JQ Live on WAKY-FM 6/9

[John Quincy]

Your humble webmaster will be visiting the folks at WAKY-FM this Wednesday June 9 and will have the honor of doing a two-hour airshift. (This will be my third time.) Check it out between 1p and 3p right before the legendary Johnny Randolph on 103.5 FM in Kentuckiana or anywhere in the world on 1035WAKY.com.

[bpflederer]

John, for those of us that will not be able to listen, I hope you put a skimmed version on the site, as usual.

[Max]

They stream, Rudy!

[Travis]

I'm thinking that Ben may be saying that he will not be near a radio, computer or any other type of net streaming device during John's guest appearance on WAKY.

Max, this is a good time for you to see John since he will be right there in E-Town. It's probably been a few years.

[John Quincy]

Plans are to record it at the station so a scoped version can be posted on 79WAKY.com later. However, if somebody wants to run a "just in case" backup recording off the air or off the stream, that would be much appreciated.

[Travis]

I can easily do that using a program called "Audacity," which is freeware, and a great program that no one should be without, but WAKY's stream requires that you respond to an on-screen prompt, from time to time, to let the host know you are actually still there. If you don't respond to the prompt, the stream terminates. This supposedly saves clients, such as WAKY, money on paying for streaming that nobody may actually be listening to because they fell asleep or left in a hurry before closing the stream. I can't recall how long you can listen before the prompt appears but I'm thinking it's every 30 minutes.

If I could be at my computer during the broadcast, it would be no problem, but I won't be here and you're scheduled to do 2 hours, so allowing Audacity to run, unattended, will probably only net the first 30 minutes (or maybe it's an hour) at best.

I will start recording your guest appearance at 1 PM, before I have to leave, and see what I have once I return. Hopefully, you can capture your guest shot, in its entirety, from WAKY's end.

Have a great time and break a leg. (Well, don't do that)

[Max]

Thanks for the reminder, Travis...they are less than a mile down the street. John, I'm comin' to see ya! I'll bring my camera too!

[Max]

...guess it's coming up on 4 years since I saw him at the Clifton Center.

[John Quincy]

Had a great time with the folks at WAKY-FM yesterday. Got there at 11:30 and went out to lunch with Mrs. Quincy, Les Cook and Johnny Randolph at the Whistle Stop in Glendale. (Excellent food...and thanks to Les for treating.)

Got back from lunch a little late and didn't do my first break until about 1:20. (Hey, I had a good excuse...the PD was with me and he was driving!)

Had a thrill-packed 90 minutes or so on the air blowing up the station and running off all the regular listeners. Audio and video to come.

Plus, got a chance to visit with Max, who stopped by in the middle of the shift for several minutes.

Thanks to Les Cook and all the folks at WAKY who let me play DJ. It was a blast. Monday, back to talk radio!

BTW, Randolph is doing great...and he now sports a ponytail!

[John Quincy]

Oh, Travis...last time I checked the WAKY stream would run for 2 hours before you have to confirm "you're still there".

[Travis]

Just my luck. I could have captured the entire two hours via Audacity before the prompts went up. As it turns out, we had rain here in Venice (Florida) following a long dry spell and I'm now getting water in my phone lines. DSL is very sensitive, and I have the highest speed, so it's even more so. The resulting static kept causing my DSL modem to disconnect and reconnect, repeatedly, until WAKY's "Listen Live" screen required someone to interact and, of course, I wasn't here.

Hope you were able to get a copy of your 3rd guest appearance on WAKY. I'll get this water-in-the-line situation resolved and I'm even considering replacing my lines with that cat5e cable so that I will be more than super ready for the next time (I hope).

[John Quincy]

Thanks for the effort Travis. As luck had it, I was able to record the whole thing at the station using a borrowed digital recorder. I'll be posting a scoped version of the aircheck soon, but if anybody wants an unscoped version, e-mail [e-mail].

[Travis]

Really enjoyed seeing video of John Quincy and Johnny Randolph in action at 103-5. Unlike snapshots, I got a much better sense of how the computer is used in today's radio. I haven't been inside a radio station since I left the biz back in '92 (the pay had reached the point to where my stomach was growling so loudly I couldn't keep the sounds off the air). LOL!!

Okay, so it wasn't that bad.

(well, maybe).

Anyway, it looked as if the mouse was being used to execute selected functions on the screen (very cool) but I hope an extra mouse is being kept nearby. Those buttons (especially, the left button) go bad after so many clicks and it gets to where you have to punch them hard, or click two or more times, before it will work. This could create a bit of chaos & frustration on the air. Based on the audio of the videos, it seemed to me that the mouse button was getting punched pretty hard, so beware.

Being able to see the computer screen in motion sure helped to clarify things as well. So, that yellow two-digit display at the bottom center of the screen is a countdown timer, eh? Sure makes for "hitting the post" a breeze in today's radio. No more coordinated efforts to step on a foot pedal (to start an old Gray Line or Gray Lab analog timer) while flipping switches elsewhere at the same time. I saw Randolph press something on the far right of the board at 1:10 into the video (another timer?)

Anyway, good to see John Quincy (Charleston's "Q-Factor" at work at WAKY) and Johnny Randolph with his pony-tail (most of which appeared to be tucked & hidden behind his shirt collar). Gary Burbank made light of Johnny's pony-tail during his visit to promote his book, so I would think that it's gotten quite a bit of length to it by now. This was a great candid view of inside WAKY's studio and because Randolph uses a boom-box, instead of headphones, the audio in his video was greatly enhanced.

By the way, who operated the camera? I was willing to bet that it was Max because I knew he would be there, but I'm certain that I caught a glimpse of Max behind Johnny's boom-box (poised with a camera) in Quincy's video. Someone did a great job of shooting from both sides of the console and capturing a great deal of the board... er, uh... mouse work.

[John Quincy]

<<Really enjoyed seeing video of John Quincy and Johnny Randolph in action at 103-5.>>

Thanks Travis. Wished I could have had the air monitor plugged into the camera's audio input (instead of getting audio from the camera's mic) but I don't think the camera has one. I used the video functions of my Canon point-and-shoot digital still camera. It's far from HD, it does the job for Internet stuff...and still looks better than my old VHS camcorder did.

<<Anyway, it looked as if the mouse was being used to execute selected functions on the screen (very cool)>>

Yes. The stations where I work now use the same automation system (Scott Systems) WAKY does so it's been fairly easy for me to run the board when I've done my three guest shifts. There's one big difference though -- we use touch screens where I work. We can use a mouse if we want, but most of the time we touch the screen to start the next thing or move things around.

There's a Manual/Auto button on the screen. When the system is in Auto, it continues to run and segue scheduled elements until it runs out of things to play or there's a stop command inserted. It manual, the system stops after whatever is on the air has played...just like the old days with carts and records.

On the left side of the screen is the "playlist". At the top is what's on the air now and everything below it is what's scheduled to come up afterwards. The jock can move things around as well as add and delete to the playlist.

On the right side of the screen are "hot buttons". Push a button with your mouse (or touchscreen, like we have in Charleston) and something plays. There are buttons for single pieces of audio...like the WAKY shout...or for "rotation tables" -- which are lists of two or more pieces of audio, like jingles. For instance, you press the WAKY Jingles button once and a PAMS jingle from 1971 plays, then push it again and a JAM jingle from 1979 plays. A Rotation Table is like having multiple cuts on a tape cartridge, but it's much easier to manage.

<<but I hope an extra mouse is being kept nearby. Those buttons (especially, the left button) go bad after so many clicks and it gets to where you have to punch them hard, or click two or more times, before it will work.>>

They could always snag one from one of the production rooms across the hall, or the office next door.

<<Being able to see the computer screen in motion sure helped to clarify things as well. So, that yellow two-digit display at the bottom center of the screen is a countdown timer, eh? Sure makes for "hitting the post" a breeze in today's radio.>>

Yep....a lot easier. When you enter songs (or any other audio) in the automation system there's a field for entering the intro time along with other pertinent details about the audio. No more typing up cart labels like the old days.

<<I saw Randolph press something on the far right of the board at 1:10 into the video (another timer?)>>

That's a reset button for the timer built in to the control board.

<<By the way, who operated the camera?>>

It was Mrs. Quincy while I was on the air, me when JR was on. Max was there for a short time, but he took stills.

[Travis]

Thanks for such a detailed description of WAKY's computerized automation system. I was able to bring it all together by referring to the videos, while reading your descriptions, as well as referring to some great close-up shots of the computer's monitor screen at:

www.79waky.com/WAKY-FM.htm

Man, how I could have used that system back in my day; especially, during those times when, just after starting a 2-minute record, nature suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and said...

"You have to go the bathroom, NOW!!!!" LOL!!

[Max]

JQ returned yesterday for another encore performance behind the WAKY mic!

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[Max]

Preach it John!

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[Max]

Now SOMEHOW this had a caption in my computer as "My Beautiful Picture"...now sure how THAT happened at ALL!!!

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