Tech Report: SiriusXM A La Carte Satellite Radio Service

Doesn't it really annoy you as you're traveling along listening to a country station playing all the great vintage artists and music you love or you're listening to a news report or an interesting talk show or a baseball game on your radio and you "run out of string." What I mean by that is you've crossed into the fringe range for the station or it's an FM station and you've passed to the other side of a mountain or a stronger FM station overrides the station you were listening to. 

I know it always frosted me when that happened. Public radio is a perfect example. You're listening to a really great Terry Gross interview on her "Fresh Air" program and you run out of range. So, you start looking for another public radio station to pick up the program, but the only other public station has a classical music or jazz program on. NPR, PRI, APR and the other public radio program providers are syndicators. That means the public radio stations that subscribe to their programming services can program the programs anytime or any day in their schedule. You may not find "Fresh Air" on anywhere else that day as you progress.

Photo-of-the-Week #174 Home #5, John Alden Street, Clifton, New Jersey, June 2013

This is the fifth home my parents owned (and the 7th place that I know of that I lived in since my birth). We moved to this house during the summer of 1960. I was 15 years old and about to begin my sophomore year at Clifton High School. It was a corner lot and had almost no back yard, but ample property on the sides and front of the house. . . READ MORE

Photo-of-the-Week #156, Home #4, The Birth of My Ham Radio Hobby, Clifton, New Jersey, September 2013

This Photo-of-the-Week Marks the 156th such post in this series of photos and I don't believe I've missed a week since I launched it. However, this will be the last post of this series after three years. The Photo-of-the-Week series moves to my Travel blog that you'll be able to access by clicking on the "Traveling" tab above. So, "the beat rolls on" just in a slightly modified manner.

This photo is of the fourth home my parents owned, three of them were in my hometown of Clifton, New Jersey. There were two other places we lived prior to the homes they owned, but they were rental properties. The homes my parents owned represented the post-WWII emergence of a growing Middle Class in the U.S. The American Dream was to own a home, have a nice car (eventually, two cars and, in our family, we eventually had three). This was the house we moved from, on the mountain in Bloomingdale that was my favorite, when we returned to Clifton .

Every home we lived in brings back vivid memories. For those people who grew up in only one or two homes, memories may blur into a continuum. But, since we moved fairly frequently, each home is like an era unto itself. This split-level house actually had four levels. There is a basement below the living room, dining room and kitchen on the right side of the house. That basement has special significance to me.

So, what are the memories I have for the three years we lived here at 40 Manor Drive? First, we returned to Clifton just in time for me to start junior high school at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High (7th through 9th grades). I also acquired my newspaper route and began my "entrepreneurial" career in this house. I delivered the evening newspaper for The Herald News six days a week to 108 customers and collected payment for the papers every Saturday morning. I became quite active in the jr. high Baptist Youth Fellowship that I eventually became vice-president and then president of. This began my leadership opportunities.

The space to the right of the garage was unfinished when we moved into the house, so my father built in a recreation room (as they called them back then), a half bathroom and a laundry room in that space. When he built the laundry room, he set it up so that I could also use it as a darkroom for my fledgling photography hobby. In the back yard, to the right of the house, behind the large shrubs, my father set up our first, of two, large, above ground swimming pools that provided for a lot of summer fun.

My bedroom was above the family room, (the double windows on the second floor over the double windows of the family room). It was in this bedroom that my interest was peaked and my amateur radio hobby was born. We had, from somewhere, acquired an old console radio, dating back to the later 30's or 40's. I believe it was a Philco. I managed to cram that big old radio into my closet, straightened out a coat hanger and turned it into an antenna. I would sit and swelter (from the heat created by all the vacuum tubes and transformers) in that closet for hours listening to shortwave radio stations and ham radio operators around the world. I also began reading the Tommy Tomkins stories SOS at Midnight and CQ Ghost Ship. Tommy was a fictional high school senior and ham radio operator who used his hobby to solve mysteries. These books probably launched more young teens into ham radio during the '60s than almost anything else.

There was a ham radio operator, Jack Nixon, W2IMG, who lived about 15 minutes from our house by bike. Jack was a science teacher in a neighboring town. He was also the person who helped me get started and administered my first two amateur radio exams. I was 13 in 1958, just shy of my 14th birthday, when I took my Novice exam. The license arrived from the FCC right after I turned 14 and I was issued the call sign WV2FMT (changed within a year to WA2FMT when I upgraded my license). I still carry that call sign, WA2FMT, to this date, 55 years later. 

There was really no room in my bedroom for even a small ham radio station, so my father took about half of the basement under the living room and built in another room that he designed as my "Ham Shack." The rest of the basement was workshop. I even had my own extension telephone in my ham shack. Back in the 50's kids didn't have their own extensions, so I was an anomaly. My father ran antenna cables and a control cable to the roof and to the back yard. On the roof he installed my 2-meter (144 MHz) beam antenna and my 15-meter (21 MHz) beam antenna along with the rotator to turn the antennas toward whomever I was in contact with. In the back yard, I had a 40-meter (7 MHz) long-wire, dipole antenna. This gave me the capability of communicating locally, throughout the U.S. and around the world. This was pretty heady stuff for a 13 or 14-year-old kid back in those days.

Thus, while house #3 was my favorite house, House #4 really was the launching pad for, pretty much, my entire future. The ham radio antennas are long gone. The truck farm that bordered our backyard when we moved into the house was sold while we lived there and developed into more homes. The swimming pool is also long gone (at least as far as I could see from the street). But, I know the recreation room, half bathroom and the laundry room, where I developed film and enlarged black and white prints from my early photography days, are still there. I know the bedroom over the family room where my interest in shortwave and ham radio was conceived is still there. And, I'm reasonably sure the "ham shack" in the basement, although repurposed, is very likely still there, too.

The house is a different color now. I've been wracking my memory trying to remember what the original color was. I think it was brown. Otherwise the house and the neighborhood appear to look pretty much unchanged. However, while I'm sure most or all of the people who owned the homes along Manor Drive have since left the Earth, my memories are still very much alive and legion 54 years later. 

Photo-of-the-Week #149, The Ampex 200 Studio Audio Recorder, Phantom Productions Collection, Austin, Texas, October 2013

This week's photo of the week is for any of my audiophile, recording studio and Bing Crosby aficionado readers. This is the Ampex Model 200A audio recorder. It is the first American commercial studio grade audio recorder designed specifically to be used by recording studios and radio broadcasters. This recorder was released in 1948 making it 66 years old and still fully operational and able to produce broadcast and studio quality recordings.

On a personal note, this is only the second Ampex 200A I've ever seen and touched first hand. The other was in a small radio station in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where it is still used. (A side note, Mt. Airy is where the late actor, Andy Griffith was raised and was the model for the fictitious town of Mayberry in the Andy Griffith, Mayberry USA TV show.)

The reason I brought up Bing Crosby's name is because Crosby, acclaimed as the most popular radio star of that period (TV hadn't really begun to build an audience in the late 40's), helped finance the development of the Ampex 200A recorder because he wanted to pre-record his radio program and not be bound by the rigorous time constraints of the broadcasting industry. The only high-quality recording medium of that time was disk recording and there were numerous disadvantages to using that medium as Crosby wanted to use the pre-recording idea. So, the first two Ampex 200A recorders, serial numbers 1 and 2 were delivered to the American Broadcasting Company in April of 1948. And, accordingly, the Bing Crosby show was the first pre-recorded, delayed broadcast radio show in the U.S. (Another side note, in the future, Bing Crosby also helped finance the development of the first broadcast video recorder with Ampex for the same reason.)

The recorder to the left of the Ampex 200A that is only partially visible is an Ampex Model 300, the next studio grade recorder in the Ampex line up. I am very familiar with the 300 and operated several 300's during my Air Force days in Washington, DC. I also had a custom modified 300 that was modified into a 1" tape, 8-track studio recorder in our small basement recording studio in Upper Marlboro, Maryland in the early 1970's. While I embrace and love all the flexibility and capability of digital recording, there is still a glamour attached to these old heavy, bulky "beasts" that those of us who used them will always miss.  

Photo-of-the-Week #132 - The Armstrong Tower, Birthplace of FM Radio, Alpine, New Jersey, October 2013

While to some people the tower in this photograph may appear to be an eyesore, especially the very expensive homes directly below the tower site, it is both of major historic importance and utilitarian significance. The Armstrong Tower, all 425 feet of it, has stood in this place and weathered the test of time since 1938.

Major Edwin Armstrong, the father of modern radio communications, broadcasting and most significantly, FM radio broadcasting (FM has also been used for the sound portion of broadcast television and connected us with astronauts in space) erected this tower for his experimental FM broadcasting beginning in the late 1930's. While Armstrong invented much of what allowed the world to have AM radio and eventually FM radio and held many patents, he never received the acclaim he deserved. His life ended tragically when he committed suicide on January 31, 1954 believing he was a failure and a broken man. David Sarnoff of RCA fame was complicit in breaking Armstrong, though he never took responsibility for his actions. It's an interesting read for anyone interested in the story of these two men and how one destroyed the other through politics and corporate greed.

The original laboratory building still stands at the base of the tower and is a museum displaying Armstrong's inventions and contributions to society. However, the tower is currently very actively utilized by all kinds of communication services as evidenced by the massive number of antennas mounted on the tower. And, as another historical note, after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, many of the New York area TV and FM radio stations whose antennas and transmitters were located at the top of the World Trade Towers were immediately set up at the Armstrong Tower to provide continued service to most of their listening and viewing audiences. So, while some may see it as an eyesore, I recognize it as a symbol of the inventiveness and free enterprise society that is the American way. Armstrong's legacy lives on not only through his tower, but also through a foundation established by his widow, who fought for his patent rights, royalties and what was due to the inventor after his tragic death.

More Progress On My McVansion And Other Things

So, I've been a bit lax on posting lately. My apologies. It's not that I have nothing to say. It's simply that I've been running out of time before running out of things to do. I'm sure you've experienced this situation from time to time yourself. The last road trips have been excellent, however, they were typical of most of my road trips during my earlier years. I was on a "mission" and attempted to include as many things as I possibly could into the trips. As a recovering "Type A" workaholic personality, my "To Do" list always had far more items on it than could be accomplished in the day I had designated to do them all. So it is with my road trips. Now, that's not to say that I didn't accomplish a lot. Actually, I accomplished most of the things I had planned, just not everything. And, of course, keeping up with emails, blog posts, phone calls and other similar activities seemed to fall behind. I guess the old saying, "the faster I go, the behinder I get," aptly applies here.

So, to set the record straight, I'm the guy with a blog titled "Living Free" and a philosophy of doing everything I can to have the least number of restrictions, limitations and encumbrances on my time and life. Yet, I'm still caught up in the whirlpool of having way too many irons on the fire and things to do. I guess I still have some work to do, would you agree?

A Road Trips Recap

#1

The September road trip to New Jersey was great! I got to visit most of the places I had planned to get to. I saw most of the friends I wanted to see on that trip including spending a little time with my younger (the middle child of the three of us) sister and her husband, went to the Voice Over Barbecue and met many on-line friends from that unique professional niche, sampled the foods at some of my favorite childhood restaurants and even, through interesting circumstances, enjoyed the serendipity of visiting the Thomas Edison Laboratory where my father worked until his untimely death in the beginning of 1967. The Edison Laboratory and the remaining grounds from the original, huge, multi-block complex in West Orange, New Jersey is now a national historical park. Again, the timing was right because, had I been there just a couple weeks later and the ridiculous government shutdown would have had the gates closed and locked and I wouldn't have walked through that historic building where not only did Edison invent many of the things that changed our lives forever, but where my father was instrumental in designing the guidance systems that made the space program and humans walking on the moon possible.

#2

The second road trip to Texas, again, on a mission to work on a conference at the Hyatt Grand Hotel on the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas, was equally a successful trip. Of course, the conference was covered and recorded, though we experienced a few serious challenges in that particular property. But, I was able to deliver a plaque that posthumously recognized a beloved, humorous professional speaker to his daughter in Austin. I met a new friend near Austin who shared his vast collection of vintage magnetic recording equipment with me at his home. The experience brought back so many memories as I looked at and touched so many of the dozens of professional and semi-professional recorders I used during my 50 year career in the recording industry. Not only that, but I even saw copies of some tapes that were very likely edited, duplicated and distributed from my studios and tape duplication plant in Washington, DC during the 1970's. The circle completes. I visited one of my former business partners and his wife, Pat, from the '70's. Troy continued his military career and retired from the Air Force to retire to New Braunfels, Texas where he started a successful silk screening business, which he is now retired from. From there I met up with and enjoyed a couple days visiting a former author of my book publishing company and another unique professional speaker friend and his wife in Kerrville, Texas. Scott has been dealing with Parkinson's Disease for several years and is a fantastic inspiration as is his wife, Melanie. I also met up with another new friend I met through the Internet, specifically, LinkedIn. Marvin Willis is the founder of the Hometown Hero - Hero Card, a really great small business idea that I'm still milling over in my mind as to how I can work with Marvin and still focus on my own goals. Finally, I visited with a former employee, a recording engineer, who worked with me in my studios in Washington, DC during the mid 70's. Bill and his wife, Diane, hosted me to a wonderful dinner and breakfast at their beautiful home outside Austin, Texas. Bill is still active in audio and video production, though he indicated that he's also slowing down. Diane retired this past December from her position as the Director of Administration for the Lt. Governor of Texas. I also had an opportunity to meet Bill's son from his first marriage who is a contractor working for the U.S. government in Afghanistan. He was back stateside on some leave time. There were many more people along the routes to and from the San Antonio mission that I would have loved to have spent some time with, but, as seems to happen all too often on mission based travel, there was just no more time in the schedule.

#3

I made a short excursion to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in mid-October to attend the ribbon cutting and dedication of the Charlie "Tremendous" Jones Conference Center. Charlie was a long time friend, mentor, colleague, client and even a father figure at times. He passed away as the result of prostate cancer on October 16, 2008. Five years to the day of his passing his daughter, Tracey Jones, had the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony to remember her father. I enjoyed visiting with other members of Charlie's family including his widow, Gloria, still radiant and glowing and one of his sons and his youngest daughter. I also met several people, some I knew from earlier encounters, but four new folks included Giff Briner, Board Chairman and owner of WPFG, a Christian radio station in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Cal Beyer, Vice-president of Murray Securus, a risk management company from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and John Eshleman and his wife from Upland, California who is the Region IV Director for the Mennonite Disaster Service. Wow! I enjoyed very stimulating and inspiring discussions with everyone and came back from that trip with many new insights. Of course, my friend, Tracey Jones, who has stepped into her father's footprints, is an amazing woman and most assuredly, a "chip off the old block." I have great admiration for this very accomplished, motivated and inspirational woman. Once again, I stayed at Tracey's "guest hut," as she calls it, and she's made it clear that it's my accommodations whenever I'm in the area and it's not previously spoken for.

#4

Finally, the last road trip began on October 23rd and took me on a long day's drive from the West Virginia base camp to Riverhead, New York on Long Island for a very special wedding of my grad school buddy's daughter, Kelly. Riverhead is near the famous Hamptons and not too far from the eastern tip of Long Island at Montauk Point. The trip was a bit longer than it might have been had I not been dealing with what turned out to be a urinary tract infection. It's the first time (and I hope the last and only time) I've ever had such an infection. Unfortunately, due to the number of things on my agenda from the time I returned from the Pennsylvania trip I didn't have time to get to my regular doctor before I left. So, first I attended the wedding on Long Island (one of the best, if not the best, wedding parties I've ever attended). Friday morning after breakfast with my friends, I headed back to New Jersey for a late 2:00 PM lunch (that lasted until about 6:30) with my college friend, Greg, and his wife, Mary. Then to my overnight location at the Pilot Travel Center (you likely saw the "David and Goliath" Photo of the Week that I posted a couple weeks ago at the Travel Center). It was Saturday morning and I found a walk in "doc in the box" urgent care center in Parsippany, New Jersey where I went and finally saw a doctor, got the formal diagnosis and a prescription for some antibiotics. I took the prescription to another Walmart in the region to check it out as a possible overnight parking location. Well, the script was filled, but the Walmart was not a candidate for an overnight location.

I arrived at my favorite hot dog hang out, Rutt's Hut, in my hometown of Clifton, New Jersey at around 4:00 PM, just moments before my old high school buddy, Art, rolled in after driving about 100 miles from the New Jersey Shore to meet up, eat hot dogs, drink birch beer and talk about old times. We occupied a table until about 9:15 PM when Art went on to his brothers and I made my way to the North Bergen Walmart to consider it as an overnight parking place. It's on the list, but I decided to go back to the more familiar Walmart in Garfield, New Jersey, my father's hometown (just across the Passaic River from Clifton, New Jersey). Sunday I met up with my oldest nephew, had a brunch with him and then attended his hand bell choir recording session. I then checked out the Walmart at the Meadowlands where the Giants football stadium is located. I spent the night there, met up with some 18 wheeler truck drivers in the morning and then headed out for lunch with a couple of college friends, one was the former Chief Engineer for the college radio station we launched and the other took over the "reins of power" from me when I graduated. From there I met up with a couple more old college friends who were members of my Industrial Arts major. Tuesday was a day off and I decided to do some exploring and made my way out to the Palisades and up to the Alpine Marina on the Hudson River where I spent a couple summers boating with my grad school buddy and his parents. I also revisited the old Armstrong Tower where Major Edwin Armstrong, the inventor of modern radio communication and broadcasting, was the first to broadcast with his invention, frequency modulation or FM, as most people know it. I wrapped up Tuesday with a visit to the new Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria named Barilari's located about a block from my old favorite hometown pizza place, Mario's. I wrote about Mario's previously. Barilari's is owned by Kenny Barilari, the grandson of the original owners of Mario's, and his mission is to carry on the tradition of his grandparents. I'll write more about my visit to Barilari's in the near future.

Finally, on Wednesday I returned to Montclair State University where I had lunch with the general manager of WMSC, the radio station I started 46 years ago, hung out in the production lounge with a bunch of the current crop of "radio types," and finally spoke to a group of them at their weekly meeting later in the afternoon. My hope was to give them a bit of history and a challenge for their station's future and their own futures. I then found my way back to My McVansion, parked in a far off parking lot, and began my journey back to base camp in Keyser, West Virginia. I spent the previous couple evenings at the Garfield Walmart and I spent that last evening overnighting at the Phillipsburg, New Jersey Walmart. Oh, and that inconvenient little infection I was dealing with was pretty much gone as the antibiotics the doctor prescribed made quick work of the errant bacteria.

Why A Recap?

While much of this is a recap of some earlier posts, it's also a reminder to myself just how much I enjoy being on the road, meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, exploring new sites and revisiting places that hold major significance in my life. It also served as a reminder that I'm still attempting to do too much in too little time. I didn't have, or maybe it would be better said that I didn't allow and make time to prepare meaningful posts for this blog. For those who read the blog regularly and look forward at least to something interesting if not enlightening and uplifting or, maybe, informative, I apologize. Writing this blog is one of the more important aspects of who I am and who I'm becoming. So, I not only let you down, who (I hope) gain some little tidbits of inspiration and ideas from this blog, but I let myself down.

This is something I have to work at. I tell other people we simply can't do everything. I attempt to help people realize that we'll all die one day and leave unfinished business behind...and that's okay. But, the one person who needs to truly believe and heed these thoughts is, yours truly...ME. As President George W. Bush used to say (and this has nothing to do with his or your politics), "I'm the decider." That's true for all of us and I especially need to realize and accept that I can't do it all, must select between the voluminous number of things I want to do and be the "decider" of what I really, really want to do. In other words, I need to pick and choose and then prioritize. Living free is a fantastic experience, however, it's also an awesome opportunity and responsibility. If we try to do it all we get mired down and ultimately get little or nothing done. So, hang with me and pass on your thoughts and ideas about the things you want to do and how you're able to (if you are, yet) pick, choose, decide and prioritize.

My McVansion Progress Report

So, to wrap up this post, today, here are the latest upgrades to My McVansion. People often wonder how those who choose to travel and/or live full-time in the confines of 50 or less square feet take care of various necessities of life. One of these necessities is, hopefully, to not be too indelicate or graphic, the elimination of bodily wastes. Yes! It's one of the things we all must do no matter what our station in life, but it's also something many people don't want to focus on, despite its importance to good health and hygiene. There are a variety of ways that people living in small spaces like the confines of a van or a utility trailer or the new trend known as Tiny Houses take care of this necessity. Each method has advantages and disadvantages and the costs vary across the spectrum. A full size, commercially designed and manufactured RV (motor home or trailer) will typically have an actual bathroom facility built in with running water and holding tanks for the waste. Periodically, the fresh water tank has to be filled or connected to an external potable water supply and the waste holding tanks have to be dumped in an appropriate waste dumping station or connected to an external sewage system. In this instance, taking care of necessary bodily functions is not much different than if one lives in the average house or apartment anywhere in the U.S.

The options are several for those of us who choose to use vans or utility trailers as our travel/living facilities. I won't go into all the options in this post. However, I will tell you about mine. First, when I'm traveling and when I'm parking overnight, my first choice is to find public facilities. Public facilities are plentiful and include rest areas along interstates and major highways across the U.S. Next come gas station/convenience stores/fast food restaurants. Most large retail establishments including Walmart, Target, Kmart, supermarkets, Costco's, Sam's Clubs, shopping malls and similar also have public rest rooms. There are, of course, others that can be added to this list.

When I'm not traveling and I'm parked for the night or even semi-permanently in a location where public restrooms are not conveniently located, my next line of convenience enters the picture. As a male, I have a distinct advantage over females when it comes to voiding my bladder, so for that purpose I carry a half-gallon, opaque, yellow plastic milk container. It's certainly not inconspicuous when I carry it into a public rest area rest room to empty, but at least it's not transparent making it even more obvious as to its contents. I use a little liquid bleach with some water to wash it out and keep it sanitary. This works very well for me and, frankly, has saved me from extreme discomfort on more than one occasion.

The other and, certainly, more obvious appliance addition to My McVansion is the new Sanitation Equipment Visa Porta Potty Model 268. This unit is well built, has excellent ratings everywhere I've looked for reviews, is economical and has the largest holding tank capacity of the numerous similar appliances available on the market. It has a 6.3 gallon solid waste capacity with a 3.7 gallon fresh water (for flushing) capacity. I won't go into any other details other than to say that depending on my travels and the availability of public facilities along my route, I can go between three and four weeks with this unit between visits to appropriate dumping stations.

  

The Visa Porta Potty is situated on a plywood floor with furring strips around the base so it can't slide. To the left of the porta potty on the same plywood base will be a 2.7 cu. ft. compressor refrigerator. The plywood base will be stained to match the rest of the wood in the van along with being sealed so water, although there should be none, can't seep through to the remaining carpet under the plywood. Additionally, when I'm finished with the construction, both the porta potty and the refrigerator will be enclosed in plywood cabinets, also stained to match the rest of the interior wood and there will be a cover over the porta potty with a cushion so that when not in use, the porta potty will be concealed and provide some seating space. The top of the refrigerator cabinet will support a small microwave oven. The yellow bottle is also concealed when not in use, but is readily available when needed.

 The wheel well to the right of the porta potty is going to be concealed by a wooden enclosure that will support a six drawer storage unit for office supplies, cables, cords and adapters for audio, video and photographic interfacing and similar misc. necessities along with a small file box to keep necessary paperwork in. The cabinet and the wheel well enclosure are under construction currently. By the end of next week, I am planning to have the large 245 amp hour, deep cycle battery on board the van so I can begin putting in the 12 volt DC and the 110 volt AC wiring. So, the progress continues on My McVansion to make it a very habitable and hospitable environment for me to travel and live in for extended periods of time.  

The Ed Helvey WMSC FM Radio Interview - Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Ed receiving his sign designating him as the first member (No. 1) of WMSC at lunch at Montclair State University on September 24, 2013. The sign was presented by Dick Hinchliffe, General Manager/Radio, WMSC-FM 90.3, and will be mounted on board "My McVansion," Ed's traveling turtle shell on wheels. Photo by: Debbie Galant, NJ News Commons, School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University

Listen to the Interview: 

First, let me thank all the folks who tuned in at 11 AM this past Tuesday morning to listen to yours truly being interviewed on the small college radio station, WMSC, I started over 46 years ago. I appreciate your support and your emails have been most gratifying. It also gave the General Manager at WMSC, Dick Hinchliffe an idea about the power of social media in promoting their radio station.

Now, being interviewed on radio or TV is not new to me. Being in the recording industry as well as having produced a number of hours of radio program and other interview based materials that I have long ago lost count of (along with the millions of feet of magnet recording tape that have passed through my hands during the editing and production process), this is pretty much second nature to me. And, I've been fortunate in my career to have spent time on both sides of the table as both the interviewer and the guest. But, this was very special. This was my genesis. This is pretty much where everything began for me. High school was just a necessity to get through. When I got to college, I began to bloom and Montclair State College was that catalyst for me. While my major was Industrial Arts, my unofficial major was extracurricular activities and The Voice of Montclair State, then WVMS and now, WMSC, was one of my earliest dreams and achievements.

But, it wasn't that I am single-handedly responsible for WMSC's existence. I had a team of people who I "preached" to about why the college needed a radio voice, what it would take for that to happen and how we would go about turning the dream into a reality. I thank everyone of those folks from the bottom of my heart because if it weren't for you, your belief in me and your belief in "The Dream," I wouldn't have been able to return to what has become Montclair State University, an institution that's five times larger than when I left, 46 years ago and a radio station that has not only endured throughout those 46 years, but has grown and is now a part of the teaching curriculum of that institution. I don't have a clue how many people have passed through the doors of WVMS/WMSC and it's several configurations and the trials, tribulations and challenges it's overcome, but I'm sure the number exceeds 1,000 people, all of whom have contributed something to my original dream and many of whom have gone onto careers in broadcast media because of their exposure to and time at The Voice of Montclair State and WMSC.

It was an honor. It was humbling. It was a pleasure. It was cathartic. It was a privilege. And, it was the fulfillment of the circle to, once again, be back in the studios - as different and state-of-the-art as they now are, of "My Baby." So, thank you to everyone over the years who has contributed. Thank you to the staff and faculty and current student staff of The Voice of Montclair State, WMSC for making me feel so welcome and at ease, like coming home, the prodigal son, returned.

Now, for those who wanted to listen, but couldn't due to schedule or technical challenges getting the live Internet stream from WMSC. For those who may have captured some of the interview, but were unable to hear it all. For those who learned about it too late due to my rather short notice. And, for those who just want to indulge me and hear it again. I've made the recorded version available here. And, my thanks go out to Mickey Bo, my good buddy, who produces the Mickey Bo Rock n Roll Revue (there's a link on the left side of this blog page if you love vintage rock & roll from the 50's and 60's), for recording the interview and sending it to me before I even returned to My McVansion after the interview. I've edited it somewhat to mainly include the meat and potatoes of the actual interview. So, enjoy it, if you're interested. And, as always comment here on the blog or drop me an email and let me know what your thoughts are. 

Special Post: WMSC Radio Station Founder (That's ME) To Be Interviewed On a Live Broadcast Tuesday (Tomorrow) Morning, September 24, 2013

Hi to all my regular readers. This is a special notice to let you know that the founder of WMSC radio in Montclair, New Jersey will be interviewed live tomorrow morning, Tuesday, September 24,2013 at 11 AM Eastern Time. The founder of WMSC is none other than yours truly, Ed Helvey, professional nomad and author of this blog.

I founded the station in 1966 and we put it on the air initially in January of 1967, the last semester of my senior year at what was then the 4,000 student, Montclair State College and is now something like an 18,000+ student university. The station has also now been incorporated into the university curriculum, which truly makes me proud to have started it 46 years ago.

So, if you're the least bit interested in college radio, broadcasting or a significant achievement of my early life that helped form who I have become, I invite you to listen to the streaming version of the live program on www.wmscradio.com at 11 AM Eastern Time tomorrow morning. I have no idea what we'll talk about, but I've done tons of radio interviews in the past, so I know it will be fun and likely pretty interesting. Just click on the "live stream" button and join the audience. You can even call in if you want to. I hope lots of you will tune in and enjoy the program with me.

Thanks for this commercial break and a little crass self-promotion. Oh Yeah! I'll be wearing THE  HAT, too.