JOHN DONAHY'S RETROPECTIVE OF WCBS
25 Aug 24
Hi Folks,
Had to send something, although this is going to be more like an abbreviated bio/story than a tribute. But AM radio, and particularly WCBS 880, is a notable part of that story so I wished to contribute for anybody with the time to read.
Born in 1958 in Tallahassee to parents that met, married, and had me while attending FSU. Problematic only during college football and basketball seasons as the extended families in FL were mostly Gator fans. He was from Lake Worth but born in Quincy, she was born in St. Aug and traces family name back to 1565 founding. Myself and 4 siblings grew up in a Democratic household full of books, music, and love. I can remember my mom crying when Kennedy was assassinated. Very vague memories of Camille and Dora. I am told that I was infatuated with technology from before I could even walk well and was reading at a very early age.
My first memories of AM/SW radio were fooling with a 1930's Philco console at my great grandfathers house in St. Aug and being enthralled with all the foreign languages and English spoken in outrageous accents found across the bands. I am SO FORTUNATE to have grown up in a period that still had international broadcasting running full steam, although it started to decline as I was becoming involved. Very much later on a trip to Ecuador in '14 I went to pay homage to the bare, empty acreage in Quito where the legendary powerhouse HCJB, the "Voice of the Andes" broadcast from. Back I the early 60's as I was becoming so aware of the world through this medium, Radio Havana was a powerhouse, and to this day is still broadcasting along with a very few other die-hards. Back then, being so close to us geographically, the signal was S9 anytime. And during this period in history it was initially confusing for me to hear that propaganda, so I was fortunate to have open-minded parents that explained the political situations to me and encouraged me to read more history along with my electronic how-to's. And when propagation allowed, Radio Moscow was a hoot as well. As I acquired better radios and antenna setups I found the whole world literally at my doorstep. "This Is London" and “This is Radio Deutsch-Wella" were as common to me as any local station. Everybody had unique interval signals at the top/bottoms of the hour and I was able to recognize so many little countries as I dug them out of the static late at night.
Once I was allowed out by myself on a bicycle I was dragging home all sorts of items. Dad would cut the power cords off initially but I would go downstairs and wire them and blow myself up anyway. Then I would go to the library and dig in books to find out why. I really appreciated the three most important lessons dad taught me right after kindergarten: How to read (and fold!) a map, how to use the card catalog in the library, and how to argue both sides of an opinion by being my own devil's advocate. I still got in fights anyway, and in the late 60's developed sort of a jerky conservative attitude for a little while which thankfully didn't last.
Dad saw that I was pretty serious with my electronics. By '67-68 my hand-wound coils and crystal detectors were becoming patched together rigs from parts gleaned from trash finds so he ordered some cool kits and I was really off and running. Built a small AM transceiver and some test instruments to demonstrate communications for a science fair and I built a binary adder out of junk parts for Boolean demos at a math fair. But I was also socially maturing as well. I was quickly learning that along with the obvious propaganda heard from other countries, deception and manifestations of corporate greed abounded here as well once I learned to recognize them. The very earliest I remembered realizing myself was from a Montgomery AL station WHHY. By mid/late 60's Motown was hot on the radio. We had WAPE 690 in Jacksonville and WBAM 740 in Montgomery with strong signals. But a really great station was WHHY 1440 and their slogan was “24hr Personality Power" and they were lower power but came in clear at night. Think it was summer of '67 and had fallen asleep with little earphone in, woke up for some reason after midnight and they were not there! Tuned back and forth to verify crystal was OK (no batteries so parents could care less). So the next night I made sure to stay awake and listen and sure enough they signed off before midnight. They lied to us!! But I wasn't too distraught because in the sixties even most of the TV stations went off as well. I remember many early mornings eating a bowl of cereal waiting for the test pattern to become Bugs Bunny.
But the real kicker was in '68 or ‘69. And it was at this time that we got uprooted anyway. Dad worked for NY Life Ins Co and they wanted him at the regional office in Montgomery. WHHY came in strong now but I didn't care. Disco was really taking off and I was not impressed. My tastes ran to Johhny and Willy and Beatles and Aretha and Godfather. And as our parents had always taken us to see the Disney pics as they came out I was pretty much under the assumption (Even with Song of the South) that Disney was pretty wholesome and “good". One day I was at a friends house and they had played this awful record of Disco Donald and Disco Mickey and such. I looked at the record sleeve and saw Buena Vista (DISNEY!!) and was appalled. That was my eye-opener to how low businesses will go to jump on an economic bandwagon. I was also becoming much more politically aware as well. They had a memorial for Dr. King at Cramton Bowl and my parents went and took me. We were not popular in the neighborhood being Catholic in majority Baptist AL and wound up having to move to a different part of town.
In '71 NYLIC wanted dad up in the home office. I was really accumulating a lot of radio gear and took the next step and went for my “ham" license. I needed to learn a lot of FCC regulations to go along with my theoretical knowledge and morse code was a requirement as well. That was particularly rough but I got through it. Teachers that thought I was daydreaming when they found me distracted in a lesson never learned that I was practicing code reading the text. But I got my novice license WN2QGV at 14 and never looked back. Later on I upgraded as KA2ZEI and am now Amateur Extra AC2LS. Morse code is no longer a requirement to obtain a license which I believe is a great mistake. I still prefer to keep in practice “pounding brass" on HF when possible.
Dad put up with commuting from LI into Manhattan for years but then said “F This" and moved back to FL. By that time I was out on my own and did not mind the snow, matter of fact once I learned the art of putting on a set of tire chains I knew I was invincible. NY scene was really cool. At that time there were still several race tracks on LI in Freeport, Islip, Riverhead, Westhampton, and BRIDGEHAMPTON!! What a loss that one was. A friggin' golf course. No college for me, I wanted to race! I was a really good mechanic now as well because I had actually started building engines around the same time I had gotten my ham license. So when I turned 16 and got my junior license I had plenty of experience on how to get in trouble. But on the responsible side, electronic knowledge initially paid diddly. I worked as a mechanic until about 20 and wanted to keep my hands clean so worked for CAI in Huntington on commercial communication gear until they got bought out and then Northeastern Instrumentation in Glen Cove fixing/calibrating medical equipment I couldn't even pronounce the names of. Both jobs paid squat. But I had clean hands. Back to turning wrenches. Dealers paid great, but they are criminals and I wanted to keep some self-respect. I did get in some racing experience. I was an OK driver but a better mechanic. For a while was running a stock car in EMRA with a good friend who was a great driver; we actually ran at Lime Rock, Pocano, Watkins Glen, and of course Bridgehampton. He unfortunately passed in a non-racing accident and I lost interest.
Then the epiphany: electrical power generation and control. Because of my broad knowledge I am a natural. Working for Genserve I was known and requested all over the metro area, especially by NYC Health and Hospitals, DOC, DPW, schools, colleges, etc. Even had my hands on the systems at Rock Center, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX (ashamed to say). FEMA and DHS got a lot of attention from me. I travelled as well: Spent a month in New Orleans after Katrina, Beaumont after Rita, S Florida after Wilma. Two major metro blackouts. God knows how many local storms. Of course was all over lower Manhattan for months after 9-11. And I will never, ever forget being on the corner of 14th and Ave C after Sandy looking up at the ConEd building and seeing the water level mark over 10ft up it.
And WCBS was with me always. You were a source, a tool, a comfort. And I am starting to tear up now. Seriously.
When I got to NY at 13 I was a kid in a candy store. WNBC had Imus, he was a pisser!! WABC had Dan Ingraham. WLIR was breaking new ground with great music and silliness like National Lampoon Radio Hour. WUSB was getting going. And we had CBS88 and 1010WINS to keep us grounded. WINS never had the same quality programming y'all did. Guess Westinghouse didn't put in enough effort. But since the majority of the time both news stations were basically repetitive from hour to hour I would switch back and forth. Once I was driving extensively as a service tech, CBS was pretty much my go-to for traffic conditions. I did like to hear Sr. Camille on WINS but that was about it. Y'all had such a great crew, a great rapport. It was like hanging out with family. Which meant a lot to me because, although I came close a couple times, I still haven't married. Y'all had lots of guest features as well. I liked Jim Hightower spots until he ceased. Kim Komando used to have my interest until I found out she had such a conservative lean, then I didn't take her seriously any more. Mr. Osgood's opinion spot was almost always 100% my own views as well. And although I was always out for breakfast and socializing on Sunday mornings, I was always front and center for 60 Minutes Sunday evening.
I always cringed listening to any audio of that hateful POS Giuliani. Koch made me cringe, too, but not so much from dislike as from embarrassment. His ring tone “Hey, Welcome to my bridge" was one for the ages. Oy. I felt sorry for what Dinkens had to put up with, he was a pretty decent man. As was Bloomberg, although I believe Dinkens was more for us menials. DiBlasio was as big of a machine politician as they come, not a bad guy, but also not totally above board. Adams is a sellout.
I will not mention The Tangerine Turds name, no need to expound except to say that I did entertain thoughts of sabotaging his tower somehow when I was there for service calls on his generators. The night he won the '16 election I was at Woodhull hospital very late for an emergency call. I am not embellishing when I say that people were walking around in the corridors crying. People in the rest of this country had no real idea what that flaming asshole was really like. Not like us locals that heard his shit day in and day out. Sorry, he is a sore spot to me.
Anyway, it is the end of an era. I have no clue as to the real reason this is happening. I only just found out about this from a flag on my news aggregator. I read a couple of articles but the corporatespeak they framed their decisions with stinks. I am sure that there is much more involved. I am wreathed in schadenfreude with their recent financial struggling being revealed. Karma's a cold bitch. So, so sad that your crew has had the rug pulled out from under in this manner. I am even more hurt by this than when Prairie Home Companion ceased to be. At least we have searchable online archives of all the shows and multiple CD and DVD offerings to enjoy. But with y'all I'll only have memories.
I'm going to wrap up this mess with a couple more reveals into how much I appreciated what y'all were as WCBS 880 AM and as a representative of what is happening in general.
When I mentioned earlier that I had gotten my ham license at 14, I did not fully explain my obsession. I have been called a wizard, a lifesaver, a genius, a saint. I have also been called a screwball, a geek, odd duck, weird, eccentric. And I guess it all fits. I am a paradox, an oxymoron if you will. I work on cutting edge technology and am yet the most obstinate of Luddites. I write code for processors and design circuits for special applications. I can give you a very long list of references for both my character and ability. And I always try to do the right thing even if no one knows about it but God and the angels. I believe we are dumbing down as a society even though we are advancing technically at an exponentially breakneck pace. I fear that it will not end well.
When I got my license, it was as if I was now participating in a phenomenon. If I may digress again a moment, I always used to say that when I would go to Frank Zappa or Grateful Dead concerts, it almost seemed to be something ethereal. Not with everyone there, but a majority of attendees did seem to be in communication in a good way. I met some of the nicest people I have ever experienced and always referred to it as a phenomenon. No explanations, it just is. And even though we can create, measure, manipulate, profit from electromagnetic radiation in most forms, just like gravity and consciousness we do not have a complete understanding. When I first got “on the air" myself, I felt so much a part of a larger existence. (And apologies for terminology and syntax, I don't try to write creatively very often.) When I would be transmitting, it was almost as if I could see the waves radiating from the antenna, thinking that anybody, anywhere, under the right conditions could hear me. And my next door neighbors would be calling my parents pissed off because in the days before the prevalence of cable it was very tricky keeping my antenna tuned properly so as not to create harmonics that caused interference.
And it was so comforting to know that, under the right conditions, I would always be able to hear you. I am recently relocated back to St. Aug as of Sep '22. Am still working on generators for a company that used to be called Tampa Armature Works with 110+ yr history. We got swallowed by IPS and it is not pleasant. I still get lots of OT because my services are in demand, and on many late nights home I would tune in to 880Khz to listen to y'all gradually become audible as the ionosphere contracted and “skip" became effective. And I get to relive a little bit of my past when the wonder of hearing voices without any physical connections over hundreds or thousands of miles seemed magical.
Tonight I will be listening to you sign off. And I will miss you. Love,Jack.
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