Today we are joined by four WJPZ Hall of Famers, who will take us through the station's move to the FM dial in the 1980's - Bob Flint, Phil LoCascio, Eric Fitch, and Chris Mossman.
In the Summer of 1982, there was a confluence of events, as Bob puts it. WJPZ owed Syracuse University $5,000. The station's antenna was taken down, leaving it only to broadcast on TV's and carrier current (we explain that). And oh by the way, the school was going to build what is now the Sheraton on the site where the station stood.
Through allies, including advisor Rick Wright, and Mark Ellenbogen in the Student Government Association, the tide started to turn. The University found WJPZ a physical home, but the station had to find a home on the radio dial. The station had to be incorporated, with bylaws and a continuity plan. All of this needed to happen to the satisfaction of both Syracuse University and the FCC.
Our guests today take us inside the old AM studios, and how they had to find ways to keep the station going. Chris explains what it was to "slip cue" a record. Eric talks about dealing with the bureaucracy of a large University (and how it helped him in his professional life). Phil talks about the culture they walked into at WJPZ, and how it became incumbent upon them to keep it going.
Chris tells us story's happy ending, in the summer of 1984, when he went to the station mailbox, and found the approval from the Federal Communications Commission.
The late Dr. John Oldfield gets....um....a shoutout in this episode - turns out he was a thorn in the station's side when we moved in to Watson, and when we moved out.
Of course, the guests today have many great stories. They include a cleaning lady unplugging the radio station, and Dr. Rick Wright....let's say.....always putting the education of his students above all else.
Join Us in Syracuse on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. I am really excited about this episode. We have four Hall of Famers on the same episode all together. This is the group that is largely responsible for putting the radio station on FM in the mid eighties. And we're gonna dive right in. We'll introduce all four people, and we're gonna go. I'll go in the order that you popped up on my screen.
So we'll start with you, Dr. Phil.
Phil: Phil Locasio, also known as Dr. Phil to everybody when I was on the air. Program director and then a general manager. Been in radio all my life and now I work in sales for Audacy New York.
JAG: And speaking of Audacy, back over to my hometown of Boston and Eric Fitch.
Eric: Eric Fitch, I was at Syracuse from 80 to 85 and was the chief engineer. And actually, I have to blame Phil for dragging me into the radio station. He was on my floor freshman year. And he dragged me down. I had really no interest in radio. And he is like, oh, no. Just come down. Just gotta fix a couple things.
And, and next thing you know, I'm on top of the Prudential Tower fixing three 50,000 watt radio stations, what, 42 years later.
Phil: And you still have no interest in radio?
Eric: No, I don't.
JAG: From the top of Mount Olympus to the top of the Pru.. Very well done, Eric.
And to my state where I started my career. And that is Vermont. Mr. Bob Flint.
Bob: Bob Flint. I served a bunch of roles at JPZ, including as general manager and the first chairman of the board and was in radio for many years, but now work in economic development in Springfield, Vermont, my hometown.
JAG: And over to you, Chris.
Chris: Chris Mossman. I was a GM, not directly after Bob, but I certainly worked with Bob.
I think I was music director when we worked together. And then became a general manager and pulled the FCC license, all it was, was just a little license, like one card saying that we were approved to go on FM. Pulled that out of the mailbox. And with Eric's help, we didn't screw it up too badly.
And certainly Bob helped with some early finance challenges that we had and Got it all rocking and rolling, and it was really, really exciting. Now I am retired. I chose a horrible time to get into day trading and my backup plan, the Powerball just apparently fell through . So living life.
Actually, on my first date, Eric, I went up to the top of the Pru with my wife, whatever they called the bar up there.
JAG: That was the Top of the Hub when I was growing up.
Eric: It's all gone now. It's all torn up and now it's called City View and it's a beautiful observatory, three floors and it's really cool. Now you have to come back and visit.
JAG: Absolutely will. So I'm not sure where to start, but we've talked about how, in previous episodes, the station got started in 72. Dr. Wright came on in 75 and in the mid 80's the station ended up switching over to FM and I'm not sure which one of you wants to lead off, but sort of take us back to then and how that all came together. Let me start with Bob.
Bob: The quick version was a confluence of events, right? We were in 821 University Avenue in this old house on the third floor with third and fourth hand equipment that Eric, bless his heart, kept patching. Our "antenna" was a wire on top of Booth Hall that many of us on this thing and some others.
I remember stringing up on the roof and I've still got a scar on my hand from that.
JAG: Wow.
Bob: So during the summer of 82, I think I was station manager. John Engelhart was GM. SU took down that "antenna" and decided to peg WJPZ five grand. So when we got back to campus, John decided that was not the fight he wanted to take and I became general manager.
So that was problem one is owing SU five grand. Problem two is we weren't broadcasting except via the TVs and the lobbies of dorms that you could get on UUTV carrier current. And problem number three was SU was gonna build a hotel, now the Sheraton on 821 University Avenue the following year. They didn't plan on giving us a place to go.
So we'll fast forward through a lot of stuff, but anyways, it all had a happy ending. Mark Humble is a huge part of this. And then Mark Ellenbogen from Student Government Association, who was fortuitous in his arrival there, because prior to SGA could have given a hoot about WJPZ. Suddenly we resolved the issue with SU.
We were able to get space in Watson. Eric and Mark moved the station over that summer to Watson. We got back on Syracuse cable systems, which we had not been on in a few years. That was massive at the time for keeping the staff engaged. And then thanks to Mark Ellenbogen. A series of events started that led to the incorporation of WJPZ Radio, Inc.
Thanks to Eric working with Mark Humphreys, a frequency search that led to 89.1 The end of my direct involvement was helping with Eric and others to write an FCC application for what became WJPZ Radio. So hard to believe. It all worked out the way it worked out, but it didn't. We're still here.
JAG: Anybody wanna jump in on there as far as picking up the story or adding any color to that?
Phil: I can add the before story, the prequel, if you will. I just remember being there just for the love of radio itself and top 40 in part. And doing the kind of radio that I wanted to get into. I remember there were times, Bob, where we were on 990 AM, probably illegally with Rick Wright's help
But you know, that was a big thing, being able to tell somebody I was on 990 or at least listened to the radio station myself at 990. And then there was a time when everything went away where we weren't on. And we were just on carrier current, like literally nobody could hear us.
JAG: When you say carrier current for those of our younger alumni, explain what you mean by that.
Bob: Dr. Phil?
Phil: Yeah, so if I'm correct, and Eric's the engineer here, but you had to plug the radio into the outlet to get the frequency that we were broadcasting. Is that right, Eric?
Eric: No, but it was just, on in the dorms. We had two very low power transmitters. One on Day hall and one Booth. And the signal was very weak cuz it was like a hundred milliwatts.
And I remember taking out ads in the Daily Orange and it said, if you can't pick us up, turn your radio. There are actually ads that tell us to turn the radio, but it was quite difficult to pick up the station because of the a hundred milliwatt limitation. And yeah, when we put the transmitter on both.
Bob was talking about that. We kind of ran a long wire, which extended the range, which was probably not the greatest thing. And then the reason the University took the antennas down is cuz the roof started leaking into the elevator machine room, so they were not happy. So that was part of the demise.
Bob: So we all learned a lot. Details. Details, but the people were still coming in.
Phil: Yeah. Oh yeah. Because we all loved the mission. And we wanted to make tapes to send out to get jobs.
JAG: Sure.
Eric: Overnight, overnight people would be there at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, 24 hours a day.
Phil: Knowing that there would be nobody listening.
And you know, that really was the passion that had started from the beginning of the station. And then kept it going and got it on FM and into what it's become today.
JAG: Chris, what do you remember from those days?
Chris: We've summed it up very well. You know, my time was a little bit later on my freshman year was dorms and Syracuse cable, and then from that point there became a whole lot of excitement in the air when everybody knew what was coming. My freshman year, there'd be a lot of turn, like the juniors and the seniors often move on to other things. Right before we went FM there was no churn, there were no shifts. You could probably have had death by combat to get a 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM show . It was that crazy. And the demand for people to get on the air was incredible. And that was still before we went to FM.
Bob: I think what Chris just said and what Phil said earlier, I mean, I think there were like 60, 70 people before Syracuse Cable systems and then Syracuse Cable Systems probably was over a hundred.
So no, I did not do a jock shift my junior or senior year because I didn't wanna take a slot from somebody else who needed it. I guess the other thing that comes to mind is by hook and crook. Many people, like Phil and others worked in the market. They worked professionally for WHEN, WSYR. Phil, eventually Y94.
That meant that things like, say, copies of records, those things you used your needle to play that produced music. Again for those younger listeners.
JAG: Yeah, they're making a comeback though, Bob. They are selling better than CDs in 2022.
Bob: Yeah. Well the point was we didn't have 'em. And the ones we had, we "acquired."
And sometimes when we couldn't "acquire" a record someone carted it up. Put it on a tape so we could play the tape. So we could play the hits that powered the station.
Phil: So we tried to beg the record company guys to get us on the mailing list at JPZ.
Chris: Yeah. We ended up getting a fair amount of them, but I remember A&M wouldn't send us a damn thing, so we'd have to go to Record World or whatever it was in Marshall Square Mall to buy anything that Sting put out.
One other note for everybody under 50 who hears this. We used to "slip cue" the records because the turntables were a little slow to get up and rolling. Does anybody under the age of 50 know what it means to "slip cue?"
JAG: Okay, I'm gonna jump in here cuz I'm 41, So, that's sort of, you, you fire it up a couple seconds before you need to actually play it? Do I have that right?
Chris: Yeah. But you're holding onto the record. The turntable is spinning. You're physically holding the record. And then when you say, you know, here's Sting on Z89, then you take your finger off the record and it starts playing and the turntable's already up to speed.
JAG: I love that. That paints such a great visual here, Chris. I'm so glad you brought that up. Talk to me, guys, about any lessons that you learned throughout this whole process or your time at the station that have served you well in your careers to this point,
Chris: I'll throw in the word perseverance and I'm gonna give Bob a lot of credit for that.
I remember my freshman year there was a former GM., I'm pretty sure I have the name, but I'm not gonna name him, who told me it was impossible for Z89 to ever find a frequency. They'd done all these searches, done all this work, and there was no way it could ever be done. And, I'm sworn to secrecy knowing what I know and I said, I don't know.
I think there's a reason to have some faith. And Bob. I know Eric had a big role in that. I don't know if Mark and Steve Simpson were involved in that point, but there was a whole lot of perseverance to make this thing happen.
Bob: Thank you for that. I mean, being in Vermont where sometimes you don't have the advantages you do in more lucrative areas, even in whatever it is I do now.
There's always a way and probably has always been part of my character, but that was certain. JPZ is an example of that. There's always a way, and we can talk about WAER at some point here, but it's a little bit of revisionist history to say that JPZ happened because WAER was taken over by the University.
That didn't happen exactly that way and we were on our own for a long time. And it's the people on this screen and people like Mark Humble and Steve Simpson, and I'll keep bringing up Mark Ellenbogen and sort of serendipity is why things ended up the way they did.
Chris: Everything was rolling right along before WAER collapsed or whatever we want to say they did.
We were on our path. We were pretty far down the path, but it made it a little bit easier as far as the, from one sense it made it easier from the university perspective, but on the other hand, I would hear, well, you need to do block programming. You need to play Spanish music from six to nine, and then have a New Wave hour and follow that up by Funk.
And then Jazz and WAER had a lot of that musically, and that was not what we did. We were and are a training ground for radio. And at that point, you know, a hundred percent toward the CHR format period.
Eric: And the story, the one thing that I think I gained most from my time there was learning to deal with the bureaucracy of the University, cuz it's very big.
And the way I learned to deal with it was personal relationships. Cause everybody that you mentioned, we made a personal relationship with those people, with the people at SGA. They were downstairs from us in the spectrum and we went down and we met, who was the secretary that was there who was so helpful?
Anyway, making connections with all these people that helped sell our case. Plus for me, when it came time to, when we got a hundred thousand dollars from the university, from the student government, to actually spend the money, I had to deal with the bureaucracy of university and purchasing. So I made friends with the purchasing agent because everything needed three bids and then it was just building the project and then dealing with the planning people and the building inspectors and all that stuff. It's all stuff I use now every day in my job. So it was like a microcosm of what I do every day. Now. I was able to learn at JPZ, so I use all those skills today and, but I think the personal relationship that we had with all these people. And then I wanted to go back a little bit about finding the frequency. Mark Humphrey, who was our consulting engineer, he's the one that magically found that frequency in the middle of nowhere and shoehorned it in.
You have to give him. Great kudos for that.
JAG: Phil, anything stick out to you of lessons learned from experiences?
Phil: Yeah, I, two things are very vivid to me. One, I had in high school right before I started Syracuse, I worked at an FM station in Poughkeepsie, which was top 40, did overnights on the weekends.
And when I got to JPZ, the goal was told to me. Hey, we run this like a real radio station. Like a commercial radio station and I went in there, go, yeah. I mean this is run at least as well, if not better, than the commercial station I just left in Poughkeepsie and then it helped me get the job as the program director of Y94.
I mean, I had not been a program director or assistant program director even at a commercial radio station. And Bob Neil, who was the operations guy at SYR at the time who hired me. He had to justify me to the general manager. Bob said, you know, he was music director at the student radio station.
The GM says, yeah, okay, so? And basically I said, look, there's nothing I can tell you that would prove this to you, but this station is run like a professional radio station. I know what I'm doing. And it helped me tremendously and just setting expectations, knowing what to expect, and dealing with crazy shit that happened.
Bob: All four of us went to JPZ and we chose JPZ even though it's on the third floor of this house, even though it had third and fourth hand equipment because of Joe Pasternek, Steve Styles, people that were there. At least when Phil, Eric and I got there, and I know Chris knew Joe. We had the honor of inducting Joe into the JPZ Hall of Fame a few years ago, but you know, there's that time between Mike Roberts and Craig Fox and all the names we know in lineage.
You know, Joe sort of gets forgotten, but they kept things going. They were selling advertising on carrier current, and they had a professional radio station that appealed to us. Mitch Golden actually gets credit for introducing. JPZ. But that came across to us and that's why we fell in love with it when we showed up there in 1980.
Phil: And we were able to give away six packs of old Vienna on the air.
I don't, I remember, I don't know who set up that deal, but that was like a huge deal when I got to do it. Mike Richards, I remember the ad. I found the ad we took out on the Daily Orange, you know, to win a six pack up old Vienna. Listen to Phil and Mike on the, I mean, I don't know who set that up, but it was awesome. That was the type of stuff that was really forward thinking at the time, and then was as close as professional as you can get.
JAG: You mean you were on a college campus, Phil, and you were giving away beer. What a great idea.
Phil: Can you imagine?
Chris: Benefit of an 18 year old drinking age, huh?
Phil: That's right.
JAG: Oh, that's right, that's right. Okay.
Phil: A good old days. That's right.
JAG: I mean, I was drinking at 18, but I had a New York state ID that said my name was JP Kaminski to make that happen when I was an undergrad at the time.
Chris: Hey, JP. I'm Eric Miller. Nice to meet you.
JAG: We should do that with all these podcasts. Everybody go around and give you a name that was on your fake id with the fake id, right?
Chris: Exactly.
JAG: Bob, you mentioned this a minute ago. The story of getting onto FM, the short version that everybody tells for the sake of brevity, which may not be necessarily accurate as you guys have all referenced, is that it coincided with AER being taken over by the station and becoming an NPR station.
But there was so much more than that and there was so much more that went into it. Give us the story from, as Chris BErman would say, I know cuz I was there. You guys can tell us exactly what happened because you had the front row seat.
Bob: Yeah, I mean, and again, this could be the, you know, you had the album cut with Rick Wright.
This could be the box set. But, I'll keep it relatively short. I mean, I can't emphasize enough that we were rebels. We were pirates. The only person who cared about us in Newhouse was Dr. Rick Wright. The only person. So when all heck broke loose and we were on the verge of losing our station, owing SU five grand, nobody was on our side except Dr. Rick. And we were on our own. WAER sure as heck didn't care. Even though the path to David Anderson was starting to get out of the gates. So that was happening slowly. I think the students there thought they could fight it off.
JAG: Bob, lemme stop you right there. David Anderson?
Bob: Sorry. David Anderson became the professional at the university, hired to administer WAER.
Leading them on the path to become an NPR affiliate. Again, those things did not happen like this. We're talking a couple of years. So, you know, we were fighting for survival. Survival came first and then the stars started aligning, as Eric said. Mark Humphreys and him. He had this crazy idea for a frequency search.
Okay, cool. It was a non-commercial frequency, which is obviously what 89.1 is. I know there was, at least with me, a little bit of angst because JPZ was intended to be the full experience of a radio station, including radio sales and being self sufficient. I also know we were super paranoid about maintaining our autonomy and how could we do that?
In fact, the original JPZ bylaws had our corporation, our corporations say that if JPZ went kaput, the assets would go to Spectrum Records. Cuz Spectrum at the time was a private non-profit that had a record store, travel agency and some other stuff. I'm dancing around the story, but I think it was a case of we got on cable, Syracuse cable systems.
We knew we had a home the following year. We were gonna get kicked off campus. Then the frequency search happened and there was a frequency, and that all coincided with Mark Ellenbogen becoming initially the controller of the student Government Association and then ultimately the president. Mark, by the way, lives in Prague. I'm still in touch with him, and he runs an interesting NGO that's involved with diplomacy.
JAG: Wow.
Bob: I guess the other piece of the FM story I'll share is our bylaws were the original set of bylaws anyways, got ripped off from WFRD at Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College still owns the radio station, but it was somewhat autonomous, so I was working back home here with people and students from WFRD and got my hands on that.
So we cribbed from that. We worked with the Syracuse attorney, Jeff Davis, to incorporate the station. And all these things to try and preserve its autonomy and obviously secure funding. Once we had the frequency search, to head towards FM and that path, and Chris actually probably should speak to this, Mark Humble's not on here, but those two guys particularly, it wasn't as simple as I filed the application and boom we were FM. A year and change, and a lot of things happened in between.
Chris: They actually dug into the bylaws very, very closely at the FCC when they were going through everything. The one issue that they had with us was that there was no solution for carrying forward. No succession plan with the students owning it because we were truly the first student owned and operated radio station to get an FM license.
They'd never seen anything like a group of students looking for an FM license. So again, the solution to our problem, Dr. Rick Wright. I got with Rick and he agreed to be the succession plan should anything happen with the students, that Rick will always be there. He'll always be part of Syracuse University and the program, and he put it on his back and that got us a lot closer to the finish line again. Until that day, another summer day, going down to the mailbox to hopefully find a couple of records from a company other than A&M, and boom, there it was.
JAG: Which summer was that? Chris?
Chris: Summer of 84. And then I quickly got so excited I could barely ride my bicycle to get from there back to Watson. And then got on the phone and called everybody who had a role. And Isaid, "We got it! We got it! We got it! And It was a big day. Very, very, very exciting.
And you were talking about the frequency thing and finding the whole. Another fun one that I had back in the day is, I think it was Bob and Mark probably sending me up to Central Square. WCSQ there, and I had to go through their Public File and find all kinds of information out of the CSQ Public File, but I wasn't allowed to tell 'em anything.
Sort of what it's like to be an undercover spy, but not a very good one.
Bob: Another transferable skill.
JAG: They had the 89.1 frequency prior to it. Is that right?
Chris: 89.3 was there. So Central Square is what, roughly 25 miles north of Syracuse? And they were still on the air. I mean, they were still on the air. I believe it was a high school operation, but again, with our initial frequency, how many watts were we?
Eric: We were a hundred.
Chris: Well, yeah, we weren't supposed to get up that far, but I remember the night before the official sign on, when we were doing the test, we sent a couple of cars out and one of them went north.
I believe it was Mark and Rob Weinegarten going north and somebody else went south. And north, they went 30, 35 miles north and then just ended up turning around because they just got tired of driving. The signal was still coming in great, going up north. Going south, they got, you know, about 10 miles down toward Tully and there was nothing.
But I don't think we were projecting that we were gonna go quite as far north as we did. And then the early bitching, you probably remember this, I think it was the neighborhood right behind the Hill. They were all bitching about the Oswego NPR station. Apparently the transmitter was causing some interference with them.
Eric: Well, there was one professor who liked to listen, who. Made a big stink and it was a thorn for a long time.
JAG: I'm gonna actually mention that. I think you're thinking of WRVO if I remember right. So this is where we come full circle because what's wild about this conversation for me personally, is you guys were there for the start and moving into Watson, I was there for the end of Watson, so I was there.
We had to leave Watson for the renovation and go into this house on Ostrom, which you could probably compare apples to Apples of how shoddy it was. A system was jury rigged and set up to when you guys were in the original location?
Chris: Couldn't have been that bad. Couldn't have been.
JAG: We should do a side by side comparison.
Phil: Defer your elders on that, Jon.
JAG: Fair enough. Four of you and one of me, and we appreciate you coming on. So fair enough, you had it worse than we did, but we did have a difficult setup there as we moved outta Watson, but in that same time period, and this is late nineties, early two thousands, I'll say his name.
I don't care. He's dead. Dr. John Oldfield was a thorn in our side. He would make complaints to the FCC all the time because we were interfering at 891 with, I'm trying to remember what this frequency was for WRVO. But they would always complain and we're like, just like you guys we're 19, 20 year old kids going, what are we supposed to do with this?
Bob: He was just vocal.
Eric: Yeah. He didn't have a leg to stand on.
Bob: He was just vocal.
JAG: He was Karen before there were Karens.
Eric: It was blanketing interference. It was just, he was close to the tower and so his radio was getting overloaded.
JAG: And then the FCC’s mailbox got overloaded as a result. Got it. All right. I'm so thrilled to have the four of you on and you know, there were many, many others that you mentioned along with you that helped get the station on FM and shed us through very difficult times over the 50 years of history of the station. There are so many instances where it was almost like we were hanging by a thread. But a number of folks, present company included, stepped up to keep the thing going. That had started back, you know, in the early seventies and is still going now into the 2020s. We have six decades of alums thanks to folks like you who have helped keep the station going.
I'm curious for your perspective of what you've seen on the radio station since you left. I'm curious what you've seen in the time since you've been alums and what you've seen the station do in the time that you've been out.
Chris: I'll lead on that one. Well, it's a different world. The radio industry is very, very different.
When we were all in school, there were what, probably 13 independent radio stations, 14 or 15 in Syracuse with 14 or 15 program directors, 14 or 15 general managers, and now the world is what I heard, Audacy, Beasley, and maybe a couple other groups. I was in Syracuse the weekend after Labor Day, listened to Z89, a little more than I normally would listen to that type of music in this day and age as an old fart.
And I don't think I heard a live personality on the air the whole time, and I was listening for hours. Just a different, different world.
Bob: It does raise the question though, and I can echo that. I was out to ask you for some football games. I did finally hear a live break a couple weeks ago. And obviously now we can all listen to it any time anyways cuz we can stream.
But how does what we knew and know as WJPZ still serve as a laboratory to teach communicators and broadcasters because I think, I'm not in the business, you three are, but I still think being a broadcaster carries some usefulness in the world regardless of what the medium is. Just as our friend Jon is showing in the world of podcasting. It's just a delivery service, whether it's amplitude modulation or frequency modulation or podcast or streaming, or goodness knows things we don't even have thought of yet. You still can effectively entertain and inform people and you learn that at WJPZ,
JAG: Phil, Eric, anything you've seen as you've been watching the station you've enjoyed?
Eric: I think it's all content. I think that's the primary thing that we've, we're training people to be content providers and I mean, look, you've developed it to doing this great podcast and those skills carry on. I mean, I go back to do you remember Don Beverage, Phil?
Phil: Oh yeah.
Eric: So he had a story where he talked about the railroads and the problem with the railroads and why they all failed, is they thought they were in the railroad business. But they were in the transportation business. And that's why they failed. And so we're in the communications business and so whatever skill we learn and we have, we just have to carry it on. And the tool we use, it's gonna change.
So I think that's the important thing that we have. And we have video. They have video on the morning show. And it just changes.
Phil: It's nice to see when I go back to the banquets, still the people that have the passion for it and still love to be quote unquote on the air or even doing podcasts or some sort of audio content.
And get into, as Rick Wright would say, show business. Cuz that's what it is. It's great to see the younger and younger generations getting into that because if you listen to everybody else, radio is dead and it's gone, but it's not. And I face that all the time with, oh, yeah. I mean radio's, like newspapers. Who listens? At least with newspapers, we have the data that shows nobody's reading them . With radio, it's the opposite. You still have to fight that perception. It's nice to see that the real world of people that want to get into it are still into it. At least that's what I see when I go.
JAG: Absolutely. Guys, are there any funny off the wall stories that pop to mind from your time with the station?
I mean, obviously there was a ton of craziness among all the things that you've accomplished with the radio station and getting it on FM and fighting the good fight and, you know, a ragtag bunch of guys, as you guys kind of self described yourselves. Tell me about any funny behind the scenes moments that come to mind.
Eric: The Spectrum building. Before we moved to Watson next door, you were talking about the turntables and the printing press of Spectrum Printing was in the room next to us, and whenever I ran the printing press, the cart machines would "wow." So you'd hear it on the air. You go, whoa. So we were smart and we ran an extension cord out the window downstairs and plugged into the outlet and Mark Ellenbogen’s office, and that worked great.
So the whole radio station was running fine and then one day I got a phone call. The radio station's off the air cuz the cleaning lady had come and unplugged the radio station to plug in the vacuum cleaner.
Bob: What was your one that you remembered, Phil? That I said about Boston? Five guys from Boston who were not five guys from Boston or something?
Phil: Oh yeah. You used to intro the records as The Cars, five gentlemen from Boston and three, and then there was The Cars, and then you introduced the Boston guys the same way. It was three gentlemen from Boston. These are rock and roll guys. They're not gentlemen.
Bob: And I think you and I were fooling around on the air as the Rock Brothers.
Phil: Yes.
Bob: Dr. Bob and Dr. Phil Rock. And I think that’s where you first got Dr. Phil.
Phil: That's exactly where it started. That's exactly right. I do remember that. The story that I have has nothing to do with JPZ, but I remember it's got everything to do with Rick Wright. So Rick, I was in his class and he took us on a field trip to WOLF Radio, which he was chief engineer at the same time.
So we went into WOLF, he gave us a tour of the facilities, and then we got to the the room with the equipment in it. So he's showing the transmitter to everybody and he says, see, now WOLF operates during the day at a thousand watts, and at night it goes down to 250 watts. That's the license the FCC gave it.
And this was like 12 noon. He says, so, you know, when the sun goes down, the DJ comes over and he flips the switch. And Rick proceeds to flip the switch at 12 noon to go from a thousand to two 50. And you see, you know, the meters go down. You know, all the way down. And he changes the signal right in the middle of the day to a nighttime signal
And I said, Rick, did you really switch the signal here? Is that, are we two 50? I mean, should you have done that? He says that, don't worry, nobody's listening. And that's when WOLF was like country or whatever. I thought that was hysterical. Anyway, that's one of my favorite Rick Wright stories.
Chris: All right, so while we've got the three of you who are, you know, got a couple extra years. The padlock. Did we ever see the padlock? Do we know how big the padlock is?
Bob: That predates us, I think, right?
Phil: Yeah, I think it predates, yeah.
JAG: That was mid to late seventies, if my history is right and I mean, at least we named a scholarship after it. So we have that.
Phil: Love it. Love it.
Chris: Just wondering if there's any way to, back up just how big it really was.
JAG: I think it's one of those things where as the years go on, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. We're almost 50 years since the padlock at this point.
Bob: Well, it's a government padlock, right? So of course it's, you know, it has some heft to it.
Phil: Yeah. Huge. Nobody's got the key. Yeah.
JAG: some of the stories you tell. And, I talked to Scott MacFarlane about this because he did the documentary on the 40th anniversary of JPZ 10 years ago. And I asked him what his big takeaway from the documentary was, and he said that to your point, Phil and Eric, about the students working there, the students that he talked to from the seventies and the eighties for this documentary.
And then the students he talked to from the two thousands, they were the same. The technology was a little different. The ages were a little bit different. The world was a little bit different, but it was the same person. It was the same person that worked at JPZ, that has kind of carried on 50 years later, and I think you guys have kind of illustrated that here, that we have so much in common just across the years of so many of us with this thing.
And I have to say, when we were putting this episode together, Bob connected me with the rest of you and kind of got this thing going. What's cool is these relationships that have been built, it feels like the four of you are all in contact and are just kind of comfortable with each other, that it was very easy to get you all in the same room here virtually and have a conversation.
And that speaks to the relationships built at the radio station.
Bob: Agreed. A name we've mentioned once or twice, but. We need to get back in the family is Steve Simpson, he's in radio in the Midwest. We all are in touch with Mark Humble, who's still in New York, but Steve was a really important part of this whole ride and really deserves to be remembered.
I guess my other comment is, for me, WJPZ was not just about the rock stars who are gonna go on to fame and fortune like Scotty MacFarlane and others. And that's great. But it was also about people who might never do radio for the rest of their lives, but they were treated as equals in peers just as well as the high flyers.
So the studio in Watson was actually dedicated at the time to a student who was killed in a horrible accident in an elevator day hall. Matt Waaser, there is a plaque to this day in WJPZ and when I go and when I go this coming March, that's the first thing I look for to make sure that's still there.
And I tell whoever's there what I just shared, To remember, first of all, don't ever mess with that plaque. And secondly, WJPZ is about everybody who's there and is part of the experience, not just who goes on to be a famous TV or communications or radio star or whatever. And that's I think, one of the elements that always made WJPZ special and unique, say from WAER. It really was about everybody.
Phil: Agree.
Chris: Yeah with Matt, I think it happened early in January. It happened in the winter a little bit before we went on the air, and it was a major news story in Syracuse. I mean, I think it was probably the lead story for a couple of days. And all of the TV stations were coming by and they'd start asking questions about what we're doing.
It's like, sorry, I'm not going there. We lost one of our own here and this hurts us really, really badly. Just a tragic accident.
JAG: I didn't know that story, which is why I'm glad I have so many different folks on this podcast because I don't want any of these stories to be lost to time.What an awful story, but I'm really glad that you guys are all here to share it, to let the folks listen to the podcast, know about the story.
As we wrap up, any closing thoughts here, gentlemen?
Chris: These were exciting times and I'm honored that I got to work with many, many great people who were very passionate about the radio industry, passionate about the business, and wanting to put the best product on the air we possibly could, even though there were 25 people listening to us in a good quarter hour.
Bob: Thank you for doing this, Jon.
Phil: Yeah, Jon, great idea.
Eric: Thank you.
JAG: And it's funny how all these ties bind. Bob and I have bonded over my time in Vermont. Chris, it's great to get to know you here, Dr. Phil, when I was briefly running a mentorship program, that's when I first connected with you to figure out what the heck I was doing, and you were a great resource to me.
Then Eric, you and I connected when you came back for your Hall of Fame and also through our mutual friend Andrew Kaiser, who I know worked with you in Boston. I worked with him up in Vermont. It's really cool to see all these ties that bind all of us throughout all the years. And you know, on behalf of all of us, I wanna thank the four of you for your role, both as students and as alumni, and for coming on to share some great stories today.
Phil: Thank you, Jonn, for putting it all together.