollywood. From there the Mosquito Network.

Dick Sinclair at AFRS Guadalcanal

So what haven't we done so far? ... POLKAs, In the 1950s Dick Sinclair was doing a polka show on KTLA-TV and was also doing "Polka Party". Give a listen








Polka Party 1959

Kudos to Rand at Rand's Esoteric Radio for doing the transfer!

Roland Bynum 1973

Roland Bynum has just reported a computer crash and has lost what he had from my collection. Naturally I'll fix that but do you have any Roland Bynum shows or Herman Griffith shows? (He asked about those also)

The earliest Roland Bynum show in the collection is this one, recorded for the Air Force by Roger Carroll's company. The disc has seen better days, but the transfer is in stereo.



Roland Bynum for the USAF Feb 73 a
Roland Bynum for the USAF Feb 73 b

Recent accquisitions...

Some Laurie Allen ETs, AFKN and AFVN pocket tabs, some 1960s won and a bunch of medals that I actually earned... Listings of the first several thousand Basic Music Library disks..

Bill Finch

, jazz
Larry Miller did a neat update on the life and career of Bill Finch (The Finch Bandwagon)Take a look

In April I did a short writeup about Bill. Hear the show

Charlie Tuna 1992

Photo: Charlie and fellow RHOFer Larry Lujack
Time to spend with Radio Hall Of Famer Charlie Tuna, coming back at you for another 60 minutes on the radio. This visit from 1992.




Charlie Tuna

Charlie's website http://www.charlietuna.com/is a great way to see what's going on with Charlie and is a great source of video and trivia, what I wouldn't have given for something like this for show prep!

Laurie Allen and Jim Pewter

(Picture - Laurie Allen) Transmitter site of Iraklion Radio Transmitter site, Crete, 1992 Station Manager Msgt Scott Kirby (who, but I didn't know this at the time, was going to my future husband), Ssgt Kevin Renshaw, Laurie Allen, Jim Pewter

So Laurie and Scott, welcome!

This is fun, Laurie Allen and Jim Pewter musing about the great music of the 1960s and 70s.

Jim Pewter and Laurie Allen

1993 AFN Schedule

AFN POWER NETWORK - MONDAY TO FRIDAY
------------------------------------
0005 Jim Pewter - Oldies
0030 Radio Theatre
0105 MaryTurner Rock
0205 LaRita Shelby - Urban
0305 Harry Newman - Country
0405 Gene Pnce - Country
0505 Local Program/AM Edition
0600 News Sports and
Word in The World
0610 Local Program / AM Edition
0700 News, Sports, Weather
0730 Local Programs / AM Edition
0905 AM Country (AFN)
1105 Charlie Tuna
1200 AFN News, Sports, Weather
1210 NPR Morning Edition
1305 Power Lite - Easy Listening
1505 Local Program / Don Tracy
1605 Local Programs / Country Roads
1800 AFN News, Sports, Weather
1905 Power Traxx - Uroan
2105 Laurie Allen - Classic Rock
2200 AP News, Sports, Weather
2211 Armed Forces Digest
2217 Paul Harvey
2230 Jazz Beat
2305 NPR All Things Considered
2357 Sign On


AFN POWER NETWORK - SATURDAY
----------------------------
0005 American Dance Traxx
0305 The Countdown - Urban
0505 Dick Clark
0805 NPR Car Talk
0905 Sports Wrap-up
0910 Saturday Gold
1200 News, Sports, Weather
1210 Local Program / Paul Harvey
1230 Dvorak on Computers
1305 American Country Countdown
1705 NPR Weekend Edition
1905 The Countdown - Urban
2105 American Top 40 (thru 0100)



2357 Sign On

AFN POWER NETWORK - SUNDAY
-------------------------
0005 American Top 40 (cont'd.)
0105 Amenican Country Countdown
0505 Cross Country - Religion
0530 Herolds of Christian Science
0605 Lift your Heart - Religion
0630 East of Eden - Religion
0705 Sounds of Sunday - Religion
0855 AFRTS Sports
0905 Amen Corner - Religion
1005 All That Jazz
1105 Doug Ordunio - Classical Music
1200 AFN News, Sports, Weather
1220 Paul Harvey
1230 Focus on the Family
1305 American Top 40
1705 The Comedy Show
1805 Dick Clark's Rock, Roll and Remember
2105 David Sanborn - Jazz
2305 Golden Days of Radio




2357 Sign On