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Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 1
Yeah, they had the NBC red and blue, but anyway, this was Al Pearson’s gang and I think it was NBC or I’m not sure.
00:00:10 Speaker 1
Again, my memory, that’s a long time.
00:00:12 Speaker 1
Back. Yeah, we’re.
00:00:12 Speaker 1
Talking 45 years, Al Pearson is gay anyway, people have heard of Murray Amsterdam, I’m sure.
00:00:22 Speaker 1
He was the one that popularized this rum and Coca-Cola thing. He was on that show. People have heard of Yogi Yorgason.
00:00:29 Speaker 1
He was on that show.
00:00:32 Speaker 1
There was Alan Kelp Pierce and there were a few.
00:00:34 Speaker 1
Other people that went.
00:00:36 Speaker 1
On to fame, whose names escaped me at the moment one chap played a saw for one thing.
00:00:42 Speaker 1
That was a big part of lack in those days, but anyway they brought this show to Vancouver for a week and they put it on the stage at the Strand Theater.
00:00:48 Speaker 1
I know it was the strand this time.
00:00:51 Speaker 1
And we picked it up by this time we had condenser microphones ourselves.
00:00:56 Speaker 1
And I’ll tell you how that comes about in a minute.
00:00:58 Speaker 1
But we made the pickup for the whole week and Monday through Friday.
00:01:04 Speaker 1
It went to the Western network, down the coast as far down as San Diego, and on Saturday it went to the entire national network of the NBC and Ross McIntyre was the announcer, and boy was that a feather in his cap.
00:01:15 Speaker 1
He got to be on the national network of the NBC.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
Except for one thing.
00:01:22 Speaker 1
These microphones that we built were homemade and nobody knew that, of course, of NBC and knowing that that program was picked up with a couple of homemade condenser microphones, they’d have shown us the gate in an awful hurry.
00:01:36 Speaker 1
But we used to have occasional trouble with them being homemade.
00:01:40 Speaker 1
Even the manufactured ones had trouble.
00:01:42 Speaker 1
So as a backup, we put two of these things up side-by-side on a T shaped stand.
00:01:48 Speaker 1
And they were built like the old ones you used to see in the old pictures of the early movies.
00:01:52 Speaker 1
They had the long black tube.
00:01:53 Speaker 1
They’re about a foot long 4 inches in diameter, and the microphone hung in the bottom on a gimbal, and there was a wire ball at the top that you hung up somewhere on a boom.
00:02:01 Speaker 1
Well, we inverted them and put them on pipes, so they stand up side by side and we only use one.
00:02:07 Speaker 1
So that if one failed, we could turn the other one off because we didn’t have the sophisticated mixing equipment in those days that they have now.
00:02:14 Speaker 1
So this was fine toward the end.
00:02:16 Speaker 1
Of the show.
00:02:18 Speaker 2
And there is the toward the end of the.
00:02:20 Speaker 1
Yeah, I was talking about the two condenser microphones toward the end of the show.
00:02:25 Speaker 1
One of the microphones started to develop a little noise, I thought, and I brought in the second one just about the time that Ross McIntyre was starting to say his final announcement on the thing and ending up with this is the NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
00:02:40 Speaker 1
And it just so happened that the microphones were out of phase.
00:02:43 Speaker 1
And when I got them both up, it’s a very thin, ethereal voice, was all it was left.
00:02:50 Speaker 1
Poor Ross.
00:02:51 Speaker 1
I don’t think he’s ever forgotten that, but Matt again was another first for CCKW X in Vancouver.
00:02:58 Speaker 2
Well, you were saying it.
00:02:58 Speaker 1
I don’t know.
00:02:59 Speaker 2
It got one of the first crystal tools, two of them.
00:03:02 Speaker 1
Oh, yes.
00:03:03 Speaker 1
Well, we we did that.
00:03:05 Speaker 1
First of all, we got we had the first frequency.
00:03:09 Speaker 1
In Vancouver.
00:03:12 Speaker 1
Talking about crystal control, we did a lot of experimenting in those days.
00:03:17 Speaker 1
You could do it then or because there was nobody really inspecting equipment as they are today, there weren’t any such standards.
00:03:25 Speaker 1
We played around with things we’ve built linear amplifiers.
00:03:28 Speaker 1
We’ve tried various types and configurations of transmitting.
00:03:31 Speaker 1
And we converted this northern electric, which has been a modulated oscillator to a master oscillator power amplifier type of thing and thereby hangs those little short tail too.
00:03:42 Speaker 1
We used A210 tube which was about a 5 Watt tube as an oscillator and we had it down the corner of the.
00:03:49 Speaker 1
And there were a couple of excessive radio frequency stages up to the 100 Watt final.
00:03:54 Speaker 1
And we used to.
00:03:55 Speaker 1
Set this thing with a dial.
00:03:57 Speaker 1
Just by guessing by God, 730 kilohertz, we had a wave meter up there, which was just an analog meter and another coil that was tuned. We really had no sub standard as such.
00:04:08 Speaker 1
So we’d set this thing up and it would run along for weeks and nobody would ever pay any attention to it.
00:04:13 Speaker 1
In fact, the tube was still covered with dust.
00:04:14 Speaker 1
You could hardly see the film at later inside.
00:04:17 Speaker 1
One day we got a letter from a frequency monitoring service in California.
00:04:23 Speaker 1
the United States government, George standards, set up one down there early on to check the frequencies of broadcast emissions and other emissions, and it was at Point Reyes, CA.
00:04:34 Speaker 1
We got this letter from Point Reyes, and while they had no authority to tell us to do anything, they pointed out that on such and such a night they had monitored our transmission on such and such a frequency and we were 340 cycles off frequency and rose and I looked.
00:04:50 Speaker 1
At this little.
00:04:51 Speaker 1
Two town this hand cranked down in front.
00:04:53 Speaker 1
Of it and just sadly.
00:04:54 Speaker 1
Shook our heads.
00:04:56 Speaker 1
Now the first thing we did after that was to get a Western electric frequency monitor.
00:05:00 Speaker 1
One of the.
00:05:01 Speaker 1
Early early frequency monitors and we put that in.
00:05:03 Speaker 1
That gave us something so we could get into, you know, right in on.
00:05:07 Speaker 2
Frequency station.
00:05:08 Speaker 2
In those days, we’re going to change frequencies little.
00:05:11 Speaker 2
There’s a little bit of interference.
00:05:12 Speaker 1
Around well, thereby hangs another tail about seeking TWX.
00:05:16 Speaker 1
But in any case, talking about the the crystal control I ground the.
00:05:21 Speaker 1
For our first crystal control.
00:05:23 Speaker 1
We bought the frequency lock and then we made-up the rest the equipment and made it match.
00:05:28 Speaker 1
The frequency monitor.
00:05:28 Speaker 1
So we had the first crystal prior to that.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
Why does it say just have the frequency with this wave here up above and it was close, close within the kill a cycle or two and who cared and those days?
00:05:40 Speaker 1
But progress did rear its ugly head, and we got into the crystal control heel.
00:05:45 Speaker 1
Now talking about the two frequencies before the crystal control the actual timing of a lot of these events can is just unclear.
00:06:00 Speaker 1
The chronology of them I am not going to guarantee.
00:06:04 Speaker 1
But in the 32, I think it was the net Canadian people got interested in networks, they were starting in the states they’ve gone across for quite a while in the states.
00:06:14 Speaker 1
Late 20s and so on.
00:06:14 Speaker 2
Well, of course. The sea in our head. In effect, the 1st post was worked back in 27.
00:06:17 Speaker 1
Well, they did back in 27. That’s right. When they put it on their trains.
00:06:21 Speaker 1
Well, they CPP are going to be.
00:06:25 Speaker 1
And what started this whole thing?
00:06:28 Speaker 1
Was, I think, the CPR set up their lines and they offered a program to any radio station in Canada that was close to the lines that would accept it if they would pay for the wires from the CPR central station to the broadcast state.
00:06:43 Speaker 1
So it was in the stations interest to have the connection to the national network in case of emergencies and various other things.
00:06:48 Speaker 1
So a lot of them did and CWX and Vancouver did.
00:06:53 Speaker 1
And the program the first program, the CPR put on was Rex Battle in this royal.
00:06:57 Speaker 1
York Hotel concert Orchestra as I recall.
00:07:01 Speaker 1
And they had another program later on.
00:07:05 Speaker 1
This was, I think three times a week.
00:07:08 Speaker 1
They had a well known Toronto organist.
00:07:10 Speaker 1
I can’t remember his name now.
00:07:15 Speaker 1
I just don’t remember his name, but there was an argon program came through in those days too. 1/2 hour two or three times a week and we used to handle both.
00:07:23 Speaker 2
Now when you were handling them, did you become CPR V for instance?
00:07:27 Speaker 1
No, no, no, no, no, no. It was CKWX. No, it was just this was a CPR test transmission.
00:07:32 Speaker 1
Really more than anything else, nobody paid anything for it.
00:07:36 Speaker 1
They were just keeping the lines going, you know, to subsequently sell them commercially.
00:07:41 Speaker 1
And I was just going on to say the first commercial program that came into Vancouver via network was a Quaker Oats.
00:07:47 Speaker 1
Start in Saskatoon.
00:07:49 Speaker 1
And they want to.
00:07:50 Speaker 1
Seek it objects to handle that too.
00:07:52 Speaker 1
Well, it just so happened at the time that he came in to Vancouver.
00:07:58 Speaker 1
Ckmo had the air.
00:08:03 Speaker 1
What do you do?
00:08:05 Speaker 1
They absolutely refused to go to see cable, they didn’t want.
00:08:07 Speaker 1
It they want to seek it everywhere.
00:08:10 Speaker 1
So somewhere along the line somebody suggested, well, why don’t you go to the Department of Fisheries and see if they’ll let you have another frequency just for this program?
00:08:19 Speaker 1
So this sounds like a good deal.
00:08:21 Speaker 1
So baycon they did, and they did.
00:08:23 Speaker 1
They gave us another frequency.
00:08:25 Speaker 1
Now I don’t know how many stations in Canada had two frequencies licensed.
00:08:29 Speaker 2
That would confuse the listeners 2.
00:08:30 Speaker 1
Well, it did.
00:08:31 Speaker 1
The start was, but eventually they got to know the schedule and this went on for several months.
00:08:35 Speaker 1
This Quaker oats.
00:08:36 Speaker 1
Show and it was once or twice a week.
00:08:38 Speaker 1
I forgotten.
00:08:39 Speaker 1
Now it’s an old time orchestra type of thing that they put on maw somebody.
00:08:43 Speaker 1
Or rather, I think ran it.
00:08:45 Speaker 1
And it was originating in Saskatoon radio station.
00:08:48 Speaker 1
And they gave us 880.
00:08:51 Speaker 1
We were on 7:30. That was our normal frequency and it was shared by all these stations. Why they needed to share frequencies.
00:08:56 Speaker 1
I never did find out because in.
00:08:58 Speaker 1
Those days, the frequencies weren’t occupied they.
00:09:00 Speaker 1
Were all kind of available.
00:09:02 Speaker 1
But I suppose it was easier to keep track.
00:09:04 Speaker 1
But in any case, they license KWX for certain periods of the week at certain times of the day to use 880.
00:09:10 Speaker 1
Kilohertz now, before we had crystal control, there was no problem.
00:09:13 Speaker 1
But because all you did was twist the dial, you know, just like.
00:09:16 Speaker 1
Tuning a radio set.
00:09:18 Speaker 1
Well, add it again.
00:09:19 Speaker 1
To my knowledge, that was the first in the.
00:09:22 Speaker 1
And I don’t know whether any other Canadian radio station had been allowed to broadcast on 2 fridges.
00:09:26 Speaker 2
The only one I’ve heard.
00:09:27 Speaker 1
Of so far, so, so much for that.
00:09:29 Speaker 1
First, we covered the pickup of the off air pickup of the of the American station.
00:09:35 Speaker 1
We covered the origination of the national network.
00:09:39 Speaker 1
Well, let me think.
00:09:40 Speaker 1
What else?
00:09:40 Speaker 2
Went on well CWX as as I’ve been told, did a lot of remote work and a lot of we won’t work with shortwave pack now.
00:09:48 Speaker 2
This was something that wasn’t that all tall.
00:09:50 Speaker 1
No, no, no, no, not in those days.
00:09:53 Speaker 1
There is no shortwave pack work done.
00:09:55 Speaker 1
In the early 30s.
00:09:56 Speaker 1
None. The only shortwave stuff that was done in the early 30s that I recall is in 1934 when Ross McIntyre and I did a little experimenting on 56 megahertz.
00:10:07 Speaker 1
That was an amateur band. It still is. There’s 4042 to 44. I think it’s an amateur section. You see in those days, anything above about 30 megahertz was just useless.
00:10:18 Speaker 1
It wasn’t any use to anybody for anything.
00:10:20 Speaker 2
The equipment equipment wouldn’t have.
00:10:20 Speaker 1
That was the view that was the official government view.
00:10:23 Speaker 1
The shortwave stations that were on the air at that time.
00:10:27 Speaker 1
They stopped about 15 somewhere around 15 megahertz, and there was nothing beyond that to speak of.
00:10:32 Speaker 1
And the amateurs had done an awful lot of work in the early days and pioneering a lot of this stuff in the shortwave end of it to begin with.
00:10:39 Speaker 1
That’s where you’re 160 meter band started with, and your 80 meter band, your 40 meter band, and so on. All started with amateur experimental set.
00:10:47 Speaker 1
And then they became.
00:10:48 Speaker 1
They proved them that they worked and they became commercialized.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
And the government took over sex.
00:10:53 Speaker 1
Well, at that time in the early 30s.
00:10:56 Speaker 1
50 megahertz it was quasi optical.
00:10:59 Speaker 1
You can or you could transmit as far as you.
00:11:01 Speaker 1
Could see so.
00:11:02 Speaker 1
It was no use either as far as that was concerned.
00:11:05 Speaker 1
Never be any use for anything.
00:11:06 Speaker 1
Now of course the working of the thousands of givers.
00:11:09 Speaker 1
However, that was the view in those days.
00:11:11 Speaker 1
So McIntyre and I did a little experimenting in Vancouver with a little transmitter.
00:11:16 Speaker 1
We had a little I don’t know how we ever got it to oscillate at 30.
00:11:19 Speaker 1
56 megahertz yet, and I don’t know how close to 56 megahertz we were, we were in the vicinity and it had a, a little UX130 vacuum tube.
00:11:32 Speaker 1
And a 22 1/2 Volt vbat right for plate supply power you know and we had little super reductive.
00:11:38 Speaker 1
Receiver that we built.
00:11:39 Speaker 1
We put it in right, Ross the shaft and we drove around.
00:11:41 Speaker 1
The transmitter was was just a.
00:11:44 Speaker 1
Oh, at the North End of Granville St.
00:11:46 Speaker 1
Bridge, almost just off.
00:11:47 Speaker 1
And we drove around all over the West End.
00:11:49 Speaker 1
We had a little tone on this thing we can.
00:11:51 Speaker 1
Read it all over the West End pretty well.
00:11:52 Speaker 1
But that was the only shortwave experimenting done at that time.
00:11:57 Speaker 1
Now later on all the stations got into shortly packed up.
00:12:01 Speaker 1
In fact, I loaned CQWP XA pack for some job out here that I had built for cipac in Calgary.
00:12:07 Speaker 1
I sent it out and they used it and they used it on the water out here for something.
00:12:10 Speaker 1
At one time I forgot and Charlie Smith was engineer at that time.
00:12:13 Speaker 1
But that’s well.
00:12:14 Speaker 1
After the war, well after the war.
00:12:18 Speaker 1
We were talking about all these condenser microphones, yeah.
00:12:22 Speaker 1
The first one was this one that.
00:12:23 Speaker 1
Greg Gunston brought up.
00:12:24 Speaker 1
For this shell show, and we persuaded him to sell it to us.
00:12:30 Speaker 1
Because we thought we’d better upgrade.
00:12:32 Speaker 1
So we bought it and after we bought it, we found out that it had been.
00:12:35 Speaker 1
A converted job.
00:12:38 Speaker 1
Western Electric built the first successful ones down in the states, and RCA wasn’t far behind, and the black box that you see with NBC on it, that was with RCA Mike, there’s RCA and NBC and all are like salt, but the hanging mikes were all Western electric.
00:12:53 Speaker 1
Western Electric got into the movie end of it first.
00:12:56 Speaker 1
And they built these things for the first sound pictures.
00:12:59 Speaker 1
So this particular hanging like we found out, had been converted from a clock type which was a desk type and it looked like a little Gothic clock.
00:13:07 Speaker 1
With the mic up here and the amplifier in a square box, and it’s been taken out and put into a tube redesigned, we didn’t know it when we bought it, but we found that subsequently and it worked for almost several months.
00:13:19 Speaker 1
And then it clicked.
00:13:20 Speaker 1
And we isolate the trouble to.
00:13:22 Speaker 1
The head, the Commencer head with short.
00:13:25 Speaker 1
So Ross was all for sending it back to Western, actually got it fixed and I was always an inventory experimenter.
00:13:31 Speaker 1
I had done all kinds of things around the station already.
00:13:34 Speaker 1
And I said, look, let’s open it up and have a look at it.
00:13:37 Speaker 1
First of all, they won’t fix it if you I said no.
00:13:39 Speaker 1
Waverly not fix it.
00:13:41 Speaker 1
Don’t worry about that.
00:13:42 Speaker 1
We put it back together.
00:13:43 Speaker 1
We’ll never know the difference.
00:13:44 Speaker 1
So I finally persuaded Ross.
00:13:46 Speaker 1
Let me take it apart and we developed special tools and keys to open these rings and so I get the whole thing apart.
00:13:52 Speaker 1
And I found out that it had a little speck of dirt in it.
00:13:56 Speaker 1
So I cleaned it all up and put it.
00:13:58 Speaker 1
Back together again.
00:13:59 Speaker 1
And it worked.
00:14:02 Speaker 1
But before I put it back together again, I called our machinist friend in to have a look at it, and he did some sketches and made some measurements and so on and so forth, and also put together saw the whole bit and so on.
00:14:15 Speaker 1
I said, how about it, Charlie?
00:14:17 Speaker 1
He said.
00:14:17 Speaker 1
I think that we can do something for you.
00:14:21 Speaker 1
So he copied the back electrode.
00:14:23 Speaker 1
In fact, he copied the whole thing and as a matter of fact, I’ve still got one of them in the basement today, sitting down here and it still works.
00:14:31 Speaker 1
Because I built little set amplifier for it two or.
00:14:33 Speaker 1
Three years back.
00:14:36 Speaker 1
We made UH-4.
00:14:40 Speaker 1
Copies of these and in fact, we improved on them.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
We improved the low frequency response by changing the orifice instead of having a straight.
00:14:47 Speaker 1
In stretcher to the diagram you see the vast condenser microphone has the diaphragm right on the front right on the face, and the later models and the later Electra.
00:14:58 Speaker 1
This thing we’re talking, and now it’s got the diaphragm right on the front.
00:15:01 Speaker 1
This, I think is.
00:15:01 Speaker 1
An electrode, isn’t it? Yeah.
00:15:02 Speaker 1
I thought so it has the diaphragm made out on the front, but in the early.
00:15:07 Speaker 1
Days they had to stretch that diaphragm.
00:15:08 Speaker 1
It was made a dural and he was stretching, so they clamped them between heavy rings, which you’ve seen, and then they had a threaded ring that was screwed in.
00:15:18 Speaker 1
And that pressed on the the aluminum or dural and stretched it.
00:15:23 Speaker 1
Now this ring in this thing is about to all 3/8 of an inch deep, and it was strained in and we found out by experiment that if we chamfered it off and made it sort of funnel shaped, it improved the low frequency sound.
00:15:33 Speaker 2
To the microphone.
00:15:35 Speaker 2
No, it’s not.
00:15:35 Speaker 2
Not very nice to the steel and steel other people.
00:15:40 Speaker 1
Well, it was the only.
00:15:41 Speaker 1
Way we could afford it in those.
00:15:42 Speaker 1
Days, you know.
00:15:43 Speaker 1
Sparks was never one to count the Co.
00:15:46 Speaker 1
But you still had to watch it.
00:15:48 Speaker 1
There wasn’t that much money around.
00:15:50 Speaker 1
I know many days.
00:15:51 Speaker 1
Sparks didn’t take any money out of that radio station so he could pay the salaries of the of the people that were working for him.
00:15:56 Speaker 1
I know that.
00:15:57 Speaker 1
For a fact, of course, he had an income from, he was still running a service station and about the A service area in Vancouver up until.
00:16:05 Speaker 1
Well, it went right in.
00:16:06 Speaker 1
I guess before.
00:16:07 Speaker 1
The war it was still running when I left Vancouver and 35, he 12th and Granville. He had a home state.
00:16:13 Speaker 1
And he had some income from that.
00:16:16 Speaker 1
But as I say, there were many times sparks didn’t.
00:16:18 Speaker 1
Take a nickel out.
00:16:18 Speaker 1
Of the radio station now getting back to first again.
00:16:23 Speaker 1
To my knowledge, we were the first station in Vancouver to put on any of the celebrities.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
And the reason that we were able to do that was because of our friendship with this chap.
00:16:34 Speaker 1
I was just talking to on the.
00:16:37 Speaker 1
This chap, named Dave Laverock his sister Lily Laverock, was the early impresario in Vancouver and brought in these various acts like the Don Cossack Choir, Richard Crooks, Lawrence Tibbett, the whole bit.
00:16:49 Speaker 1
And we knew Dave and Dave talked to Lily, and Lily would talk to these people and they would come up and appear for free on our microphone.
00:16:58 Speaker 1
And I remember one particular time we had Richard Crooks in the studio in Vancouver, the studio for Checkbox was on the top floor of the Georgia Hotel.
00:17:07 Speaker 1
And he wasn’t a very big room, and he wasn’t very well acoustically treated.
00:17:12 Speaker 1
And we had these condenser microphones up there.
00:17:15 Speaker 1
And Crooks had a big voice.
00:17:17 Speaker 1
They are real big voice.
00:17:19 Speaker 1
Of course, all of the artists in those days did because they didn’t have benefit of that 1000 watts of amplifier like the kids have today.
00:17:25 Speaker 1
And these this equipment was prone to overload again because it, you know, it’s primitive by today’s standards.
00:17:32 Speaker 1
So we put two microphones up, we put one about 10 feet from him and one about 5.
00:17:36 Speaker 1
Feet from him.
00:17:37 Speaker 1
And when he would start to hit the high ones, we’d turn the.
00:17:39 Speaker 1
First one down and.
00:17:40 Speaker 1
Bring up the back.
00:17:41 Speaker 1
One and so on.
00:17:43 Speaker 1
But that was another first for.
00:17:45 Speaker 1
KWX getting these these high well known arts.
00:17:49 Speaker 1
Up here well.
00:17:50 Speaker 2
In in those days, too, wasn’t there a regulation that said you couldn’t broadcast anything but live programming after 7:00 o’clock that little later that he asked?
00:17:56 Speaker 1
All in all, no, that was.
00:17:57 Speaker 1
Later case actually.
00:17:59 Speaker 1
No, the the record companies themself.
00:18:02 Speaker 1
Got a little uptight.
00:18:03 Speaker 1
In the mid 30s about broadcasting.
00:18:08 Speaker 1
There’s another little tale when we started to program this one to 4:30 period in the afternoon, we didn’t know quite how.
00:18:16 Speaker 1
We were going.
00:18:16 Speaker 1
To do it and about that time, the Mason and Rish outlet in Vancouver went to bankrupt.
00:18:24 Speaker 1
And we went down and bought off all the RCA Red Seal records at about $0.10.
00:18:28 Speaker 1
On the dollar.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
And that started the basic library.
00:18:31 Speaker 1
I don’t know whether CDMX is still down or not, but that was one of the most fabulous classical libraries of records in the country.
00:18:39 Speaker 1
And we used to broadcast a Symphony every afternoon.
00:18:43 Speaker 1
And that program brought in more unsolicited letters than any other program that was ever on the air in Vancouver up till that time and well beyond.
00:18:54 Speaker 1
There was a chap named Jerry.
00:18:57 Speaker 1
Slim quinnie.
00:18:59 Speaker 1
He started to work for us and he and I were of a mind on this thing.
00:19:03 Speaker 1
In fact, I still have downstairs some recordings that I picked up in the early 30s.
00:19:12 Speaker 1
I wish I had some more now, some that I remember, some of the early Duke Ellington stuff and so on.
00:19:19 Speaker 1
I have some of the early rain Oval stuff, actually 3233 when he before he came over to the states when he was still record.
00:19:27 Speaker 1
In England, I have the complete Elgar concerto conducted by.
00:19:33 Speaker 1
Sir Edward Elgar.
00:19:34 Speaker 1
On 78 HMV recordings from England.
00:19:37 Speaker 1
This was these were bought in the 30s, early 30s, but this was how we programmed that that 3 1/2 hours in there.
00:19:47 Speaker 1
The record companies began to get a little uptight all across the states in Canada about the fact that they weren’t selling as many records they didn’t think because people could hear them through the.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
Subsequently, of course, they’ve learned that it’s the best advertising in the world they can get and sells far more.
00:20:03 Speaker 1
But over the period of time, they’re 15 or 20 years.
00:20:06 Speaker 1
They were a little uptight about it.
00:20:08 Speaker 1
Even as bad as Kpac became.
00:20:14 Speaker 1
I’m still trying to think of a couple of things that are escaping my mind about some of the first that we.
00:20:18 Speaker 1
Had down there.
00:20:20 Speaker 1
You thought?
00:20:22 Speaker 1
I don’t remember where we worked.
00:20:24 Speaker 2
Well, we were trying to remember something that escaped your mind, but you were saying you had said that you also were announcing as well as.
00:20:30 Speaker 1
Oh, all the way through the whole career, I didn’t stop announcing until.
00:20:38 Speaker 1
I don’t remember the last time I announced, but it was in the in the early 70s, somewhere in the late 60s.
00:20:44 Speaker 1
Not officially, but I’d fill in.
00:20:49 Speaker 1
When I went to Calgary in 1938, either announcing all the time of trail I was chief engineer, but everybody did everything in most states, Ken, and they couldn’t.
00:20:59 Speaker 1
People couldn’t afford to pay for the specialization that they got today.
00:21:03 Speaker 1
The networks good.
00:21:04 Speaker 1
But most of the private stations couldn’t.
00:21:07 Speaker 2
What sort of programs would you know?
00:21:09 Speaker 2
Would you be just reading commercials or announcing cameras?
00:21:11 Speaker 1
Every everything.
00:21:13 Speaker 1
It didn’t matter what it was we used to do our own programming and the Symphony stuff that I was talking about, we prepared the program notes for it.
00:21:21 Speaker 1
Yeah, I was talking about Jerry Quinty I remember.
00:21:25 Speaker 1
And then rather die when he ended up.
00:21:27 Speaker 1
He’s still living in, I think, port hope, and I think he’s still working.
00:21:30 Speaker 2
Now he’s in the news in Oakville.
00:21:32 Speaker 1
He’s still working for Alex L Clark.
00:21:35 Speaker 2
I believe he’s doing his own film.
00:21:38 Speaker 1
Is he?
00:21:39 Speaker 1
Jerry quinny?
00:21:40 Speaker 1
Oh, well, he’s left.
00:21:41 Speaker 1
He was with with Will Farrell and myself.
00:21:44 Speaker 1
For a long time.
00:21:44 Speaker 1
I know.
00:21:47 Speaker 1
Speaking of film production, there’s another champ you should get a hold of if you can.
00:21:51 Speaker 1
Is is Wally Hamilton.
00:21:53 Speaker 1
He wasn’t directly in radio, but he was in the fringes.
00:21:56 Speaker 1
Ohh, you’ve got him.
00:21:57 Speaker 1
You can’t talk to everybody.
00:21:59 Speaker 1
He was one of the early film producing types and sound movies, and so we used to do a lot of work with him, but quinty and I if Quint.
00:22:06 Speaker 1
Started to to work for us there in.
00:22:09 Speaker 1
The 30s or early 30s?
00:22:11 Speaker 1
And he and I were of a mind we were in this type of.
00:22:14 Speaker 1
Programming that we.
00:22:14 Speaker 1
Liked and so on another say.
00:22:17 Speaker 1
Here’s another guy that you should talk to is Frank Fleming.
00:22:21 Speaker 1
I don’t know where he is now.
00:22:22 Speaker 1
He’s in Vancouver somewhere he’s in.
00:22:23 Speaker 1
He’s doing his own producing too.
00:22:25 Speaker 1
And he was an early old timer.
00:22:27 Speaker 1
He started at CK.
00:22:28 Speaker 1
WX and he was at CFC when I went there in 1938. Glen Roberts. I started at CKW X as a teenager.
00:22:37 Speaker 1
And he won’t like this.
00:22:39 Speaker 1
But we used to call them snake hips.
00:22:41 Speaker 1
Because he was so skinny and thin, and his one of his first jobs at C KWX was to climb up on the Malcolm Memorial Bowl.
00:22:51 Speaker 1
In Stanley Park and hang the loud speakers for a Sunday evening broadcast of the Home Gas Symphony.
00:22:59 Speaker 1
Ross used to go out with the equipment and and Glenn would go with him and Glenn would hang the speakers.
00:23:04 Speaker 1
Every time, and he could.
00:23:05 Speaker 1
He could slit the through the small holes and openings to get the wire up, and so on.
00:23:08 Speaker 1
Ross can never do it.
00:23:11 Speaker 1
And that’s where Glenn started in radio.
00:23:14 Speaker 1
He was still there when I left to go to trail in 1935, and then, of course, Glenn subsequently went on, worked for RCA and then joined CFL London, became director of Engineering for them. Very clever chap. Very, very nice chap.
00:23:26 Speaker 2
Why did you leave?
00:23:27 Speaker 2
Why did you leave WWX?
00:23:29 Speaker 1
Why did I leave W?
00:23:31 Speaker 1
Why does anybody leave a job?
00:23:33 Speaker 2
Getting more money.
00:23:34 Speaker 2
That’s the main, but trail was off with more money.
00:23:41 Speaker 1
Trail was offering.
00:23:43 Speaker 1
More money.
00:23:43 Speaker 1
To Vancouver.
00:23:46 Speaker 1
Trail was in the spot.
00:23:49 Speaker 1
Trail is started as you know, as an amateur station 1080 with the callers of it, and it was put together by a group of radio buffs in trail that wanted some entertainment.
00:24:00 Speaker 1
Now trail, as you know, is in a bowl in the mountains down in the valley of the Columbia there.
00:24:04 Speaker 1
And the radio.
00:24:05 Speaker 1
During the daytime, there isn’t any there just isn’t any radio reception and trail in the daytime.
00:24:10 Speaker 1
In Russian 2000 feet up in the mountain, yes, but not in trails. So they got together and they formed this little radio society and they applied for and got this license under 1018.
00:24:19 Speaker 1
And there were people from the smelter, mostly.
00:24:21 Speaker 1
There were some technically minded types and they had the the chapter was looking after communications with the smells or Don hangs he was in on.
00:24:28 Speaker 1
It and they set this little thing up and he used to volunteer.
00:24:31 Speaker 1
And it like that some of the university stations are.
00:24:33 Speaker 1
Run today exactly.
00:24:35 Speaker 1
And then somebody got a hold of the idea. Let’s go commercial with it. And they did. And they bought themselves 100 Watt RCA transmitter sold by GE.
00:24:45 Speaker 1
That was before RCA was merchandising your own equipment in Canada.
00:24:50 Speaker 1
And they put this thing on the air, halfway between trail and Ross, and then a little put a bit of property up there.
00:24:56 Speaker 1
They had a flat top antenna up there and the chap that was engineering for them was the radio serviceman in town.
00:25:05 Speaker 1
Chap named Eric Allen.
00:25:06 Speaker 1
He’s dead now, too some time ago.
00:25:12 Speaker 1
He wanted to go back to service.
00:25:14 Speaker 1
He didn’t.
00:25:15 Speaker 1
Like radio broadcast business?
00:25:16 Speaker 1
Yeah, there’s our.
00:25:17 Speaker 1
Bright and joy.
00:25:22 Speaker 2
Anyway, you’re talking about trail and the people.
00:25:24 Speaker 1
Who were?
00:25:24 Speaker 1
Yeah, they set this thing up and they eventually got the license.
00:25:27 Speaker 1
It was called CJT.
00:25:30 Speaker 1
The ATT was App trail.
00:25:32 Speaker 1
That’s where the 10 ATT came from.
00:25:34 Speaker 1
You see again your.
00:25:37 Speaker 1
But this chapter was doing engineering.
00:25:40 Speaker 1
He wanted back in the service business and the manager at that time was named Tommy Robinson.
00:25:46 Speaker 1
He was a very peculiar type, to say the least.
00:25:48 Speaker 1
He’s the one that when he got out of his wife, used to unscrew the light bulbs and throw them at her.
00:25:54 Speaker 1
That’s what they say.
00:25:56 Speaker 1
However, he came down.
00:26:00 Speaker 1
Uber this manager to one of the very early cab meetings.
00:26:04 Speaker 1
Now I don’t know which one it was.
00:26:05 Speaker 1
It could have been the 2nd, 3rd or 4th somewhere in there because the Canadian Association of Broadcasters was.
00:26:10 Speaker 1
Formed in the early 30s.
00:26:12 Speaker 1
This particular meeting was in 1935. In June or July, and they held it in the early Grouse Mountain chalet.
00:26:19 Speaker 1
The first one was up in Grouse Mountain and I always remember him for nothing else and he had a maintain 34.
00:26:27 Speaker 1
With free Wheeling and this was one of the first automobiles I’ve gone across with the three wheeled deal in it.
00:26:35 Speaker 1
But he wanted an engineer, and he’d heard that Ross McIntyre was the best engineer in the West, and he went to Ross and wanted Ross to go up to Engineer Trail.
00:26:43 Speaker 1
And he wasn’t offering enough.
00:26:44 Speaker 1
Money for Ross?
00:26:46 Speaker 1
So I guess Robinson talked around a little bit to somebody else, and apparently whoever he talked to said, well, if you can’t get Ross get his assistant.
00:26:54 Speaker 1
Earl Connor.
00:26:56 Speaker 1
So he came to me.
00:26:58 Speaker 1
And uh, we had a little chat about it.
00:27:00 Speaker 1
I said, oh, I’m not.
00:27:00 Speaker 1
Too interested in going what’s the situation?
00:27:03 Speaker 1
So he gave me the story.
00:27:04 Speaker 1
He said it won’t be coming up for a while, but toward the end of the year, this Japanese going to leave till November, December, think it over.
00:27:10 Speaker 1
Let me know but he.
00:27:11 Speaker 1
Said if you do decide, be.
00:27:13 Speaker 1
Ready to come in a moments notice.
00:27:16 Speaker 1
So I talked it over with the wife. We don’t get married six months later. We’re married late 34.
00:27:21 Speaker 1
He said.
00:27:22 Speaker 1
I said, well, what about it?
00:27:23 Speaker 1
Said. Well, I’ll.
00:27:24 Speaker 1
Bang him.
00:27:24 Speaker 1
He think it’s OK?
00:27:26 Speaker 1
And everybody told us, you know, we talked about, oh.
00:27:29 Speaker 1
Or that and the earth place at that time they had the gas being emitted from the stacks and so on.
00:27:36 Speaker 1
They were killing the vegetation all.
00:27:37 Speaker 1
Around so I said, look, there’s 12,000 people living there, I guess if.
00:27:41 Speaker 1
They can’t. We can’t do.
00:27:43 Speaker 1
The upshot of the whole thing was that we went to trail in 1935 in December.
00:27:49 Speaker 1
And it was.
00:27:50 Speaker 1
We went for more money and we went because McIntyre is only a few years older than.
00:27:55 Speaker 1
I am about two.
00:27:57 Speaker 1
And as long as he was chief engineer at CWX, there was no possibility of Maine ever going anywhere with it.
00:28:04 Speaker 1
And none of the other stations in Vancouver had anything to offer really.
00:28:08 Speaker 1
At that time, the Chandler brothers, I think I mentioned in my letter about George, Mark Chandler, running CJR in those days and they were relatively young men.
00:28:17 Speaker 1
And Bud Seabrook was there then, too.
00:28:20 Speaker 1
That’s the name you may have heard mentioned by some people.
00:28:23 Speaker 1
Bud started out with the Chandlers.
00:28:26 Speaker 1
He used to sleep in the backroom of the little transmitter building on the shores of the Fraser River on Sea Island.
00:28:35 Speaker 1
And George also was an bettered experimenter.
00:28:39 Speaker 1
George was a very brilliant engineer.
00:28:42 Speaker 1
And he had one of the first water cooled tubes in the country. He had a 100 Watt transmitter, but he had 1000 Watt water cooled too.
00:28:49 Speaker 1
But final heavy fire the the the CNR operation, which subsequently became the CRC and the CDC.
00:29:00 Speaker 1
They had some interesting operation.
00:29:02 Speaker 1
Two, they were automobile island.
00:29:04 Speaker 1
They had a they had a a 500 Watt N electric transmitter. They had two big 250 Watt tubes and 212 D’s.
00:29:11 Speaker 1
They were big stuff in those days.
00:29:14 Speaker 1
I’ll never forget.
00:29:15 Speaker 1
There was a chap named Basil Hilton which was engineer for the man.
00:29:19 Speaker 1
He stayed with them always, so he joined the CDC eventually.
00:29:24 Speaker 1
He died some time ago.
00:29:25 Speaker 1
But we went out Ross and I went out one day to see him, and the transmitter was off the air at this particular time.
00:29:31 Speaker 1
Again, they weren’t off continuously, you know, and he was going to change one of these tubes.
00:29:35 Speaker 1
Now these tubes.
00:29:37 Speaker 1
The 50 Watt tube, the 250 Watt tube and the peanut tube all had identical shape.
00:29:45 Speaker 1
Except the peanut tube was about all, I guess an inch and a half two inches, maybe 2 1/4 inches tall.
00:29:51 Speaker 1
Overall, the 50 water would be about 8 or 9 inches overall, and the 250 water would be about 14 or 50.
00:29:58 Speaker 1
And they all got bigger as they got taller, but they all had the seal off tip right on the top.
00:30:03 Speaker 1
And this particular time, this chap was taking this big 250 Watt tube out of the transmitter. Do something with it and we just caught that sea loft tip.
00:30:10 Speaker 1
On the cross angle.
00:30:15 Speaker 1
That was the end of that.
00:30:19 Speaker 1
That’s one of the little anecdotes that happened.
00:30:21 Speaker 1
There was a couple of.
00:30:21 Speaker 1
Other things I.
00:30:22 Speaker 1
Wanted to tell you about the kid everyday.
00:30:24 Speaker 1
This Jaff Frank Fleming was working for us at that time.
00:30:28 Speaker 1
Announcing he was sitting at the desk, we had a did all our announcing, practically at the transmitter.
00:30:34 Speaker 1
In those days we played all our records.
00:30:36 Speaker 1
There were no records played from the.
00:30:38 Speaker 1
Studio at all.
00:30:39 Speaker 2
Why? Why was that?
00:30:39 Speaker 1
We got a.
00:30:40 Speaker 1
Well, that’s just the way it was.
00:30:41 Speaker 1
That’s all.
00:30:42 Speaker 1
This, again is the economy of.
00:30:43 Speaker 1
Staff, you see?
00:30:44 Speaker 1
During the daytime, there was nothing going on the studios the the business people up there.
00:30:49 Speaker 1
There was one salesman.
00:30:50 Speaker 1
There was a manager, usually, and he was a salesman too.
00:30:53 Speaker 1
Sometimes they had a salesman as well, and there was this stenographer who was a receptionist, answered the phone so and wrote the letters.
00:30:58 Speaker 1
And that was all I was in the studio because nothing went on in the studio in the daytime.
00:31:03 Speaker 1
The only time that ending going on the studio was at night, you know, later programs in the afternoon late afternoon, like the kids programs when they started, that type of thing.
00:31:12 Speaker 1
But all the records and so on, they were all played the transfer in.
00:31:15 Speaker 2
The interest of the economy?
00:31:16 Speaker 2
Well, you had to have a staff.
00:31:17 Speaker 2
Or the transmitters here would look after.
00:31:17 Speaker 1
That’s right, that’s.
00:31:19 Speaker 1
It exactly.
00:31:19 Speaker 1
And of course the transmitters weren’t out in those days.
00:31:22 Speaker 1
They were right in town.
00:31:23 Speaker 1
This this 100 water CKW X is right down on Seymour St. now, as I say, the North End of Granville St. Bridge, right in the heart of the town. It’s about a block and 1/2 from the Belmont Hotel first.
00:31:32 Speaker 1
Park started the whole operation.
00:31:36 Speaker 1
So anyway, we we played the record, we did all the announcing at the transmitter and we had the speech equipment up.
00:31:41 Speaker 1
We built 7 racks.
00:31:44 Speaker 1
And we put all the speech equipment over here and around the corner.
00:31:47 Speaker 1
We started the transmitter, but the homemade transmitter.
00:31:49 Speaker 1
What we ended up it really was before they moved to.
00:31:51 Speaker 1
Ludo Island, the whole thing and most of it was Connor.
00:31:55 Speaker 1
To be quite.
00:31:56 Speaker 1
Frank about it.
00:31:56 Speaker 1
Most of it was common.
00:31:59 Speaker 1
So Frank was sitting here this particular day and the picture of the thing the racks are.
00:32:04 Speaker 1
Sitting up like this.
00:32:06 Speaker 1
There’s a doorway here into a shot behind, and I’ve got a bench back here.
00:32:11 Speaker 1
I do most of my work over here is the the AC power supply transmitters across here and around here and there’s records in a shell here in the doorways over here.
00:32:19 Speaker 1
And there’s a spot at the end of the record cabinet before the doorway that you can sit on.
00:32:26 Speaker 1
Right opposite the end of the desk where the guys announce it, McIntyre sitting in this spot this day.
00:32:32 Speaker 1
Frank Fleming is talking.
00:32:34 Speaker 1
About the Salvation Army and he’s making an appeal.
00:32:37 Speaker 1
For old clothes and all shoes and so on.
00:32:39 Speaker 1
And as he gets to the old shoes, Ross reaches down and slips his shoe off.
00:32:44 Speaker 1
And holds it over in front of Frank.
00:32:45 Speaker 1
And here’s a hole of.
00:32:46 Speaker 1
This bacon, the soul, the broadcasting.
00:32:51 Speaker 1
I guess I’m coming apart here.
00:32:55 Speaker 1
The broadcasting stopped right then very suddenly, frankist is all.
00:33:01 Speaker 1
Talking about getting announcers on.
00:33:03 Speaker 1
The air.
00:33:03 Speaker 1
You know, there’s been quite a lot written.
00:33:05 Speaker 1
But so.
00:33:06 Speaker 1
Make it to break down.
00:33:08 Speaker 1
This Sandy Stewart book had I guess you’ve seen it.
00:33:10 Speaker 1
It had truthy little anecdotes like that in it, but this was one one thing I remember very vividly.
00:33:17 Speaker 1
And there was another time too.
00:33:19 Speaker 1
We pioneered another thing.
00:33:21 Speaker 1
I don’t know whether it was done in the rest of Canada or not.
00:33:23 Speaker 1
It might have been.
00:33:25 Speaker 1
But very early on.
00:33:27 Speaker 1
When the sound pictures.
00:33:28 Speaker 1
Came in.
00:33:30 Speaker 1
In the interests of continuity, I think it was with the early 16 inch records that they used to have to play.
00:33:37 Speaker 1
They sent along a copy of the script of all the dialogue on the movies.
00:33:42 Speaker 1
And one of the managers in Vancouver got an idea.
00:33:45 Speaker 1
That if he.
00:33:46 Speaker 1
Could sort of recreate this on the air.
00:33:50 Speaker 1
He could maybe bring some people into his theatre.
00:33:53 Speaker 1
And he used to come down himself and bring two or three of his ushers and usherettes down.
00:33:59 Speaker 1
And they used to sit there and read a section of the dialogue of this particular movie.
00:34:05 Speaker 1
And we built a little studio at the transmitter, hung up with velvet drapes and so on.
00:34:09 Speaker 1
Just to put these things on.
00:34:12 Speaker 1
Then there were little skits that the studio staff would get together.
00:34:16 Speaker 1
Every so often, Fred Bass was involved in this.
00:34:18 Speaker 1
Fred was our studio pianist and so on.
00:34:22 Speaker 1
During the early days.
00:34:23 Speaker 1
That’s why I said we get in touch with him, you know, he worked with seeking out, like, all his career.
00:34:27 Speaker 1
Practically he retired.
00:34:28 Speaker 1
From CKW like.
00:34:30 Speaker 2
He was he was retired from seeking out there he.
00:34:33 Speaker 1
Oh, yes, well, yes, I.
00:34:35 Speaker 1
Know well, of course there’s.
00:34:36 Speaker 1
A lot of politics going on after.
00:34:40 Speaker 1
After hour, Carson passed on can the Taylor Pearson, Carson Broadcasting wasn’t the same Taylor person, and Carson Broadcasting was HR Carson.
00:34:45 Speaker 2
OK.
00:34:53 Speaker 1
And there’s no bones about.
00:34:54 Speaker 1
I don’t make any bones about it.
00:34:56 Speaker 1
Once you Pearson took over, it was just a business, that’s all.
00:34:58 Speaker 1
And the the humanitarian aspect of things changed.
00:35:04 Speaker 1
Carson was a promoter.
00:35:05 Speaker 1
He was a grand person, and he was a humanitarian.
00:35:09 Speaker 1
But to people like Hugh Pearson, staff were just people who bought and sold.
00:35:14 Speaker 1
That’s all you know.
00:35:16 Speaker 1
So that’s one of the reasons why Fred Bass was retired after Tara Pearson Carson took over KWX and bought it out right from sparks.
00:35:26 Speaker 1
Then there were quite a few changes made, including managership and so on.
00:35:31 Speaker 1
Not again, it’s another case in point.
00:35:33 Speaker 1
He was retired.
00:35:35 Speaker 1
Forcibly and there were several things like that happened, which I guess happened in other stations as well.
00:35:40 Speaker 1
I don’t know.
00:35:41 Speaker 1
The Inns and outs of a lot of them because I didn’t follow.
00:35:44 Speaker 2
Well, as you but as as you move.
00:35:44 Speaker 1
I was pretty close.
00:35:46 Speaker 2
From the early experimentation and the hobby kind of business, because they would wish man’s hobby into would be a business of its own, very profitable one.
00:35:55 Speaker 2
Then I think you got all you do corporate.
00:35:58 Speaker 2
That’s right, yes that.
00:35:58 Speaker 2
And when you also begin to get rather than individual owners, the chain owners, I think this is 1 where we move.
00:35:59 Speaker 1
That is correct.
00:36:05 Speaker 1
It makes a lot of yes, that is true.
00:36:08 Speaker 1
That is true.
00:36:09 Speaker 1
Getting back to my talk about Fred Bassett, so long there was this, the stenographer and reception that’s called Vera Reed.
00:36:16 Speaker 1
There was a manager named Paulson.
00:36:18 Speaker 1
I think.
00:36:19 Speaker 1
I think his name was was Ken too.
00:36:21 Speaker 1
I think was Ken Paulson.
00:36:22 Speaker 1
We had a salesman named Reg Dagg.
00:36:26 Speaker 1
And I saw something just the other day here, which makes me believe that the guy is still around in Vancouver, still alive and still in business.
00:36:34 Speaker 1
RM Dag publications.
00:36:37 Speaker 1
Uh, it was a little insert, like a little magazine section for a weekly newspaper here, and it only appeared the once.
00:36:46 Speaker 1
But on it it indicated that this was circulated through a lot of weekly newspapers through BC.
00:36:51 Speaker 1
Now, whether these people just tried it on once or send them a sample or what I.
00:36:55 Speaker 1
Don’t know and.
00:36:55 Speaker 1
I never followed it up but that.
00:36:57 Speaker 1
Was his name, I’m pretty sure.
00:36:58 Speaker 2
Well, his name has been suggested to me a couple of times.
00:36:59 Speaker 1
Yeah, Reg, Dag, ram, dag.
00:37:02 Speaker 1
But in any case, he was on the staff then and McIntyre and myself.
00:37:08 Speaker 1
And for a while there, we had a.
00:37:12 Speaker 1
Red headed chap.
00:37:14 Speaker 1
Raymond Ness.
00:37:16 Speaker 1
He’s dead.
00:37:16 Speaker 1
He’s passed out quite a while ago.
00:37:17 Speaker 1
He was on the staff.
00:37:19 Speaker 1
Stern quinney.
00:37:20 Speaker 1
Jerry quinney.
00:37:23 Speaker 1
That was about it, but every so often they used to get together in the studio and they.
00:37:27 Speaker 1
Would put on.
00:37:28 Speaker 1
A little evening of entertainment 1/2 hour of a skit or something like that.
00:37:33 Speaker 1
And in very there are six or eight of them are on a microphone, only about 3 scripts and people are reading over each other’s shoulders and so on. And I can’t remember what the situation was. I can’t remember the the skit.
00:37:44 Speaker 1
What it was all about.
00:37:45 Speaker 1
Or anything about it, except for one thing.
00:37:49 Speaker 1
Ross was in it and he had two words to say.
00:37:55 Speaker 1
And he was reading over somebody else’s shoulder, and it came time, his cue and what he was supposed to say was you prevaricated.
00:38:04 Speaker 1
And he took about four tries at it.
00:38:06 Speaker 1
You, you, you liar.
00:38:10 Speaker 1
The top of his voice.
00:38:13 Speaker 1
He knew what the word man, even if he couldn’t pronounce.
00:38:16 Speaker 1
It right there.
00:38:19 Speaker 1
Oh dear, I don’t.
00:38:20 Speaker 1
I’ve still got a lot of this, this memorabilia downstairs.
00:38:23 Speaker 1
I really should have dug up to show you, I guess.
00:38:25 Speaker 1
But I didn’t even want to waste time on it.
00:38:27 Speaker 1
I’ve got an autographed copy of the program with the Al Pearce book show with all the whole AL and Cal, Pierce and Marie Amsterdam and Yogi orders and the whole bit everyone signed it.
00:38:38 Speaker 1
I’ve got a.
00:38:38 Speaker 1
Copy of the wire of congratulations sent to us by the the head kick in NBC.
00:38:44 Speaker 1
The excellence of the pickup for.
00:38:45 Speaker 1
That week.
00:38:46 Speaker 1
I’ve got two or three of the early promotional materials for CKWX, and in those days, paradoxically enough, it was called a Western broadcasting company.
00:38:55 Speaker 1
Which is now CK, and of course the name was dropped after Taylor Pearson Carson took over.
00:39:02 Speaker 1
And I don’t know whether it was ever fully registered or whether it was just a name of convenience.
00:39:07 Speaker 1
I can’t tell.
00:39:08 Speaker 2
Well, you went then from trail to.
00:39:09 Speaker 2
You’re a trail for a while.
00:39:11 Speaker 1
I was, well, the trail was another case.
00:39:11 Speaker 2
How did that go?
00:39:14 Speaker 1
It just seemed like I was fated to be a troubleshooter.
00:39:19 Speaker 1
And when I got the trail, the mast was horrific. I drove in December the 5th, about 7:30 at night it came up and Spokane through Cranbrook.
00:39:31 Speaker 1
I got in there in a snowstorm and on the way down into the town and I said to the wife, well, I might as well stop in at the transmitter, just say hello and let him know.
00:39:40 Speaker 1
And here.
00:39:41 Speaker 1
And here’s Eric Allen sitting there with his feet up on the desk, reading the book.
00:39:45 Speaker 1
And the program is merely going away.
00:39:47 Speaker 1
They are on the network.
00:39:49 Speaker 1
Then they came up from Vancouver.
00:39:51 Speaker 1
And oh, it was a discouraging looking sight, really, to tell you the truth, they had had the studio in this building to start with and it was abandoned.
00:39:59 Speaker 1
And there was junk all over the place.
00:40:01 Speaker 1
The transmitter was crowded in one little corner of it, and it hadn’t been swept for, I guess, six months.
00:40:07 Speaker 1
The windows were all dirty, and it was a discouraging.
00:40:10 Speaker 1
Like when I came out to the car again, I said, you know, if it wasn’t the damn.
00:40:14 Speaker 1
Snowing, I think I.
00:40:15 Speaker 1
Turned around, go back to Vancouver.
00:40:19 Speaker 1
We carried on with down the hotel and had sat up there and then he moved into the.
00:40:24 Speaker 1
Manager’s house.
00:40:25 Speaker 1
He insisted that we move in with him and his wife for a little while until we could find a place to stay.
00:40:31 Speaker 1
Subsequently, we stayed six weeks in a hotel before we did find a house.
00:40:36 Speaker 1
That’s the that’s the first of two times we’ve stayed in a hotel where you can find a place to live.
00:40:41 Speaker 1
Standing happened in Calgary.
00:40:43 Speaker 1
We spent the first six weeks in Calgary and that tweet and the Whales Hotel.
00:40:49 Speaker 1
But trail it was a bit of a challenge to now trail is where I came together with Al Peterson.
00:40:58 Speaker 1
Alf had started in the bank in Vancouver.
00:41:03 Speaker 1
He was an orphan, or a bit of I think he was.
00:41:08 Speaker 1
He was out here with an aunt and uncle in Vancouver living there.
00:41:11 Speaker 1
He came from Norway.
00:41:14 Speaker 1
Yeah. I think Norwegian, it’s spelled P/E TERSEN.
00:41:22 Speaker 1
But he was single and he wasn’t married.
00:41:24 Speaker 1
I was the only one in the group that was married.
00:41:26 Speaker 1
And Charlie Smith.
00:41:31 Speaker 1
I had met.
00:41:33 Speaker 1
At ckmo.
00:41:35 Speaker 1
He had been hired 2 weeks ahead of Maine, his office boy.
00:41:39 Speaker 1
Coming out.
00:41:41 Speaker 1
And he was with CKO all the time I was there. And he stayed with him all the time.
00:41:46 Speaker 1
I was at CKWX and in July this same July when this manager came down from trail.
00:41:53 Speaker 1
He was looking for an announcer and accountant.
00:41:56 Speaker 1
And he hired both Charlie Smith and Alf Peterson within two weeks of each other.
00:42:01 Speaker 1
They went to trail in July, and I went to trail in December.
00:42:03 Speaker 1
In the same year.
00:42:05 Speaker 1
So we were all on trail.
00:42:06 Speaker 2
Together there was a fairly small business in those days and the you did have a camera out of you that everybody traipsing around after everybody all.
00:42:13 Speaker 1
Ohh yes. Ohh that’s.
00:42:15 Speaker 1
Over the country and I ran the station, we were only two announcer.
00:42:20 Speaker 1
And we did all the engineering as well.
00:42:22 Speaker 1
We did all of the record.
00:42:23 Speaker 1
We wrote a lot of the script.
00:42:26 Speaker 1
At that time, there was a very well known program originating from trail of.
00:42:30 Speaker 1
All places.
00:42:32 Speaker 1
It was called the Ghost Walker.
00:42:34 Speaker 1
And a chap named Arnold Walsh, who used the pseudonym.
00:42:39 Speaker 1
Mercer, MacLeod.
00:42:41 Speaker 1
Put this show on once a week and trail to the national network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
00:42:48 Speaker 1
And Charlie Smith operated that thing.
00:42:50 Speaker 1
And he had two turntables.
00:42:53 Speaker 1
And one microphone.
00:42:54 Speaker 1
And that was it, period.
00:42:57 Speaker 1
And the things that Charlie used to accomplish with that were just unbelievable.
00:43:01 Speaker 1
He got so adept at handling this old equipment.
00:43:04 Speaker 1
It was an old old RCA equipment.
00:43:07 Speaker 1
And there was 144 BX microphone was to you and that was it. I remember myself. We used to put these at auctions on Christmas time, you know, like they’re still doing their sale.
00:43:17 Speaker 1
They the service clubs have taken them over, by and large, but the radio station.
00:43:21 Speaker 1
Used to do it to start with.
00:43:23 Speaker 1
And I remember being on a microphone for five hours solidly one night at a radio auction by myself in trail.
00:43:31 Speaker 1
All you did everything.
00:43:32 Speaker 1
This is another reason why you had the camaraderie, you know, and the morale was so high.
00:43:39 Speaker 1
But Charlie and I ran that station.
00:43:41 Speaker 1
We were the only two horses we’ve ever heard on that on the air there.
00:43:45 Speaker 2
We couldn’t.
00:43:45 Speaker 2
We couldn’t put up with that.
00:43:47 Speaker 1
For too long, well, we did it for three years.
00:43:50 Speaker 1
And in that period of three years we put vertical antenna up.
00:43:55 Speaker 1
One of the first and only wooden vertical antennas in Canada.
00:44:01 Speaker 1
We’ve put 1000 Watt amplifier on the air.
00:44:04 Speaker 1
Brought the station from 100 to 1000 Watts.
00:44:08 Speaker 1
250 watts to 1000 watts.
00:44:11 Speaker 1
We moved the studios into a new building.
00:44:14 Speaker 1
We took a pipe organ out by the roots of the theater.
00:44:19 Speaker 1
From a theater and trail and moved it over to the studio and sat it up and tuned it.
00:44:23 Speaker 1
I tuned it.
00:44:24 Speaker 1
Is a player organ, by the way.
00:44:29 Speaker 1
And the complete control equipment.
00:44:31 Speaker 1
We built our own speech equipment in those days.
00:44:35 Speaker 1
And we do with just two of us.
00:44:38 Speaker 1
And kept the station going at the same time.
00:44:39 Speaker 2
Working about 40 over.
00:44:41 Speaker 2
Today I guess so.
00:44:42 Speaker 1
I don’t remember now, but you know, in 1935 I was 25.
00:44:47 Speaker 1
You know.
00:44:50 Speaker 1
You just took as a matter of course.
00:44:52 Speaker 1
That’s the way things went.
00:44:53 Speaker 1
There was no money.
00:44:55 Speaker 1
I remember when when we had the big get a 35 cent resistor we needed it and this kind of thing, you know, keep the thing going.
00:45:02 Speaker 2
Well, it wouldn’t be much.
00:45:03 Speaker 2
Again, might not much commercial possibilities up in trial.
00:45:06 Speaker 1
Very little, very little.
00:45:08 Speaker 1
There was a a fair amount of national business, very little local business because the local merchants, except the ones that had gone in to put the station on the air to.
00:45:17 Speaker 1
Start with they didn’t believe in radio.
00:45:20 Speaker 1
But it felt, and it kept going, and it paid its way.
00:45:23 Speaker 1
Actually, I think it was subsidised it.
00:45:25 Speaker 1
Subsequently, the majority of the stock was owned by a Managing director from consolidated money.
00:45:33 Speaker 1
Chap named stimp.
00:45:35 Speaker 1
He and the Hazelwood, the druggist in trail and one or two others had the bulk of.
00:45:40 Speaker 1
The stock in.
00:45:40 Speaker 1
It and there were a few people that owned one or two shares each, and the original group that put the thing on.
00:45:47 Speaker 1
But you didn’t count the time, I don’t know.
00:45:51 Speaker 1
If I had it.
00:45:52 Speaker 1
To do over again, I’d do it differently because.
00:45:55 Speaker 1
In those days.
00:45:58 Speaker 1
You did things that you’ve had no business doing.
00:46:02 Speaker 1
You put your job.
00:46:03 Speaker 1
Number one on your family came second.
00:46:06 Speaker 1
And this just seemed to be in the radio business more than anywhere else.
00:46:09 Speaker 1
The newspaper business was bad enough, but the radio business was worse.
00:46:14 Speaker 1
And when I look back on it now and think of some of the of the rough times I’ve subjected, my wife and and family to I.
00:46:21 Speaker 1
I’m a little.
00:46:22 Speaker 1
Ashamed of what I did.
00:46:23 Speaker 2
Well, it was almost an obsession.
00:46:24 Speaker 2
You were you really inventing a new medium and experimenting.
00:46:27 Speaker 1
You were it was your.
00:46:30 Speaker 1
Avocation as well as your vocation.
00:46:32 Speaker 1
And it still is.
00:46:33 Speaker 1
I guess I could take you downstairs now and show you I’ve still got all kinds of test equipment down that I saved with me.
00:46:39 Speaker 1
I’ve got drawers full of resistors and condensers and so on. I just got through a couple of years ago building myself a solid-state preamp for my stereo set behind your two speakers, which are broadcast studio.
Part 2
Transcript
00:00:03 Speaker 2
They’re actually recording studio standards.
00:00:06 Speaker 2
They’re electrovoice sentry twos.
00:00:09 Speaker 2
About as good as you can get.
00:00:10 Speaker 2
To this day.
00:00:12 Speaker 2
And this is the type of thing I’ve got a mccurty turntable.
00:00:15 Speaker 2
In that box over there.
00:00:18 Speaker 2
You see what?
00:00:19 Speaker 2
I mean, yeah, and I’m still at it.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
What are watching?
00:00:21 Speaker 2
You never shake it.
00:00:22 Speaker 2
You never.
00:00:22 Speaker 1
Get rid of it you went.
00:00:25 Speaker 1
18 down to SC to CFC in in Calgary.
00:00:28 Speaker 2
Yes, well, that this was 1938. I was in trail about three years, roughly 2 1/2 years in the spring of 38. In the fall of 30. You see what happened there, Ken was this. When I went to trail, it was an independent station.
00:00:42 Speaker 2
And it was owned by these people and it still was independent.
00:00:45 Speaker 2
Even when I left.
00:00:46 Speaker 1
But it was affiliated with the CBC.
00:00:46 Speaker 2
But well, what you know.
00:00:48 Speaker 1
No, no.
00:00:48 Speaker 2
Yes, well, it was as a network, yes, just they were fed the network programs and.
00:00:54 Speaker 2
The only affiliation.
00:01:01 Speaker 2
Carson was getting things moving in the Prairie.
00:01:06 Speaker 2
The story of HR Carson is something in.
00:01:09 Speaker 2
Itself, I don’t know.
00:01:10 Speaker 2
How much of it you’ve picked up, but you?
00:01:12 Speaker 2
Should have a fair chunk of it.
00:01:15 Speaker 2
Harold started out in the early days running contraband liquor across the line for ML sick.
00:01:24 Speaker 2
And he got interested in the radio station in Lethbridge.
00:01:28 Speaker 2
Chap and John Palmer said that one off.
00:01:30 Speaker 2
CJ, LC.
00:01:32 Speaker 2
And Carson got a little money together and started not a motor supply house in Lethbridge and it’s still to this day HR person and company.
00:01:42 Speaker 2
And he got into the radio station in there and he thought this radio had something going for it.
00:01:47 Speaker 2
This was in the early.
00:01:48 Speaker 1
30s well again, he probably was also selling batteries and even even charging.
00:01:52 Speaker 2
Well, not so much then no.
00:01:54 Speaker 2
Because they’re the electric machines you come in, you see, they come in and they in 26 Ted Rogers brought brought the electric the the CR the tube out then.
00:02:04 Speaker 2
So it wasn’t that. No, he was probably distributing radio through this thing, but it was a full-fledged automotive supply.
00:02:11 Speaker 2
And in Edmonton it was Taylor and Pearson.
00:02:15 Speaker 2
Jim Taylor and Hugh Pearson, Miss Taylor and Pearson was the automotive house.
00:02:19 Speaker 2
And they got together with the journal in the journal.
00:02:23 Speaker 2
Had the radio lice.
00:02:24 Speaker 2
And **** Rice, doctor Rice, who subsequently set up CFRN.
00:02:29 Speaker 2
He was initially interested in the station there.
00:02:33 Speaker 2
And somehow or another, this whole business CJC a.
00:02:36 Speaker 2
They were all involved.
00:02:38 Speaker 2
And subsequently to say, Rice split off and set up an old station, but think Christ was one of the.
00:02:42 Speaker 1
Early, early pioneers, but he bought.
00:02:47 Speaker 1
CKP from peers who because then they then got involved with CGCA, was that it, the journal State, and then in order to take on that management contract without a conflict and get want to get rid of CP TPP.
00:02:50 Speaker 2
From Taylor fish.
00:02:52 Speaker 2
I see.
00:03:02 Speaker 2
That’s what it is.
00:03:04 Speaker 2
I see.
00:03:05 Speaker 2
I wasn’t aware of the exact history of their part of it again.
00:03:11 Speaker 1
He wanted to do the CGCA in bed, but somebody is not even already working there at your work.
00:03:18 Speaker 1
And yes, he didn’t get it.
00:03:21 Speaker 1
But he didn’t manage to pick up along with his friend Hans.
00:03:22 Speaker 2
I see.
00:03:24 Speaker 2
Nielsen, that that was what it was, the other.
00:03:26 Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, you’ve talked to ****. You’ve got. Well, that’s good. That’s ****. Because **** has a lot more of that early pray stuff than I have because I was out here then and all I know about the ferry stuff is from 38 on or what I’ve heard by hearsay.
00:03:41 Speaker 2
But in any case.
00:03:42 Speaker 2
The two Carson and Tatar Pearson got together in Calgary and they set up Taylor Pearson and Carson Automotive House.
00:03:51 Speaker 2
In Calgary, and that’s the only Taylor person Carson, one of.
00:03:54 Speaker 2
The whole place.
00:03:56 Speaker 2
The one out here was Taylor and Pearson.
00:03:58 Speaker 2
BC was Taylor Pearson emon.
00:04:00 Speaker 2
It’s HR Carson in Lethbridge.
00:04:01 Speaker 2
The only place Taylor Pearson Carson came together was in Calgary.
00:04:05 Speaker 1
As far as they had a motor side, yeah.
00:04:06 Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s right.
00:04:07 Speaker 2
Now, since they concluded the deal with the evidence journal, then the Southern Press.
00:04:13 Speaker 2
Also had the Calgary Herald and they had cfac, so they moved in there and took over Cfac and that was the start of Taylor Pearce and Carson broadcast.
00:04:23 Speaker 2
And they had Lethbridge, Everton and counter.
00:04:25 Speaker 1
It’s it’s the only.
00:04:25 Speaker 1
It’s the only man in the country for him I’ve ever heard of.
00:04:29 Speaker 1
You know, I I don’t know of anybody else that did this, you know?
00:04:31 Speaker 1
And you took two runs.
00:04:31 Speaker 2
Not originally, no.
00:04:32 Speaker 1
No, to run stations.
00:04:33 Speaker 2
That’s right.
00:04:34 Speaker 2
That’s right.
00:04:35 Speaker 2
And that led to all Canada radio facility.
00:04:38 Speaker 2
In the early days.
00:04:39 Speaker 2
Carson got the idea that he should.
00:04:44 Speaker 2
Pickup syndicated program.
00:04:46 Speaker 2
And he was one of the first to import people programs like Evans, et cetera.
00:04:51 Speaker 2
And Sally and some of those early radio programs that were non transcription.
00:04:55 Speaker 2
Boston Blackie, the Saint.
00:05:01 Speaker 2
The green Hornet, things like that.
00:05:03 Speaker 2
He bought these things in California where they were made.
00:05:06 Speaker 2
And brought him to Canada.
00:05:07 Speaker 2
And that was the start of the All Canada.
00:05:09 Speaker 2
Radio group.
00:05:11 Speaker 2
They were sapped to distribute these things to all the stations in Canada.
00:05:14 Speaker 1
And proud, and also then subsequently to represent them as a an advertising.
00:05:19 Speaker 2
Well, it’s the advertising came from this original transcription distribution system.
00:05:24 Speaker 2
They became a Rep as well, you see.
00:05:28 Speaker 2
But the management group expanded and they moved into trail and took over the management of trail station.
00:05:34 Speaker 2
In 1930.
00:05:34 Speaker 2
Seven, they inherited me.
00:05:37 Speaker 2
I was there.
00:05:38 Speaker 2
They inherited Peterson.
00:05:39 Speaker 2
They inherited Smith.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
And they were moving E at the same time.
00:05:44 Speaker 2
They were moving W too.
00:05:46 Speaker 2
That’s about sometime later they they picked up Vernon GMIB.
00:05:52 Speaker 2
They tried to make a deal with Jim Brown in Kelowna but didn’t get anywhere.
00:05:57 Speaker 2
Subsequently, there was some.
00:05:58 Speaker 2
Remote connection with CFJC and Campbells, but not very tight.
00:06:04 Speaker 2
Then they moved out into Victoria first and then Vancouver, see.
00:06:08 Speaker 2
And then they went E they picked up camel.
00:06:11 Speaker 2
And then they made a deal with they had already CKK, and Regina was the leader post.
00:06:18 Speaker 2
And then they made a deal with Shifton when they took over the Richardson stations CKRM.
00:06:25 Speaker 2
And CJ, RC, JRM and CJ RC.
00:06:29 Speaker 2
Where the Richardson States and when they took the war, they changed to CKAC and CKR.
00:06:34 Speaker 2
And at one time, Taylor Fishman, are all Canada.
00:06:37 Speaker 2
No, at Taylor 1st and Carson Broadcasting was running the two stations and one persistent and one for silent.
00:06:43 Speaker 2
And it was quite a mix up and subsequently of course, they remained to sell one of them, they they sold CJC KRN they sold.
00:06:50 Speaker 2
Doctor, somebody rather bought it out.
00:06:53 Speaker 2
But Carson was he was a real thinker.
00:06:58 Speaker 2
He was a he was a promoter, and there’s no question about it.
00:07:01 Speaker 2
He was definitely a promoter, but he wasn’t.
00:07:04 Speaker 2
Today, Ken.
00:07:06 Speaker 2
I hate to say it.
00:07:08 Speaker 2
I earned my living in the radio business all my life.
00:07:11 Speaker 2
And I had an opportunity to move.
00:07:12 Speaker 2
Into TV in the early.
00:07:14 Speaker 2
50S and one thing, and that led to another and I just didn’t go.
00:07:22 Speaker 2
But I am.
00:07:24 Speaker 2
Well, disgusted is a very mild word for my feeling now for what people have done.
00:07:34 Speaker 2
Radio and by and large, its successor, TV.
00:07:40 Speaker 2
We have entrepreneurs in the business.
00:07:43 Speaker 2
And worse, we have what I call exploiters.
00:07:48 Speaker 2
We have promoters in the early days and I say Carson was an out and out promoter, but Carson took an overall large look at the thing.
00:07:56 Speaker 2
And he thought first, what’s good for the industry is going to be good for me.
00:08:02 Speaker 2
Today, people are looking at.
00:08:04 Speaker 2
What’s in it for me?
00:08:07 Speaker 2
What’s good for me is good for the industry and we’ve got an awful lot of present managers and I can name a lot of them.
00:08:13 Speaker 2
I’m not going to, but I can name a lot of them right now.
00:08:16 Speaker 2
That are adjusting it for all they can get.
00:08:18 Speaker 2
I call them strippers.
00:08:19 Speaker 2
I call them exploiters.
00:08:20 Speaker 2
They take and give nothing.
00:08:23 Speaker 2
They take everything they can get given.
00:08:25 Speaker 2
And it disgusts me to see.
00:08:28 Speaker 2
What the low state of radio and.
00:08:30 Speaker 1
TV have well, what has brought them to is, etc.
00:08:37 Speaker 2
Oh, that’s an oversimplification.
00:08:37 Speaker 1
Canadian and well, no.
00:08:39 Speaker 1
But I I think this has been, you know, if if they had continued to do.
00:08:45 Speaker 1
The kinds of community programming they were doing, if they had continued to promote local talent, which they were doing.
00:08:54 Speaker 1
I don’t think that there would have been the need for the regulations.
00:09:00 Speaker 1
They might have come anyway.
00:09:01 Speaker 1
I doubt because I think the private broadcasters could then have made one heck of an argument about what they were doing.
00:09:08 Speaker 1
But they had gone over into the disc jockey format.
00:09:11 Speaker 1
The, as you say, take as much as possible and.
00:09:14 Speaker 1
As little as possible in many instances, and I think inevitable because they would not do.
00:09:18
OK.
00:09:20 Speaker 1
That’s the latter state and of the situation.
00:09:26 Speaker 2
It wasn’t that way.
00:09:29 Speaker 2
But the handwriting was on the wall.
00:09:34 Speaker 2
In Canada, for some reason or other.
00:09:38 Speaker 2
Government took unto itself.
00:09:41 Speaker 2
The authority.
00:09:44 Speaker 2
Regulate, not censor, but regulate program.
00:09:50 Speaker 2
With the aired report and when they started up the national network of the Canadian Radio Commission and this type of thing, government moved into programming right there.
00:10:02 Speaker 2
They already had the Department of Transport looking after the technical end.
00:10:08 Speaker 2
But by virtue of setting up this network, they moved into programming and this is long before the CRT Z.
00:10:17 Speaker 2
Now the iniquitous thing about this whole business is that they gave the CRC and the CBC the successor.
00:10:27 Speaker 2
The power.
00:10:29 Speaker 2
To regulate the private sector.
00:10:33 Speaker 2
And that’s where this whole thing started.
00:10:36 Speaker 2
It didn’t have anything.
00:10:37 Speaker 2
To do with the CRTP C.
00:10:39 Speaker 2
At that time, nor realize it now.
00:10:42 Speaker 2
The very fact that the private sector was regulated by the CBC rankled with the lot of the private operators who did not have the vision that harsh.
00:10:59 Speaker 2
No, very few of them had the vision and the the the intuition, if you like.
00:11:09 Speaker 2
Inherent sense of.
00:11:13 Speaker 2
Doing things the right way.
00:11:15 Speaker 2
I crawled Harold up from order and he was he promoted radio just.
00:11:21 Speaker 2
To the extent of his power.
00:11:24 Speaker 2
And he had the faculty of.
00:11:26 Speaker 2
Gathering men around him.
00:11:28 Speaker 2
Who were dedicated?
00:11:29 Speaker 1
Someone else described him as a Greek conjoiner.
00:11:33 Speaker 2
Well, that is probably a good deal.
00:11:35 Speaker 2
That’s probably a good word, depending on the connotations which you associate.
00:11:39 Speaker 1
With a good word.
00:11:40 Speaker 2
With that.
00:11:41 Speaker 2
But he picked up men like Tiny Elphick, like Jerry Gates, like Chesnot in a few of the earlier people.
00:11:52 Speaker 2
And they were the ones that built this.
00:11:57 Speaker 2
But some of the people didn’t have the vision that her.
00:12:02 Speaker 2
And this regulation by the CDC irked them.
00:12:07 Speaker 2
And that they started.
00:12:09 Speaker 2
To propagandize for a separate regulatory body.
00:12:13 Speaker 2
Because they felt that if they had something that was divorced from their competition that they would have more freedom.
00:12:21 Speaker 2
And Harold was the lone dissenter.
00:12:24 Speaker 2
Of the group.
00:12:26 Speaker 2
And he kept telling him in all her meetings.
00:12:29 Speaker 2
Keep the profile low.
00:12:31 Speaker 2
You get this Commission of regulatory body.
00:12:34 Speaker 2
You will be sorry you will end up wishing to God you had never suggested it.
00:12:39 Speaker 2
And Harold was the only one that said that long before the PRTSC was set.
00:12:44 Speaker 1
You know, because the cab fought for years to get it.
00:12:46 Speaker 1
They finally got it right and you’d be surprised if you went back through the tapes.
00:12:50 Speaker 1
I’ve got how many of them are saying just exactly what.
00:12:52 Speaker 1
Carson said.
00:12:53 Speaker 1
I wish we had.
00:12:53 Speaker 2
Met right, that was hindsight, but he told them.
00:12:55 Speaker 1
Which means.
00:12:56 Speaker 2
Before they got it.
00:12:57 Speaker 2
And this is what made Harold a great radio.
00:13:00 Speaker 1
One of the best it seemed to me that the.
00:13:03 Speaker 1
Two reasons.
00:13:04 Speaker 1
Good reasons for keeping the CBC as the regulator, one as they were in the broadcast business that had, I think, probably a pretty good understanding of the problem.
00:13:13 Speaker 1
And two, how could they tell the private people not to do something that they wanted to do?
00:13:18 Speaker 2
And on top of which, they were so damn busy looking after their own affairs, they didn’t have enough time to put on worrying too much about what the private sector did.
00:13:26 Speaker 2
There were all reasons in the world for leaving it alone.
00:13:29 Speaker 2
But again, as I say, people didn’t have the vision that Harold Carson.
00:13:33 Speaker 2
It’s too bad that man passed on. He was the one that should have lived to be 85 or 90.
00:13:38 Speaker 2
Radio encountered today would be a lot different and so would television.
00:13:41 Speaker 2
I can tell you if Harold Carson had kept himself and was still alive.
00:13:45 Speaker 2
And I can make that statement without any fear of contradiction from anybody.
00:13:51 Speaker 2
That’s just how great a man he.
00:13:52 Speaker 2
Was and this isn’t hero worship.
00:13:56 Speaker 2
I think I’m a study enough and have been around enough long.
00:13:58 Speaker 2
Enough to be able.
00:13:59 Speaker 2
To judge human nature in the man’s character.
00:14:02 Speaker 1
Well, we were talking earlier before we started, before it had nothing to do with broadcasting both the changes that are coming in a number of fields while in broadcasting itself of course.
00:14:11 Speaker 1
We have if M is growing to some extent.
00:14:14 Speaker 1
Then you have cable television.
00:14:16 Speaker 1
You have satellite transmission, you have.
00:14:20 Speaker 1
You know all of the gadgetry and immigration, the wired city, you know.
00:14:22 Speaker 2
The wired city.
00:14:22 Speaker 2
I’m David Sarnoff and the.
00:14:24 Speaker 2
Rest of the.
00:14:24 Speaker 1
Well, I wouldn’t even.
00:14:25 Speaker 1
I wouldn’t even get to that.
00:14:26 Speaker 1
Just the gadgetry.
00:14:29 Speaker 1
You know, all sorts of things you can do.
00:14:32 Speaker 1
It seems to me.
00:14:35 Speaker 1
The big partly because of the fragmentation of the audience, partly because of the capability for people to really to record and design their own program, they they no longer have to sit in front of the tube in front of the radio and take what’s coming.
00:14:48 Speaker 1
They almost have a capability of building their own program.
00:14:52 Speaker 1
What do you see in the next 25 years for radio and broadcasting in general?
00:15:03 Speaker 2
That’s a low curve.
00:15:09 Speaker 2
I really haven’t.
00:15:11 Speaker 2
Given it that much thought.
00:15:14 Speaker 2
Because I’m not gonna be around that long, I don’t think I may be.
00:15:17 Speaker 2
I don’t.
00:15:18 Speaker 2
I’m sure I won’t live as long as my father.
00:15:21 Speaker 2
Who was exceptional? Of course, as I said, he was two weeks short on 99 when he passed on, and I don’t expect to live that long.
00:15:27 Speaker 2
Because I’d used myself far more than he ever did in my earlier days through radio, among other things.
00:15:34 Speaker 2
But it’s.
00:15:34 Speaker 1
I think that’s contributed to keeping.
00:15:36 Speaker 2
You all alive and well?
00:15:38 Speaker 2
Yes, from a standpoint of interest, I agree with you there and the fact that there’s lots of things to do.
00:15:44 Speaker 2
I decry at last this this last week, they’ve had a series on about aging in the CBC, and you’ve known under now it’s a part of the national news.
00:15:53 Speaker 2
And they were talking about these people, had nothing whatsoever to do but sit.
00:15:57 Speaker 2
In front of the TV set all.
00:15:59 Speaker 2
I can’t imagine anybody with as little imagination.
00:16:03 Speaker 2
And that’s a duplication of words, but it’s the only way I can put it.
00:16:08 Speaker 2
That can think of nothing else to do but sit.
00:16:11 Speaker 2
In front of.
00:16:11 Speaker 2
The TV set, even if they’re partially crippled, even if they can’t get around, my wife has had rheumatoid arthritis now since she was about 26.
00:16:22 Speaker 2
And her favorite saying is she’s too damn busy.
00:16:26 Speaker 2
To be a cripple.
00:16:27 Speaker 2
She’s been in a wheelchair.
00:16:28 Speaker 2
She’s given.
00:16:30 Speaker 2
But she’s got too many things.
00:16:31 Speaker 2
To do and I’m the same way.
00:16:32 Speaker 2
I just as I say, I can’t understand these people.
00:16:36 Speaker 2
But to answer your question, I’m not.
00:16:38 Speaker 2
Trying to beat about the Bush or or evade.
00:16:43 Speaker 2
I can’t tell you what.
00:16:45 Speaker 2
The thing is going to take.
00:16:47 Speaker 2
Because it’s right now for the last few years, acting like a headless monster, there is no sense of direction anywhere that I can see in either radio or television.
00:17:02 Speaker 2
And there hasn’t been for three or four years.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
The whole works of them are just scrambling and grasping their Cliff, hanging their mountain climbing without benefit of of the proper instruments.
00:17:14 Speaker 2
Try to get to the top.
00:17:17 Speaker 2
And none of them know how to get them.
00:17:19 Speaker 1
There seems to be to me to be very little imagination and even and even less daring.
00:17:23
OK.
00:17:25 Speaker 2
There’s no imagination and the only daring is to see how far they can go along the lines.
00:17:31 Speaker 2
Of the movies.
00:17:34 Speaker 2
That’s the only daring, and they’re getting more daring.
00:17:34 Speaker 1
At that time.
00:17:37 Speaker 2
The CBC the other night.
00:17:39 Speaker 2
They’re a few months back.
00:17:41 Speaker 2
Had a camera shot of the Duke arbores up here up the valley, creating Newt.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
On the our glass or glass at 6:30 at night.
00:17:54 Speaker 2
And there was the the.
00:17:56 Speaker 2
Gals were walking along full shots.
00:17:59 Speaker 2
They had a shot from Wreck Beach over here on the Spanish banks and the shores of English Bay.
00:18:06 Speaker 2
The wreck beach has been taken over by the the hippies and the nudists.
00:18:10 Speaker 2
The long hair type of things on the grass, smokers and so on, and the the gist of the thing was that they were starting to encroach on.
00:18:20 Speaker 2
Inner beaches.
00:18:23 Speaker 2
And they had shots down there and they had a shot there of 1 gal.
00:18:28 Speaker 2
Not a stitch on.
00:18:30 Speaker 2
And she was sitting like this with her feet up like soul, and you could see that breasts.
00:18:37 Speaker 2
The camera was over the head of the announcer, and he was holding the microphone up in the strategic area.
00:18:44 Speaker 2
But he moved it aside just about the time she opened her legs.
00:18:48 Speaker 2
And the whole shot was on.
00:18:49 Speaker 1
The air you might just fall one off.
00:18:51 Speaker 2
Again, not only was it on the air at 6:30, but it was on at.
00:18:55 Speaker 2
11:30 as well both locally.
00:18:59 Speaker 2
Now, as I say that talking about daring, this is the only thing I was just stoned.
00:19:03 Speaker 2
I wasn’t shocked.
00:19:04 Speaker 2
Because I see that kind of thing.
00:19:06
But it didn’t bother.
00:19:06 Speaker 2
Me, I know there are probably.
00:19:08 Speaker 2
People, it would a lot of people.
00:19:11 Speaker 2
But talking about daring, this is the only thing that they’re doing.
00:19:14 Speaker 2
They’re starting to show actually the movies, so.
00:19:16 Speaker 2
And of course, the cable systems with their blue movies and so.
00:19:19 Speaker 2
On after midnight.
00:19:20 Speaker 2
They’ve stopped in Calgary, but every every every Friday night the the South side cable system in Calgary.
00:19:28 Speaker 2
Had a movie on that was quite explicit.
00:19:30 Speaker 2
There was nothing left to the imagination whatsoever.
00:19:32 Speaker 2
I’ve seen two or three them back.
00:19:35 Speaker 1
Well, I saw a few and there started to see a few in Toronto when I was there on Friday nights.
00:19:39 Speaker 1
And I must confess, I.
00:19:40 Speaker 1
Fell asleep about.
00:19:41 Speaker 2
20 Yeah, well, they did.
00:19:42 Speaker 2
The whole thing is very boring.
00:19:43 Speaker 2
It’s it’s same thing.
00:19:44 Speaker 2
I haven’t seen a movie.
00:19:45 Speaker 2
I don’t know, actually, what’s going on.
00:19:47 Speaker 2
In the theaters because the last movie I saw, I think was.
00:19:52 Speaker 2
What mad, mad, mad, mad world with Stanley Kramer?
00:19:55 Speaker 2
I don’t know.
00:19:55 Speaker 2
Something again.
00:19:56 Speaker 2
I I used to see about.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
Well, you have to be very selective in you.
00:19:58 Speaker 2
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve.
00:20:00 Speaker 2
Magnificent men in their flying machines around the world in 80 days, a mad, mad, mad, mad world and one or two others are about all the movies I’ve seen in.
00:20:08 Speaker 2
The past 10 years.
00:20:09 Speaker 1
We’ve gone much further.
00:20:10 Speaker 2
And we used to go to movies in the early days in Vancouver because we were more associated with the theater groups there.
00:20:15 Speaker 2
And as I said, they used to come down and put on these.
00:20:17 Speaker 2
Little skits and so on.
00:20:18 Speaker 2
And we all had free.
00:20:20 Speaker 2
Access we will walk into any theater in town.
00:20:23 Speaker 2
Broadcast station personnel anytime we want it.
00:20:27 Speaker 2
And no pay.
00:20:28 Speaker 2
You know it was that’s over.
00:20:31 Speaker 1
Well, yeah, I know.
00:20:31 Speaker 1
I know you’re not a program man, but talking about daring and imagination, it it has struck me.
00:20:37 Speaker 1
Particularly in the wake of the FM regulations problem, getting foreground programming in the.
00:20:45 Speaker 1
And given that, and given the fact that we have now, I would guess and you probably know better than I do the majority radios in this country are in cars, not in homes, statistically the majority.
00:20:58 Speaker 1
And given that in a place like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, a number of other places, you have a sizable audience trapped in new automobiles between 4:00 and 6:00.
00:21:08 Speaker 1
In the afternoon.
00:21:10 Speaker 1
Wouldn’t this be a magnificent place to do a 15 minute variety program?
00:21:17 Speaker 1
To go back to some extent and very limited, maybe new formats to the kinds of programming that were being done in the 30s.
00:21:26 Speaker 2
I think it would be a magnificent idea to go back to them anyway for radio in general.
00:21:33 Speaker 1
Unfortunately, you won’t.
00:21:34 Speaker 1
Yeah, they wouldn’t.
00:21:35 Speaker 2
I I know you won’t because there isn’t enough money to pay now for the type of thing.
00:21:41 Speaker 2
TV is the only medium that can afford to pay for this type of show now.
00:21:46 Speaker 2
Radio can afford it.
00:21:52 Speaker 2
Let’s talk about today.
00:21:54 Speaker 2
You talked about what’s the future direction?
00:21:59 Speaker 2
Again, getting back to your talk there about the fact that there is no imagination that is the problem now.
00:22:07 Speaker 2
Explicitly with TV.
00:22:09 Speaker 2
And to a lesser extent was radial.
00:22:12 Speaker 2
What made radio great, in my opinion, in the early days was the fact that they concentrated on things to make you use your imagination.
00:22:24 Speaker 2
I think of a lot of the early shows you had a minds eye picture of what went on from the happy gang up and down.
00:22:31 Speaker 2
That’s what made the happy gang.
00:22:33 Speaker 2
That’s what made Al Pearson his crew, what they were.
00:22:35 Speaker 2
That’s what made the Jack Benny Show.
00:22:37 Speaker 2
Vera McGee and Molly.
00:22:39 Speaker 1
Actually, there wasn’t anybody, nurse Murray that that didn’t know who would need closet.
00:22:43 Speaker 1
And they have a great.
00:22:44 Speaker 1
Idea what it?
00:22:44 Speaker 2
Exact exactly this is the thing, and this is what’s lacking in today’s video.
00:22:45 Speaker 1
Looks like you know.
00:22:50 Speaker 2
They’re trying to be too explicit on top of which, because they’re stripping it and putting nothing in.
00:22:56 Speaker 2
They are not paying at the grassroots.
00:23:00 Speaker 2
For qualified people.
00:23:04 Speaker 2
I think of the radio stations around here that I can hear.
00:23:07 Speaker 2
Sure are excluding the metro stations in Vancouver, the big ones, but I’m talking about the Duncan operation.
00:23:15 Speaker 2
I’m talking about the Nanaimo operation.
00:23:17 Speaker 2
I’m talking about quality and Campbell River, Paul River, Courtney.
00:23:23 Speaker 2
The country stations of today.
00:23:27 Speaker 2
And the voices they’re hiring for their news.
00:23:31 Speaker 2
They can’t speak the Queen’s English. There is no way that.
00:23:35 Speaker 2
They can talk.
00:23:35 Speaker 2
About even your newspapers, that they can.
00:23:38 Speaker 2
You’re in journalism.
00:23:39 Speaker 2
You’re majoring in journalism when you’re big subject.
00:23:44 Speaker 2
How do you feel about newspapers?
00:23:49 Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly.
00:23:50 Speaker 2
I’m just thoroughly ashamed of the caliber of English that is showing up in under byline, but have well known calling it.
00:24:00 Speaker 1
Part of that.
00:24:02 Speaker 1
And I’m not defending them at all because a lot of it is the rating itself, but a good deal of the.
00:24:09 Speaker 1
Problem with newspaper reading days.
00:24:13 Speaker 1
The way things are split and the way the lines are set.
00:24:17 Speaker 1
All dictated by the computer had nothing to do but on the other hand the whole and and I.
00:24:23 Speaker 1
I hope it was CTV and CBC the other night they were reporting on that Turner speech.
00:24:28 Speaker 1
The Canadian club we whipped, they.
00:24:31 Speaker 1
Federal tore liberals up, and definitely I heard about it.
00:24:34 Speaker 1
Yeah, and this good looking young lady comes on and she’s weedy.
00:24:38 Speaker 1
She’s the angry weed.
00:24:40 Speaker 1
And Turner chose this arena to dump on the federal government.
00:24:44 Speaker 1
Now, what sort of?
00:24:44 Speaker 1
Language is that.
00:24:47 Speaker 1
You know, it’s just.
00:24:48 Speaker 2
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
00:24:49 Speaker 1
Turn this off.
00:24:50 Speaker 1
I think we’ve probably.