CHOO Radio Recollections

An on line scrapbook of images & text for former staff and listeners alike

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PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE - (ABOVE) CHOO letterhead circa 1979. (BELOW, RIGHT) Photo showing CHOO seven inch reel to reel tape (circa 1980) used to play back prerecorded features. (FAR BELOW) A collection of carts used to play back commercials, also circa 1979.

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My sincere appreciation to those who have written and shared with us so far. And to those who have contacted me but prefer to remain "anonymous" my thanks as well. All your contributions are invaluable for helping me put together the jigsaw puzzle pieces of this site.

My contact info is on the bottom of page one. Please consider this your invitation to contact me and share your recollections. When I get enough new material I'll revise the site once more. So come back again in a few months to see what new (old) features I've added.

I also heard from my first CHOO PD Tom Edge. He and I recalled the day he trained me in - our memories after over 30 years only differed slightly in the details. Here's how I remember it...

My First Day At CHOO (1979)

Once I'd been hired by Lorna Braid, the station manager, but before I was allowed out on air on my own, I had to put in a couple days operating for the PD, Tom Edge. He had the afternoon drive time show and had the upbeat personality and big voice to carry it off. Unlike some radio personalities, Tom was actually a good guy, with a great sense of humour. So when it was my day to "op" for him I felt quite confident. I had, after all, run a similar control room board at my campus station - which admittedly was only broadcasting a few yards in any direction via tin cans and packing string! I think Tom's show got under way well enough with me in the control room and Tom in the small announce booth opposite, visible through a glass window, where the newscasters usually would sit. Suddenly I felt like I was under water and everything was in slow motion. Perhaps it was a case of delayed first day jitters or maybe the realization that I was finally living out my childhood fantasy, to be working in radio. Whatever, when I suddenly came out of my daze I heard Tom saying on the air that he needed to run an unscheduled prerecorded (or "carted") commercial announcement. I looked down at the cue sheet in front of me, but it gave no clue as to which cart to "pull" from the possibly hundreds stacked beside me. Now, he didn't want to reveal to his listeners that he had a complete newbie for an op and embarrass me nor to reveal he had any op at all for that matter. And there was no way for Tom to go off air to tell me which cart to "pull" so he did the next best thing. I recall him saying something like, "My right arm is now moving towards the bank of carts to my side... going up... up... up... now further to the right.... down one... and my hand is now going to grab it, no, not that one, the next one, that's it, that's it, and I'm going to put it into the cart machine and play it. Now!" And so my right arm and hand became his right arm and hand and, as if under Tom's direct hypnotic power, followed his directions uttered on air to the letter. Tom later described it as a kind of on air out of body experience. I'm not sure what his listeners made of it, they might've thought he was having some kind of a stroke! But thanks to Tom's quick thinking, we both got through the show OK and I would shortly go on to do my own first midnight to 6 am shift. Little did I realize I would be writing about that first day on the job at CHOO and posting it on some then-unimaginable medium called the internet almost exactly 30 years later. - "John Richards"