For those of us "a certain age" Bob Kingsley WAS the American Country Countdown. That's why listening to his AFRTS rock show is so fascinating. It's a style that really bridges the gap. Take a listen:
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Roger Carroll 1981
Young Roger at WMFD
There's always time for a Happy Hour. When I was working civilian, one time I had a PD wondering how I could do so many "universals". To him that meant being able to do a break without necessarily doing a station promo or talking about the record. I learned it from the Roger and the AFRTS-LA talent. Many thanks.
Roland Bynum 1981
Roland's back in the Creators Corner with your Thursday favorites on American Forces Radio
Monday, March 28, 2022
Jim Pewter 1968
Time for Brother Jim. A couple of years before this show, Jim was up in the division area in Korea on AFKN. The "songs you forgot to remember" has never been more appropriate.
Chris Noel 1970
Chris's book "Vietnam and Me". It's highly recommended.
But right now, it's 1970 and time for a Date With Chris
s
Friday, March 25, 2022
Charlie Tuna 1982
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
FEN Automation and Tokyo Calling 1965
Henry Yaskell was way ahead of his time from the automation system to tropo scatter to distribute the net up the line to Misawa and other places; Kuma Station and Wakkanai in the far north of Japan. In addition to the voice network to our outlying stations, we also had a teletype network and a fulltime employee to type and send printed newscasts to all the stations. Yes, they could have had all news prerecorded on tape and I believe Henry wanted that but it pushed immediacy back by at least an hour and the programmers would not allow it.
Automation basic brain may have been a Harris-made unit, but not sure. Henry had at least four turntables connected along with a bank of ampex tape recorders and several cart machines. It used a room about 20x20 and had one fulltime GI and a Japanese engineer plus probably a GI engineer. Time hacks were automated and the unit could switch between functions and the news booth and production studios. A lot of local production done on tape like “Tokyo Calling.”
It took a lot of tending and no one but Henry thought it saved any manpower. Still, it was ingenious and way ahead of most broadcast stations. I worked at a station in Sacramento after I retired that was automated with a Harris-90 with just a bank of tape playback units and two production studios. Very simple by comparison.
FEN even had on loan from Sony an early portable tape unit that rode around on a cart much like a current day audio visual cart with a few shelves. Not very portable and weighed a couple of hundred pounds. This never worked properly and wasn’t used in the field that I know about. Our audio equipment was the best you could buy, and programming concentration was totally audio. I think we had a least six Nagra tape recorders. We were just a radio station, (no TV at all), and the network feed, but we were very good. Great talent in house. Unfortunately many of them are now deceased. I am certain we would have made money in any market in the United States.
I was just a buck sergeant and staff sergeant as I left, but had worked radio in Denver, San Diego, and small Iowa stations before arriving there. I wasn’t bad, but others there made me look like an amateur.
From January 1965, here's Burr Hoyle:
FEN FM automation c 1983 (Photo: Jon Yim)
Monday, March 21, 2022
Jerry Bishop 1977
There were very few places where we aired the network shows on FM. Parts of AFN in Germany and Spain and Torrejon Spain. That;s what makes Vicente's recordings of the station all the more welcome.
It's a Monday and almost Christmas 1977 and time for the Bishop.
