It seems that I don’t know what direction this little blog is going. Look for new and exciting—to me at least—changes. Lately reevaluating everything about the Peanut Whistle, I have decided to continue by reviewing the old posts I most enjoyed as a reader myself and the ones with the most mass appeal.
Stay tuned!
Coincidentally, four years ago today I wrote a post on Burl Womack and his Breakfast with Burl radio show. Through social media we have learned of the local Savannah radio legend’s passing. Mr. Womack was 90. Today I have reposted an edited excerpt:
The radio station I listened to most as a kid was Z-102 in tiny Savannah, Georgia. Now, I realize that the station was only another Z-100 New York clone. This CHR format over populated the FM dial all across the USA in the 1980’s. Yes, Z-102 was derivative but I enjoyed the station and copied their style often when I became a deejay. One unique element of good old WZAT-FM was Burl Womack (himself positively not derivative). His show, the aptly named, “Breakfast with Burl” was on my car radio every morning on my way to high school circa 1983. Burl played religious music alongside Adult Contemporary and Pop hits of the day; strange combination of “secular and sacred” but, for us locals, it worked! Burl had the number one show on the number one station in the market many years running.
Rest in Peace
Stay Tuned
Here we go again. In March, 2009, Grin Radio was born. A month later it was kaput. By the summer of this year I was inspired to start up the the GRIN—again! This time the music was different, then the same as the old incarnation, then flipped again to, quoting Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “…something completely different.” Classic Rock and sports was on the GRIN. We invested at least a hundred bucks in the new Internet stream and thought that the second chance would have at least some return on investment. Wrong! The first version of the station was on a free server, cost me only my labor and non-financial resources, and had quite a few listeners (not a bad return). This time around, relatively few people tuned in (at a cost of about $25 per listener average; me being one.)
In the traditional radio industry, my real day job, Internet streaming is looked upon with tepid contempt, especially with the bean counters. Honestly, they have a valid point. I believe in streaming as a concept, but see it as a fledgling technology. Radio, on the other hand, is a fully mature medium. Streaming will not truly compete until the average Joe in his average 10 year old automobile can follow an Internet stream from his car to his trusty clock radio reliably without interruption. True portability might eventually happen. Right now streaming, at best, only augments old fashioned broadcasting.
Having said all that, as of mid-October the Grin will once again be shelved. With respect to the few that did tune in, my sincere thanks are in order.
Stay tuned
Labor Day on the Grin behind us, the Peanut Whistle moves on to the next building phase of a once abandoned career. Starting summer 2011 this blogger was eventually persuaded out of retirement into a struggling diamond-in-the-rough, broadcasting with 50,000 watts—seemingly limitless potential.
Over the years I found myself “town to town, up and down the dial” (thanks WKRP!). Never had a 50 kW found its way on the old resume. Meanwhile, retirement allowed me some time to reflect. It seasoned me. Radio evolved while I languished: some good changes, some not so much.
One change I noticed from circa 1983 until now is that the airwaves have become decidedly geared more toward the female listener. That’s okay, but in the process we men have become underserved. It’s high time for a format dedicated to the American male. As a result, Grin Radio becomes radio for men: Guy’s Radio Internet Network. Classic Rock and Sports/Talk, streaming 24/7 on the Peanut Whistle. One of our first shows is produced by me on its flagship station, WGUN-AM, here in Atlanta: 100 Yards of Football. Not only do we cover my favorite sport, but, as demonstrated in the example below, covers most sports. (just make sure to mute the Grin, above, while you listen to the recording below.) Tune in live Saturdays at 10:00 am Eastern time too.
Oh Yeah!
Stay tuned.
Although the Peanut Whistle blogger is now on the engineering side of radio, with rare deejay duties; every once in a while I like to return to my music disk jockey roots. Well, Monday (Labor Day, here in the states) it’s back to the air-chair. This time my Southern Gospel Favorites radio show returns to our very own Internet radio stream, Grin Radio. Tune in here, iTunes, or the Tunein radio app on your phone.
Stay tuned.
Back from a longer absence than we care to admit, the Peanut Whistle blogger is catching up to all the new ways of doing things in radio. Back in the dark ages we had separate machines that had specialized tasks. Tape machines, record players, live sources: all compartmentalized and each one doing its job very well.
Now days computers and highly complicated software have replaced both physical machines and human beings. Don’t get me wrong, I am no Luddite. I have always embraced new technology. In fact, you could call this blogger an early adopter.
What I take issue with is that we now over rely on one central computer to deliver all our content. There is no safety net anymore. No back up. Newbies to the business are not trained on legacy equipment, so they’re lost when the software crashes. With no physical interaction with our playlists, they’re screwed if something goes wrong. A computer mouse makes a poor replacement for a cart tape machine.
To me the term disk jockey is passé. To this generation the Peanut Whistle proposes a new handle: “Mouse Jockey.” Although getting a saddle on those critters will be tough.
Stay tuned.
So the Peanut Whistle blogger has been missing in action of late. With the best of intentions, our little blog has been overlooked due to my real world engineering demands. That, of course, is a good thing. Right now we are in the midst of rewiring our control room. The current wiring is, ahem, substandard: pro XLR connections improperly adapted to consumer RCA hookups, bad wire splices. It’s all in a day’s work.
The “Hi-Fi” project is over. We’ll make a return to that subject in a future post. You will be surprised at the results: guaranteed!
Stay tuned
Sometimes in the field, one has to improvise. Lately the Peanut Whistle blogger has found himself seeing this in practice. Our latest venture at the new radio station involves a funny contraption that reminds this blog of a Rube Goldberg Machine.
We were called to fix the audio from the control room computer. It runs a version of Adobe Audition that is used to record satellite shows for later broadcast. The audio into and out of the machine was distorted—badly. Prior to the Memorial Day holiday, it was imperative that we get the audio fixed. Toolkit in hand, the hunt began for the gremlin that invaded the board, once again.
The console is an ancient, but serviceable, mono 10-channel rotary pot LPB Signature III that has extra inputs on select channels. For whatever reason, previous engineers had placed conflicting sources on the same pot. For example, the Enco DAD presenter feed was on the same switch as the satellite feed. That was corrected.
First thing, the Adobe Audition computer, an E-machines brand, was rerouted so we could eliminate possible crosstalk. That was not the problem. The wire pulled away from the source and it was discovered that the computer tower had been placed on the floor! A great location for board ops to kick it. The audio was coming from the soundcard port on the back of the tower (arguably, not an ideal pro connection.) The speaker port had been damaged inside, as well as the odd jack and assorted adapters. A 1/8” to 1/4” stereo phone plug adapter into a 1/4” phone to stereo RCA phono plug, then into a stereo to mono y-adapter and finally an RCA cord to the board. No wonder the jack had been damaged; all the length and weight not only had bent the 1/8” plug, the jack on the sound card had been virtually hollowed out. (See the photos below)
In the example above, we recreated the adapter “pigtail” with a mono phone adapter, otherwise, it is the same as the studio’s.
The repair session took place afterhours and Radio Shack was closed. Bummer, so we frantically rummaged through the parts attic and found a new mini-plug in a plastic bin full of random electrical stuff. This was lucky, to say the least.
After recreating the improvised circuit, the connection had to be replaced to the front of the computer where an extra speaker terminal was placed (more good luck.)
Levels had to be tweaked in Windows. The line in jack, although noisy due to electrical and RF interference, was okay, required electronic adjustments as well. Oddly enough, the connection from the board was a straight wire, terminating in a mini-plug (1/8”). A return trip is guaranteed. The repair is only a Band-Aid. Next we will relocate the E-machine higher and provide a USB interface with pro XLR and RCA connections for a noise free balanced circuit.
Stay tuned.
Telephone hybrids are a godsend. What they do, to you less technical types, is separate audio. They are especially useful in talk radio formats. When a listener calls a radio station the sound of his voice is sent along a path from the phone line to the “hybrid” to the “board”. This little black box keeps the phone sound from looping thus causing feedback while at the same time sending clean audio to the caller so a meaningful conversation can ensue between host(s) and caller.
My new station had been experiencing problems. Callers were getting terribly distorted audio from the studio. Two way communication was impossible. This had remained unrepaired for a year. The station had recently flipped to a Progressive Talk/brokered time/Gospel music hybrid (pun) and were past due a fix. That’s where I came in.
That first try was my engineer test, apparently. Taking about two hours of tracing wires, trying a spare hybrid (which worked, kind of), then reassigning board inputs. Nothing satisfied me until I noticed on the back of the Telos On-x-Six Telephone Hybrid (now reinstalled), an inconspicuous switch. 
Stay tuned
Some quick background: I began a 12 year career as a disk jockey exactly 29 years ago today (May 29, 1983). By 1995, I left broadcasting for a more lucrative endeavor—retail store management. My passion for those days were buried until one day in 2008 a dreadfully boring job ended and I began writing about and researching my old life. It became an obsession that, by 2012, culminated in yet another burnout. I had overloaded myself—this blog became one of four I wrote, plus my book still in the works.
While searching the Peanut Whistle archive I stumbled upon some long, long forgotten recordings of our jingle package that was part of our imaging at my first radio station, WEAS-AM in Savannah, Georgia. Most modern stations consider these singing radio legal ID’s passé. I agree, but it was refreshing hearing them again.
Stay tuned
Ever bucking the trend toward miniaturization I’ve decided what it would take to make a (virtually) no cost entertainment system for my kitchen. As a stay-at-home dad, I spend most of my “workday” there. Seeing that music helps breeze the day away, I have come up with a easy solution to bringing my tunes into an often hostile environment:
Interface my old JVC car stereo/CD player to a pair of Yamaha speakers which are already transplanted into a 50 year old GE console stereo we spoke of in yesterday’s post. Merging all my junk electronics into a Frankenstein’s Monster boombox gets this tinkerer’s creative juices flowing.
The old head unit runs on 12 volt power, so rain or shine, AC or DC; this huge system will play. I’ll keep you posted.
Stay tuned.
Let’s face it, I screwed up. How? The domain name of my Aircheck blog expired, so many of the links to specific posts and pages became invalid. Today Peanut Whistle is re-posting (in all its parts) one of my favorites: The Hi-Fi
Back in the late 1950’s or early 60’s my paternal grandparents bought a new General Electric stereo. It contained an automatic record changer, AM/FM stereo tuner, amplifier (not solid-state, but genuine tube electronics), and loudspeakers. All of these components were housed in a massive, handsome wood veneer cabinet.
Flash forward to Independence Day 2009 my dad’s younger sister asked me if I wanted the Hi-fi that their parents owned. I had been eying the unit for many years: in its various homes, near and far. Honestly, I was afraid the console had been lost over the years but was surprised that it had found its way into my Aunt Bonnie’s storage shed.
The cabinet is currently being used as a TV stand. The console stands at 30 inches, is 16 inches deep, and about 54 inches long; more than adequate as a make-do entertainment center. And, the main problem with it is the low quality materials it is made of: ply-wood and mystery wood skinned with a rosewood veneer. Frankly, the cabinet is not worth saving. However, it serves as a superb prototype for woodworkers interested in mimicking early 60's style. I have drafted plans for a new credenza/entertainment center based on the hi-fi. It would be a great project. I have yet to work out the internals; but, inspiration is found on certain furniture store websites. Most of the credenzas I have seen are superior to our model in question in terms of materials.
A skilled craftsman could render a cabinet better than mass produced retail offerings, I'm sure.
This stage in the game is my planning phase: taking photos and making measurements. Some of the crazy things that I have considered for the 50 year old cabinet are; a complete restoration of the original tube electronics, dropping in new “guts”, replacing the old works with a professional grade turntable of the period, or just modifying the case for a more universal purpose.
Appraisal
I’m underway first with the rat’s nest of wiring. The half century old harness is in surprisingly good shape; all solder joints still intact. Very little rust is present. Dust and grime are abundant. Using this unit daily would be problematic, so I choose to trash this fire hazard wiring.
When I energize the unit in 2009, the radio performs well on both AM and FM although the switching between sources is quite scratchy and inconsistent (volume, tone and selector switches need contact cleaner). The ancient tube amplifier powers the built in speakers just fine with more than acceptable fidelity. Audio out of the left side of the cabinet is distorted on bass sounds (I suspect a cracked woofer.) The left loudspeaker is water damaged beyond repair. I keep the right one for a souvenir. The automatic record changer is useless. Even when new it was not exactly state-of-the-art. By 2011, I need a new game plan as far as the electronics are concerned. I decide to purge the contents and start with an empty carcass. What is left concerns me.
Conclusion
The deeper I dive into the console, the more I am convinced to scrap it altogether before drowning in an unrewarding money pit. Realizing that the old GE console is more of a family relic than a truly vintage representation of hi-fi art, my mission now is to find a better example then restore it. Better yet, I will design and build my own.
Stay Tuned.
Now entering the latter half of my 40’s, the realization hit me: I’ve spent far too many hours mired in the past. To quote famous 20th century humorist, Will Rogers, “Just don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.”
For three years, I failed to heed that sage advise. My New Years resolutions start mid-January, around my birthday. This year is going to be a re-start. What I mean is: all that I have obsessed over for the last 4 plus years will be minimized in favor for what is truly relevant in my life now, in the moment and proceeding forward.
Having said all that, the blog you are reading now has become my only Blogger blog going forward. Aircheck, Gospel Aircheck and the short-lived the Board blogs have been retired. Why I had so many similarly themed weblogs running concurrently in the first place is a mystery, anyway. There is no master plan for the Peanut Whistle: it continues to be an organic process. In the next few post I will attempt to share the sequence of events that unfolded in 2011 which brought about my decision; that’s a work in progress.
Stay tuned.
By the way, I’ve started a new Tumblr account. Check it out: jimoneal.tumblr.com
Imagine knowing with absolute certainty that the good ‘ole days really were not all that good. One of the best tools I have had over the years is an audio tape diary I kept in my teens. The most consistent batch of these tapes sweep a two month period in the spring of 1984, just prior to my high school graduation in June of that year.
The kid on those tapes is alien to me: moody, overly-sensitive, and rigid. Not at all like I am in my “maturity”.
Most people do not have the luxury of actually replaying their youth in crystal clear stereo. The obvious topic of the diary is my fledgling radio career. Each daily entry features a scoped aircheck of the day. Looking back, I was an ungracious host for my listeners on my afternoon gospel music radio show. “I’m tired of playing this song,” I’d complain openly on-air, “It has one more chance.” When you made a request to my show you were almost punished for calling the station. I was learning to juggle a new career, the pressures of graduation, and teenage social drama.
I cringe at the thought of my formative years. By the next year, with school behind me, I had ironed out many of the rough edges having learned through self-critique. Man, it’s painful now listening to those old shows. To my credit, I was making it up as I went along. At this first station, the deejays had free reign minus any accountability. Honestly, I wouldn’t have lasted very long at a real radio station.
In 2011, the diary still serves a purpose: honest reflection, warts and all.
Stay tuned.
Although it was (and still is) a great idea, Christian Country failed to make an impact on Religious radio when it first emerged in the late 80’s. The notion of mixing musical styles and creating a new art form is how many great genres got started. Rock-n-roll would have gone nowhere without a solid foundation of Rhythm ‘n Blues and Hillbilly influences; throw in Gospel rhythms for good measure. Christian Country blended Southern Gospel and CCM producing a hybrid that sounded a lot like progressive Country music not dissimilar to modern artists like Rascal Flatts, Lady Antebellum, and others.
Traditionally Southern Gospel, The Dixie Melody Boys (at the time known for their hits, Antioch
Unfortunately, Christian Country was a flash in the pan, and DMB
Today’s audio post is a commercial I voiced for a DMB Band concert held at a venue I provided: my home church. Turnout at the show was great, but my conservative pastor was soured by the experience. He had seen a roadie smoking a cigarette, outside on the church grounds and vowed that they’d never host a similar event again.
Additionally, the promoter had hired a no-name local SG group to sing on the bill along with DMB. The clash in style and quality of presentation was evident. It was Nashville polish meets wannabe garage band. I enjoyed the show, but was embarrassed for DMB due to a perfect storm of poor planning. It was not the crossover bridge I had envisioned (lesson learned.)
Stay Tuned.
Back in September 1986 my station put me, at age 20, in charge of conceptualizing how our new CCM format should sound. I did my best coming up with new imaging. In reality, using a young guy on such an important task was probably a setup. Should the new format fail, who else was to blame but the kid. I tried duplicating the sound of popular FM stations across the dial who had professional voice-over artists produce their jingle packages. Using top CCM hits of the day, I made a few low budget station legal ID’s; adding my own personal touch. Presented today for the first time. Download here or press play below.
Overlooked for years, today’s recording is a gospel aircheck from September, 1984. Being a deejay in a mild coastal climate has its perks, like hurricanes. This capture of WWJD 900 AM in Savannah, Georgia illustrates how Hurricane Diana threatened the Coastal Empire back then. Fortunately, the storm passed over the area without significant damage. It also demonstrates a first attempt at instant play requests: just another day at the office. Download here or press play below.
Stay Tuned.
Here’s a note for all readers: the newly remodeled Gospel Rewind blog site is full of multi media content, especially audio. Make sure to link on over to the actual page for the full experience. That goes for those of you reading from Facebook, a reader, or even e-mail. Currently I have the latest half dozen or so posts just under the header. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you’ll find nearly all the Gospel Rewind shows we’ve done since 2009. In the sidebars we will be adding new stuff occasionally as well. Happy blogging.
Stay tuned.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of the last official board mix aircheck I recorded at gospel radio home number one, “J900”. Listen below or download here.
Stay tuned.
Today I was looking back on my youth. (So what else is new.) In “Rock Even a Mom will Love”, a post from 2009 we talked about a pivotal concert going experience I had in 1985. A newspaper reporter observed those 26 years ago that although this was your typical smoke-and-mirrors rock show, comparable to Michael Jackson or Madonna; it was a show where he remarked, “area kids…[took] mom and dad to a rock concert.” At the same time parents exposed their children to “loud, modern music with a Christian message.”
In 2011 there is no major Contemporary Christian Music crossover acts comparable to 1985’s Amy Grant or Stryper that I can take any of my 4 kids to see. Currents CCM artists just don’t do the big shows anymore. Despite the critics who called these acts sellouts, I think it was good for our kids and culture at large. Christian music needs exposure outside our churches and into the big venues again. Listen to the radio commercial for the 1985 CCM show; slick production values with secular crossover appeal.
While reviewing old posts I stumbled on this gem from 2009 about a unique feature of many small radio stations across the rural USA—Swap Shop. I realized one glaring omission: I failed to mention the Swap Shop on my third radio home, WDCY. By September, 1990 management decided we start one of these shows. Along with morning obituaries, the Birthday Club, and birth announcements we were the ultimate small market cliché.
If you have 15 minutes to spare, gospel radio home number four is shown on this YouTube video I made a couple of years ago. There is a brief segment shot during Swap Shop.
Stay Tuned.
No I’m not talking about breakfast; although some Hillshire Farm ‘Lil Smokies® or Polska Kielbasa sausage sound good about now. The kind of links I mean are the audio samples oft times featured in Gospel Aircheck. Basically there is a file sharing service that I use to store my audio and it provides an Internet link so you can either download or play directly from the blog.
It irks me when one doesn’t work—the dreaded dead link. I depend on a file to be 1oo% playable all of the time. Last post I presented an old commercial that no longer plays. What’s funny is that the adjacent file is just fine. What a mystery.
This is a round about way of saying that it would be nice to receive feedback when this happens. It keeps me on my toes. I have already discovered a few more bad links myself and am in the process of firing the culprit. Links will be repaired when and if possible. For now, I’m hungry. Pass the syrup.
Stay tuned.
