Radio Days

In the late winter of '95 I was a few months out of college and still struggling to make a career for myself. I had picked up a part time job unloading trucks and processing merchandise for a department store, and had also gotten my foot in the door at the local radio station by freelancing for the Engineering Department. I started out working no more than three Saturday night's a month doing nothing more than bringing a box full of carts to a local bar and turning on a rack full of equipment in preparation for a live show. I'd spend the rest of the night reading magazines and getting fresh glasses of ginger ale for the jock every half hour.

I was dependable and competent enough (I guess at the time it was hard to find good college grads who didn't mind fetching ginger ale and reading magazines for about seven bucks an hour) that I was tapped to start picking up some of the AM station's high school basketball broadcasts. So one Saturday afternoon I tagged along with one of the full-time engineers, Jeff, and shadowed him as he set up that week's broadcast. We met at the station, went through all of the gear, loaded it into the van and were on our way.

We arrived at the site and parked the van near the rear entrance to the gym. Jeff showed me all of the steps that he normally went through to set up for a broadcast. First we unloaded all of the gear, brought it inside and set up the broadcast table. Next we ran power to the van, pulled the audio lines out to the transmitter, and finally we raised and aligned the antenna.

In a little under forty minutes we had set up and successfully tested the signal back to the station. I was amazed! We had pieced together a remote broadcast location. Jeff, who had probably done the set up dozens of times, didn't seem in awe of the work that we had just done.

I could never imagine reaching that state of complacency.

The game went off with out a hitch and during the breakdown Jeff suggested that he thought that I had learned everything that was necessary and would be able to fly solo for the next week's broadcast. He went on to explain that it was going to be at the same location and all I really had to do was mirror what we had just done.

I was thrilled. I was being given an opportunity to prove myself, given the "keys to the kingdom" if you will. In one short week all of Central Jersey was going to see what I was made of, and I couldn't wait.

Little did I know that I would be tested physically and emotionally on that day...

TO BE CONTINUED

To Part 2