Saturday, November 17, 2012

AFRS Adak

Michael Brown sent a ton of airchecks of his work at AFRS Adak, Alaska



Yes, Adak, Alaska, (halfway out the Aleutian chain), has a radio station.  Two of them actually,  The AM station on 890 kHz (yep WLS) and an automated  FM.

I was in the Navy and was a CTM-2 when I arrived on Adak, June 1970.  I  left 1 year, 22 hours and 15 minutes later (plane landing to plane takeoff).

My main job had nothing to do with radio, but since I had an interest in being a DJ, I managed to get a weekend shift in the late night hours on Sunday, for 1.5 hours.  I eventually got moved to Sat afternoons for 2 hours and then expanded to 3 hrs.  I have tapes of pretty much all of my shows, which I've recently transferred to WAV files on the computer.

While there, the staff of the station did a radio series called Ptarmigan Tim.
At my last tour of duty, which was Edzell, Scotland, I did four DeeJay gigs at the EM club near the end of 1973. Did some private party deejaying for a few years after getting out.

During the hey-day of Doctor Who on PBS, I did pledge drives answering phone banks and a few times did on camera pledge drives.
Otherwise, I got into electronics as well as computers; self taught Unix system adminstration long before Microcrap came along. So, I am one of those computer geeks and my house has the computers to show for it.

 

AFRS Adak - Michael Brown May 29, 1971 Last show

Saturday, November 10, 2012

USMC Birthday

 
237th birthday of the Corps.  Here's how the network celebrated it 60 years ago.
 

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day in the United States.  Originally the holiday was Armistice Day, to commemorate the end of WWI.  In 1968 AFN produced some powerful radio for the 50th anniversary.