AFN February 1991

Bernhard in Germany sent this along.  I've presented piecces before.  The first Gulf War would end any day.  The broadcast was from AFN SHAPE.

AFN SHAPE 2/14/91 4 hours

He didn't want to miss hearing the end of the war on AFN so he started a reel in the morning.  It's full of surprises.

AFN is off the air ...

May 25, 2011- The American Forces Network Europe (AFNE) is adjusting its radio broadcast signals to help State German officials hosting a huge outdoor multi-concert bash, Hessentag.

German telecommunications officials asked AFN to temporarily turn off the 873 AM transmitter in June because heavy car traffic will be routed by the normally remote AFN radio transmitter on the way to a newly created field parking lot. Workers also need time to set up and take down concert stages, lights and temporary buildings, and they are bringing in cranes to do it. The Hessentag festivities and concerts run June 10-19 in Oberursel, Germany.



"Our German neighbors asked us to temporarily turn off our 873 AM Power

Network transmitter in Central Germany for concerts with Linkin Park, Bryan

Adams, the Scorpions and scores of others," says AFN Europe Commander

Colonel Bill Bigelow, "During that time, we'll broadcast to our American

audience in Wiesbaden on 1143 AM from another location."



While 1143 AM's 1,000-watts of power will reach Americans stationed in

Wiesbaden, the temporary transmitter doesn't have the reach of AFN's

150,000-watt transmitter in Weiskirchen, which reaches American commuters in

Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Hanau and Giessen.



AFN Europe will put 873 AM back on the air July 1st.

Pick A Year, the 1940s

The 1940s

1942  1943  1944 1945  1946  1947  1948  1949

AFN Frankfurt 1994 - Andrew "A.J." Janitschek

So where haven't we been?  Yugoslavia.  Here's a look at AFN Balkans 1994

AFN Frankfurt - Andrew "A.J." Janitschek

.

Pick A Year, the 1950s

The 1950s

1950  1951 1952  1953  1954  1955  1956  1957 1958 1959

Who is this guy?

What is he doing?

Pick a Year, the 1960s

The 1960s

1960  1961  1962  1963  1964  1965  1966  1967  1968  1969

Pick a Year, the 1970s

The 1970s

1970  1971  1972  1973  1974 1975 1976  1977  1978  1979

Pick a year, the 1980s

The 1980s

1980  1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986  1987 1988 1989 

Garry Moore, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney

Thought you might enjoy this.  Garry Moore explains the Radio Code.   It was voluntary, but done away with in the early 1980s.  Times are different.  After that Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney share some great music.



Garry Moore-Crosby and Clooney

Bob Moke 1983

Bob Moke Show 3

Thanks for the response on the Bob Moke shows.  Heckuva jock.  The series continues with program 3

Martin Block 1954

Martin Block had the first really big DJ show in the 1930s and made a huge career after.  WNEW blanketed the eastern United States, he did several shows for the networks and for AFRTS.  His one on one style served him very well.

Martin Block 1954

It's an interesting story:

http://www.bigbandlibrary.com/martinblock.html

Canadian Forces Network

Multinational?  This is a Canadian production aired on the British Armed Forces Station, in Germany..

1972 CFN Western Express

The British have an interesting Armed Forces broadcasting service

Clich here

AFRTS for the family

When I arrived in Korea in 1976, I brought a very small screen TV and in the replacement camp saw my first AFKN, some sort of live puppet show.  In Korea accompanied tours were very hard to get.  Teenagers in Itaewon or Tongduchon...great idea.  On the radio, we ran a lot of soap operas.  Maybe for the General's wife. From 1962.

My True Story

My True Story was one of the last of the soaps.  A Mutual program cancelled in early 1962

When I was in Panama, General Hospital was a rage even among the infantry.  Takes all kinds..

The Return of Bob Moke

Received a lot of good comments from the last Bob Moke show. Bob said "As I recall, the idea was to contact former AFN jocks who were still employed in radio and ask them to produce five 30-minute programs per week for 13 weeks, at which time a different guy would take over. As I neared the end of my run, I was informed that my "replacement" had backed out at the last minute, so I did another three months"

It was some very interesting radio.

Bob Moke 1983

Bob Moke

In 1983 AFRTS started sending shows of DJs from all over the country.  Neat part was that all of these guys had a prior AFRTS connection.  Bob Moke was an AFN vet that went on to great things in Baltimore and in satellite radio.

Sgt Moke in Frankfurt (Photo: Bob Moke)

Bob Moke Show #1 - 1983

Great shows!  Thanks for sharing these Bob. 

AFN SHAPE 1975 Ken Rubin

Always wanted to go to Belgium.  After being attached to the infantry twice (they used to do that), SHAPE sounded as far from that world as possible.  Almost pulled it off a couple of times.  I wasn't the only one with that idea aparently...

Here's Ken Rubin with "The Rock Garden". 

AFN SHAPE 1975 - Ken Rubin

Here's what they're doing now.

benelux.afneurope.net

It's like poking deep in the library...

It's not perfect, but I can finally transfer 16".  Modified a Technics table.  Works okay for most.  I have a LOT of disks that have been waiting for transfer.

From there, it's to the rest of "the studio"

Bill sent a great tapedeck, which is my next project.  So it's humble, yet functional.  I worked at several civilian stations with worse gear!

I'd wander through the libraries and just find neat things.  While I was transferring some "Personal Albums", I  found this.  In WWII Andy Williams was working regularly and was a featured singer on some radio stations but by no means the national star that he became ten years later.

Personal Album - Andy Williams 1945

What was your story?

Party in Phu Bai!

Lately we've been lucky enough to hear more and more of your AFRTS stories.  They're always interesting and the similarities have always interested me.  Doesn't seem to be a huge difference between Germany in the 1950s and Panama 30 years later.  Did you save any pictures?  Did you stay with it?  Do something else?  Was there anything that surprised you?

There are a few ways to stay updated on the new things that show up.  I post updates on facebook right after they go on.  Weekly I email updates to everyone on the mailing list ((just click here)

Finally, if you like this thing tell a friend!

Best
Thom

World Radio News

Hans Knot sent some scans of a British radio magazine of  1968.  Very interesting with some ink about AFN in Germany.  How good was the signal in England.? I had thought it difficult to receive.

Our AFRTS-LA friends were getting some nice press.  Was there more than one issue of the World Radio News?  When I lived near Boston there were radio magazines well into the 70s.

Found: an AFRTS library

While doing renovations at Ft Lewis, 8000 AFRTS library transcriptions were found.  The disks, which seem to run from 1943 to the mid 50s were boxed, in good shape and still had the card catalog.

Here's a couple of reports:

News-Tribune

KING-TV

The disks were at Lewis for the hospital radio station KMGH, which ceased to exist long ago.

More information about WMGH

KMGH 1962 schedule

Apparently, AFRTS has called them back in for cataloging and probable destruction per the agreement with AFM.  Your comments?

Chris Noel 1966 VIDEO

Never thought I'd see this, here's a couple of minutes of Chris Noel recording A Date With Chris

Chris Noel video

What was radio?

I was writing a letter to Melvin and I thought I'd share:

When I was a kid, I had an old Grundig record player/tuner. In Minneapolis WDGY (Storz), KDWB (Drake) and KSTP were blowtorching at each other. Full service WCCO would pull 50 shares on a regular basis. I’d DX the evening trying for the furthest catch. Just not the same to hear a live stream from the internet and anyhow who really cares if they’re listening to a satellite feed from a station a thousand miles away. I guess some kids must get excited about radio today. I’m not sure why. Generic garbage, or sometimes someone mispronouncing voice tracks from far away.


A well recorded AM aircheck from the 60s sounds better than present day FM. It was part of the romance of radio. It was a friend. They’ve done so much to wreck AM and eventually managed to kill it. I’ve had line airchecks from WABC or WCFL that didn’t sound as good as an aircheck from a tuner. The sound chains were that good.

Radio was a contest. It was a life. It was a love. It was my career. I kicked tail it some markets and was bruised up in others, but it was a fight by people who cared playing by the same rules.

Armed Forces Radio is where I learned a lot of lessons and honed my skills. It would always be special.

The great stations were always a lot better than the sum of their parts, the magic and momentum. Now it’s an ipod with music that isn’t as good as on my ipod.

So what happened to it?

This was never in the library...

We get letters...

There's a lot of people who're interested:  If you saved anything, please let me know.  afrts@live.com


Hi Thom,


Thanks for sending these shows, but what I'd really like to hear would be some of the local shows by us guys who were military jocks. Do you have any air-checks of any of those shows?

I was at AFKN in Korea from 1971-75 and we had some super talented jocks come through there. Great memories! Those are the guys that I personally would really like to hear again. Any chance you can scare-up some old air-checks from any of us enlisted guys?

ALOHA from Tokyo,

-Kamasami Kong (a.k.a. PFC Robert Zix)

TOKYO-FM
InterFM, Tokyo
FM COCOLO, Osaka
KUMU, Honolulu

Kamasami?



You’ve just explained the biggest problem, I’d love to run a lot more tape of us in the field but VERY little tape seems to have survived. In Germany, the civilians saved airchecks but I’m trying to not turn the whole thing over to AFN. Then when the tape does exist, it seems to take upwards of six months to actually get the tapes.

Did you save any AFKN tape? Please say yes. In 1978 I was at Ft Devens and working with JJ Gould. He was a true fan of your work.

Welcome! And trades....

There's a bunch of older things that have been donated and I'm trying to figure how interested you'd be in hearing them.  I plan on posting the occasional Command Performance or Mail Call or such.  The network started in 1943. When I was in Korea and later in Panama I'd go to the record library and listen to the classic material.  Wonderful things, but never really stored in a particular order.  Digging through the library was part of the fun.  Up until the mid 70s apparently there was a mostly complete library in Germany.  Must have been a thing to behold.


If you have some material that could use a new home, please let me know.  If you'd like to trade original material or copies, please let me know.  This material needs to be shared.  Email Thom (612) 356-AFRS

Chickenman

I wish I could share these, but I just located the 1977 series and the Masked Minuteman series (did we run THAT one?), Chickenman cast in 1776... 

AFN in Afganistan is apparently STILL running these.  Great!

Dick Orkin makes the original 1966 ones available over at:

http://www.radio-ranch.com/chickenman.php

Laurie Allen

Welcome to the new year!  Laurie Allen has a look at two and a half decades of great rock and roll!

Laurie Allen 1993

If you're looking for voiceover with style, or you'd like to hear some great demos be sure to visit Laurie's website: http://www.laurieallenvo.com/

AFN Bremerhaven

AFN Bremerhaven was on the air from 1945-93. Here's part of the 1993 closing, as broadcast on AFN Bremerhaven.

AFN Bremerhaven 3-31-93 shuts down

Early AFN part 7

AFN Germany was the only network that actively archived over the years.  It's a great thing that these memories aren't lost to the ether.  Let's go to Frankfurt, in the early 50s...

Early AFN Part 7

What an amazing place to have a gig.