It's hard to believe I've been a part of this amazing business for 15 years... In reality, I missed the fun times back in the '70s and early '80s... But it's been a great ride so far...

My story comes from Moose Jaw - CHAB where BV allowed me to cut my teeth...
Sunday mornings where a drag at the B... one hour of CanCon country til 7am... then interspersed Gawd Squad tapes with some music between til 9am...

Of course... Saturday nights being what they were (even in the Jaw)... I was Really Tired...
so at 7am when the first 30 minutes of inspiration hit the air... I pulled BV's Chair (the PD - it was pretty comfy) from his office, set my (not so loud) watch alarm and snuggled in for a nap... woke up about 10-12 minutes past the end of the tape... freaked out... threw on a song... heard not a word...

Now the B had this great silence sensor on the logger... 17 seconds of dead air and the Engineer was in the building in not time flat... luckly, our engineer was away on vacation due to arrive back the following day, and the sub from Speedy Creek left the pager on his desk friday when he left...

BV and Hilly never mentioned a word... but my wifes Grandparents heard it... or didn't as it would be...

Good Times...

Ah Memories.....We played the Gawd shows Sunday from 6:00 until 9:00. They were a half hour each on reel to reel. I came in after less than 2 hours sleep one Sunday morning and promptly fell asleep 5 minutes after I started the first show and woke up just before 7:30 so we had dead air for about an hour. I was afraid of being fired so I said nothing. To my surprise, The week went by and nothing was said. Unfortunately for me, both programs that didn't play were taped down (edit tape so the reel would stay together) and when the People's gospel hour and The Lutheran Hour got their tapes back, they knew the tape didn't air. I offered to pay for the mistake but they were cool about it and let it slide (If anyone knew how poorly we were being paid, it was them).

I was really happy when we automated everything because it meant I got to sleep in until 8:30 Sunday morning. I was supposed to be in at 6:00 but I trusted the automation and it never let me down. Radio paid a lot more when I got to major markets but I never had as much fun as I did in the arm-pitts of Canada.

When you guys were talking about the religious tapes on a Sunday morn reminded me of my teen years while doing weekends at CHFM in Calgary in the sixties (the days we had our studios in the Westbrook Mall).  While the God tapes were running, I decide to do a tape letter to my old radio bud back in Winnipeg.  One wee problem, I hit the mike button to live and not cue and so here I am talking away over religion.  Phone rings and it's the PD telling me the tape I've retrieved from his desk is personal and to put it back.  With red face I tell him I don't have his tape and that I'm doing my own.  Never tried that one again

Or in the seventies when Herbert W. Armstrong (The World Tomorrow or some such title) would run on CFCN at 9pm or 9:30pm.  I'd head upstairs and see what I could scrounge from the staff cafeteria if anything was left accessible or unlocked.

The good "old" days.

You could have explained that it was not dead air, simply a few moments for silent contemplation and prayer.