The Radio Tower

Today we talked with LIRTVHS member Judy Blitzer. Straight out of high school and Brooklyn she marched her way into a job at RCA at 60 Broad St. in downtown Manhattan.

What followed was a thirty-five year career working for John McKenna at RCA. Judy describes for us life at RCA, the intricacies of teletype machines, and how to meet the pope. 

Related Links:

• RCA Radiograms
• RCA at 60 Broad St
• Telex History

Richard Dillman grew up in Westbury and was soon on track for a life pursuing radio history. After getting his ham radio license in the late 1950s, he began unravelling Long Island's radio secrets and visiting the area's important sites: WSL in Amagansett, RCA in Rocky Point, Press Wireless in Brentwood and, yes, the old Telefunken site in West Sayville.

On today's episode he describes the allure of the great stations of radio's earliest days, the ship-to-shore and transoceanic stations and towers that sent Morse code through the air for profit. 

His greatest achievement came on the west coast. Founding the Maritime Radio Historical Society, he went on to help save and re-open station KPH at Point Reyes to the north of San Francisco.

Links

• Maritime Radio Historical Society
• An Overview of Long Island's Wireless History
• The Telefunken Station in Sayville
• Grimeton Radio Station

Dick Wolfe moved with his family from Floral Park to Oakdale in 1940. In these excerpts from a longer oral history interview he gave to the Long Island Home Front project, he describes the bucolic nature of Oakdale during his early years. His family lived on Chicken Street (now Dale Drive) and the surrounding area was dominated by dairy farms. 

Dick recalls following the war news on the radio and through film reels, as well as local landmarks like Bronco Charlie's on Main Street and the nearby towering windmill, visible from the Great South Bay. His most vivid memories, though, involve the paratroopers who would fall from the sky on Sundays to take place in war games along Brook Street. 

Today's episode is a special cross-over with the Long Island History Project as we bring you the story of the Telefunken site in West Sayville. This forgotten story in radio history involved the technological titans of the day, Tesla and Marconi, along with Germany's Telefunken company, one of the most advanced concerns in the world.

The station Telefunken built in West Sayville in 1912 was unrivaled. It was embraced by the local community - until the outbreak of war in 1916. Things turned decidedly darker after that.

Connie Currie describes for us her efforts, along with other radio enthusiasts, to try and save the site and existing buildings in the 1990s. Joe Sikorski joins us to discuss his new film, Invisible Threads: From Wireless to War, which documents the early days of the site and how it helped pull the US into World War I.

You can catch a sneak preview of Invisible Threads this Friday, November 12th, at Lessing's Bourne Mansion in Oakdale. Tickets are only available online through the Tesla Science Center, our co-sponsors. 

Hope to see you there!

There had to have been easier ways to establish a college radio station on Long Island back in the 1960s but you get the sense that John Schmdit relishes a challenge. He enrolled at Adelphi University to earn another degree while working on the lunar landing module at Grumman. Discovering the small, student-run WALI opearting as a carrier current station heard only in the dorms, he was hooked. Over the ensuing years, whether as an Adlephi employee or a dedicated volunteer, he installed wires, raised antennae, negotiated time slots, and - with the help of others as dedicated as he - generally willed WBAU into existence.

On today's episode, John describes the saga of WBAU - a story that involves, among others, Nassau Community College, Sewanhaka High School, the FCC, and the Mariott Hotel in Uniondale.

Links

• Stories from WBAU Alumni
• WBAU Affinity Group
• PAWS Web Radio (Adelphi University)
• WBAU and Public Enemy
• Lens and Light Club - WPI
• WHPC Radio
• Station Bibliography
  • WBAU, WHPC 90.3 FM

Bernie Bernard got her start at CW Post on station WCWP. Drawn by progressive rock and the chance to interview members of the music industry, she went on to a career that included stints at WBAB and WNEW as disc jockey, music director, and sometime newscaster, followed by work at Voice of America and as a teacher and voiceover artist.

On today’s episode, Bernie recalls her start in radio, interviewing stars like Meat Loaf and Elton John, and her memories of working with Carol Silva at WBAB as the first all-female morning radio team in the metro area.

Station bibliography: WCWP (88.1 FM) WBAB (102.3 FM) WRCN (103.9 FM) WNEW (102.7 FM) WLIR (92.7 FM)

Links:

• WCWP
• Voice of America
• “I came upon a child of God, he was walking the LIE” by John Kominicki (LI BusinessNews)

Tom Kuser is the Program Director and Morning Edition host at WSHU, an NPR station out of Sacred Heart University in Connecticut with a sizable Long Island audience.

On this episode, Tom discusses his career - from college and commercial stations to television to public radio. He also relates some of the history of WSHU, memorable stories he has covered, and just how early he has to get up in the morning.

Links

•  WSHU
• WSHU/Stony Brook University
• The Full Story podcast
• 50 Years of NPR

Station Bibliography:  WNHU (88.7 FM); WNHC (1340 AM); WMMM (1260 AM); WTNH (News 8 TV)

Clark Galehouse started out as a swing band sax player from Illinois and wound up running Long Island's most prolific independent record label out of Huntington Station. We take a detour from radio history this episode to talk with John Broven about the life and legacy of Galehouse and his label, Golden Crest Records.

Broven started out a lover of American rhythm & blues from East Sussex, England, and wound up a consultant for Ace Records and, eventually, the husband of Clark Galehouse's daughter, Shelley. Together the couple rescued the label from obscurity, reissuing the stunning array of music that Galehouse recorded from early rock and roll to jazz to local and regional school orchestras. The Golden Crest catalog is now housed in the Library of Congress.

Links

• John Broven and Golden Crest Records
• Books by John Broven (Amazon author page)
• "Golden Crest Records: The Independent Record Industry Comes to Long Island" (Long Island History Journal)
• Blues Unlimited Magazine (The Blues Foundation)
• The Wailers (Pacific Northwest Bands)
• The Other Chili Peppers (Offbeat Magazine)
• Beyond the Needle: History of Vinyl Records
• Golden Crest Records (YouTube Playlist)

Ed Lacinski was destined for a career in audio. As a child, he read the liner notes of albums to learn the names of the sound engineers. Then he began taping his school musical performances in Patchogue-Medford which brought him to the attention of Jack Ellsworth at WALK and WLIM. He worked for years at Harman Kardon and along the way assisted in a session at Abbey Road Studios and changed out a woofer at an Earth, Wind & Fire concert at Jones Beach.

Sounds good to us. All that and more on this deep dive into audio history.

Station Bibliography: WALK (1370 AM), WALK (97.5 FM), WLIM (1440 AM), WNYG (1580 AM)

Links

• Motorola C-Quam
• Abbey Road Studios
• Bruce Swedien (Rolling Stones obit)
• Jack Ellsworth: Long Island's Big Band Man (Long Island History Project)

Andy Mendelsohn gravitated to radio from an early age. By the time he was in high school in East Northport, he found himself on the school's station and at an internship at WBAB. This brought him into the orbit of Bob Buchmann, Roger Luce and Rockin' Robin, among others. After a stint in college and radio in Connecticut and Westchester, he returned to Long Island in the nineties on WRCN to battle WBAB for ratings and local bragging rights.

One of his greatest memories is imaging WRCN and his work in the production studio, abetted and encouraged by Dennis Daniel of WBAB and WDRE. The increasing corporatization of the airwaves led Andy to leave radio for music management, championing the Long Island-based Nine Days and others.

Related Links

• WBAB (Long Island 70s Kid)
• Zebra (Long Island Music Hall of Fame)
• Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
• Dennis Daniel (Episode 15)

Station bibliography: WRCN (103.9 FM), WBAB (102.3 FM), WFOX (95.9 FM), WGSM (740 AM)