WYSO FM Yellow Springs Ohio 1970 to 1972

It was 1970 that I started as an on-air announcer for the non-commercial FM radio station WYSO. The radio station was largely funded by Antioch College, a private liberal arts college. This six hours of excitement was titled The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show and I had it free and clear, weekend after weekend.  No college student was going to get up early to do radio show on a Saturday morning.  I insured my time slot because I was also the engineer for the Metropolitan Opera. The Met was on every Saturday at 2PM. In 1970 there was no radio station located in southwest Ohio that played rock and roll. So I mixed in the latest releases with a mixture of blues, country, bluegrass, some folk and occasional electronic music. 

My volunteer work at the station included audio production. The station staff taught me how to produce audio documentaries. We used reel-to-reel tape and edited with a razor blade. I helped out with the station marathons. Our pitch to raise money to cover the budget that the college could not cover. The station was 750 watts in Mono when we I started and eventually went to some 6000 watts stereo. That was a big deal!

The Grateful Dead sent us tapes of live shows to raise money for the station. Rod Serling was an Antioch alum. He called in to read one of his stories for donations. John Fahey came by the station one Saturday morning. That was the first time that I met him. He performed live and left the station copies of his albums, along with albums by Leo Kottke and Peter Lang. 

It was a fun time. I was still in high school while I was doing all of this. Poco played an outdoor show on campus because Richie Furay was from Yellow Springs, Ohio. The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever each did shows in the campus auditorium. It is just all memories now.