First...And...Almost Last

First…And…Almost Last

I was NOT looking forward to my first Alamobile air shift. Since I had previously worked in a showcase studio, it was not about being watched as I worked that bothered me. It was the flurry of activity that happened at the KONO studios and at the Alamobile both before and immediately after the changeover between them. I also was not sure about the hassles associated with an extended live remote broadcast, since all the remote broadcasts I had done in the past had not been an entire air shift.

The good part was that the Alamobile was a well-equipped and furnished radio studio--better than many radio station’s regular studios. The main problem was the Alamobile turntables were not used on a regular basis. Because of this, instead of reaching full speed in the usual quarter turn (almost instant start), in some cases it took up to three turns for the turntables to reach full speed the first few hours of use. That made things very fun for timing for whoever got the changeover shift.

In an attempt to reduce the changeover problems, I picked up my box of “goodies” at the station a couple of hours before the scheduled changeover. The box of goodies contained the programming log, a notebook of live commercial copy, tape cartridges of all the commercials and public service announcements for the first hour, a limited set of jingles, and a limited set of current records. I only needed the current records, because the Alamobile had it’s own set of older records.

I got to the Alamabile location (a McDonald’s grand opening on San Pedro, inside Loop 410) about an hour and a half early. I wanted to turn on all three turntables, so there was enough time for them to run at least an hour before the changeover happened. I also needed to verify the accuracy of the Alamobile clock with the one back at the station.

At that time KONO had a top-of-the-hour time tone that happened “no matter what.” Most of the time, this didn’t matter, because whoever was doing news, which started at five minutes before each hour, could see the station clock, which triggered the time tone and adjust the newscast to fit. My problem was that some of the overnight newscasts were prerecorded, and I would be playing them from the Alamobile. I would not be able to see the clock back at the station. If the Alamobile clock was off a lot, the time tone could go off either during the newscast or long after the newscast was finished.

Since I was at the Alamobile more than an hour early, my plan was to listen for the time tone and see how close the Alamobile clock was to the station clock. Meanwhile, I needed to get some of the older records ready for play out of the record rack in the back of the Alamobile. I almost missed hearing the time tone, because one of the McDonalds managers appeared and asked me if there was anything I wanted to eat. I really wasn’t hungry, but I accepted his offer of a soft drink. The Alamobile clock was two seconds fast…I could live with that.

I got done all I could get done in preparation for the changeover. So when a uniformed McDonald’s young lady entered the Alamobile and handed me my soft drink, I was ready to sit down and relax for a while.

Meanwhile, my “protector” for the evening, a San Antonio Police Officer, arrived and we chatted until he left because he was invited to partake in some McDonald’s cuisine.

About ten minutes before the changeover, I did some turntable testing. Depending on the turntable, it took one half to three quarters of a turn to get full speed. It was not exactly what I wanted, but it was better than two or three turns. It looked like arriving early and letting the turntables run had helped to somewhat reduce the turntable startup time.

I got another visit from a McDonald’s employee asking me if I wanted anything to eat. I declined.

As my first Alamobile air shift began, I again verified the Alamobile clock with the time tone at the top of the hour, and my protector returned from his cuisine break.

The first hour went better than I expected, but it was very hectic. In addition to the slow turntable startups, I had extra live commercials for the McDonald’s grand opening (which I practiced off the air during the records). Additionally, some items that I needed were missing from the box of goodies. There were constant visits not only from McDonald’s employees asking if I needed anything to eat, but also the KONO salesman who had sold the Alamobile remote kept checking that everything was going well.

For some reason, the engineer was delayed, so it was almost an hour before he arrived with all the “stuff” from the studio, which I was very glad included the missing goodie box items, and the prerecorded newscasts.

The engineer unloaded, finished and left.

I was ready for things to settle down. However, because there were just enough differences from the regular KONO studio, I still wasn’t completely comfortable yet.

After introducing a record and turning off the microphone, I suddenly heard Rick Reynolds, KONO Program Director, demanding to know why I had let unauthorized people into the Alamobile. Before I could say anything, he quickly turned and ushered everyone (except my protector) out of the Alamobile. My record was ending and I had a live commercial to do. Just before I turned on the microphone to do the live commercial, Rick returned and said, “Be in my office at noon on Monday!” When I was finished with the live commercial, he was gone.

On Monday, just before noon, I encountered Chris Cooper as I waited in the disc jockey lounge immediately outside of Rick’s office. When Chris asked, I gave him a quick explanation for my early arrival. As Chris left to do his production work, he told me, “If Rick does anything more then yell at you…let me know. I’ll be in the production room.”

A few minutes later, Rick tore into me verbally, as soon as he saw me. I followed him into his office as he continued his diatribe. After what seemed like almost forever, Rick finally gave me a cursory chance to explain. I barely got to start explaining that as far as I knew, all the people who were in the Alamobile were either McDonalds or KONO employees. I was about to further explain that I was not the person responsible for guarding the door, but I never got the chance because Rick received a phone call. As he picked up the telephone receiver, Rick waved me out of his office and said, “Don’t let it happen again!”

Not too many weeks later, I was privileged to experience the Alamobile again. This time, it was a McDonalds grand opening on Fredericksburg Road, just inside Loop 410. I arrived early to “warm up” the Alamobile turntables. Again, it seemed like an almost continuous stream of McDonalds employees entered the Alamobile and asked what I would like to eat. Numerous KONO sales staff also entered and exited the Alamobile. Because of my previous experience and no changeover glitches this time, my Alamobile air shift was much easier. And…even though there were more bodies in the Alamobile than the previous time (when I had gotten into trouble), Rick Reynolds didn’t show up and request that I be in his office at noon on Monday. In fact, I never ever saw Rick during any of my subsequent Alamobile air shifts.

Paul Kirby

Paul Kirby in the Alamobile with onlooker

Photo is courtesy of Ken Rudd.

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