station personel – Page 3 – Engineering Radio

Radio Station Food

One of the great side benefits of working at a radio station is the regular availability of free food. I almost don’t want to do a post on this because somehow, some corporate boss is going to read about it and a no-free food edict will result.

Every so often, some local deli or pizza place will drop off something for the air staff. Usually, it is a friend of a friend, and nothing nefarious is going on. When it arrives, the odor of good things to eat wafts through the building. With the smell of blood in the water, the sharks swim out of the sales bullpen and a feeding frenzy develops. Just watch out for your fingers, during the scrum, it is difficult to tell the difference between a digit and a sausage.

It goes fast, when I walked by this table 15 minutes ago, there were five full pizza boxes, just delivered.

Now there is one box with two slices of some meat lovers’ heart attack special.

Computer file manipulator

It just doesn’t have the same ring as Disk Jockey or DJ. However, that would be an apt description of the person who plays the hits on most radio stations these days.

It is mostly just drag and drop the next element into the play deck if anything needs to be done at all.

I remember when DJs actually jockeyed disks, it was a sight to behold. Back in the day when everything was on vinyl except the commercials, which were on the cart, the DJ had his or her hands full. Most of the songs were in the 2:30 to 3-minute range, so while the song was playing, the next song had to be cued up on the platter, the old song needed to be put back into its sleeve and shelved (most of the time), check the log to see what was on deck, pull the next commercial stop set, answer the phone and god forbid if the Program Director called on the hotline and it rang more than 3 times. And hopefully, the head wasn’t too far away, that coffee went somewhere, after all. While all that is going on, timing, audience interaction, hitting the post, and sounding fun. In spite of what Howard Stern says, it was not easy.

Today, of course, if there is even a person in the studio, they may glance up at the computer screen every now and then to see when the next time they need to talk. Otherwise, they would be engaged in talking on the phone with their girlfriend, texting, surfing the internet, or watching a baseball game on TV.

Theft prevention system

Ever since the new morning show guy started about six months ago, my workbench chair has been frequently migrating into the air studio. I don’t mind sharing, as long as things are put back where they came. I requested that the ever so cool, to hip to care DJ return it after use, which was ignored.

On my last trip to the hardware store, I made a purchase:

Behold, a length of 5/16 chain, and two master combination locks. Now, every time I go to sit in my workbench chair, it is there.

If only all problems were this easy.