A Station Tour...

Well, a lot of people have never been to a radio station before. It is not a glamorous as some would think. Usually it is kinda messy. We love the fact that most people can't see us work. But I thought I would take a few pics and give you the "nickel" tour. So here we go...

This is the front of our building. Also included in the picture is a photo of my news man's hot rod...this thing has no muffler and is louder that a 747 taking off. Anyway, our station houses 4 radio stations. We have two AM stations with an oldies/adult standards format. We have a "Classic Hits" station, and of course we have 99.3 WCJC, Today's best country. That is my station.

Lets take a walk into the lobby!

As you walk in you see the front counter. People who win prizes get about this far, and then we stop them. You can see Ed, our afternoon host, poppin' up like a gopher. He also is responsible for writing most of the copy for all our commercials, and he also is a sports nut. He does play-by-play for all the sports we cover. Ed has been in radio for 30 plus years. He has worked from Indiana to Wisconsin and all place between!

Now lets take a look at the studio, where all the magic happens!

About as big as a large closet, this is the WCJC studio. All the papers on the glass are important things that we are suppose to talk about. Sportscast coming up, How to get a ball game on the internet, and more are all up there. The cases on the floor, and on the counter are all full of CD's. Although most of the music is stored on the hard drive of one of the computers there. We still spin some CD's. Now I know what you are thinking, I should have a throne...well, this is the best we could do...

Here is a closer look at my controls!

The computer on the left is the on-air computer. It plays all the commercials, jingles, and my bed music. The computer on the right is my Production computer. I can play music off this computer, and also surf the web. I get a lot of the things I talk about in the morning from the internet. Plus we use it to pull up radar for weather, or check up to the minute sports scores. In the middle are all my live read commercials. All the sliders and buttons control the music and mics...It is pretty easy once you learn it!

So where do we make all the commercials??

This is the "Prod" room. Production is done here. We record commercials here. There are more pieces of equipment here. Yes that is a reel-to-reel machine. There are CD players, mini-disc recorders, a cassette deck, and even a turntable. We still use most of these everyday to make commercials. But most is now in a computer!

Here are some more pictures of all the equipment it takes to put our 4 stations on the air.

And I couldn't do my job it I didn't get paid for it, so here is the sales office. These are the guys that sell the commercials so I can get a pay check! Thanks guys!

And when I am not doing production, or on the air, I get stowed away with the other jocks in our cubicles in the very back of the building. Here is a shot of those wonderful cubies...mine is the one all the way at the end!

So now you have seen a quick tour of our radio stations. Like a said, not glamorous, but we get the job done. Thanks for stopping by, and come back often. Next time I will tell you about the great weekend I had checking out on of the hottest bands out there!

Talk to ya soon!!

Enjoying my "Life in Headphones"