Which control room - Which Year

[Jack Bennest]

Jack…

I’ve never seen this photo before!
‘Fu Man Chu’ lives! Where did it come from?

It’s probably taken during my earliest days at CKNW – I started there in the fall of 1972 – right out of California.
Is the original picture in B&W? If it’s in “color’ the orange paint would show up on the switch panels in the background.
Engineering staff loved orange and sky blue, for both stations’ on air control rooms, and production rooms.
E-mail it to Dave Glastetter, he’d probably remember.
It does look more like the CKNW side – but I don’t recognize the almost flat console board for ‘NW then ???

...Dave

[Mike Cleaver]

Can't help with the year but there's a colour picture of the same board in the NW engineering shop.
It was a custom built McCurdy with nothing but the switches and pots on the actual control board.
All the amplifiers were rack mounted where they could be worked on without disturbing the jock.
They carried that tradition through with the current Ward Beck boards in the TD tower.
All the amps are in racks in the control rooms with the boards just handling the controls.

[radiofan]

That's the 8th & McBride NW Master Control room ..

The McCurdy 24 pot board and 5 stack Spotmaster cart machine and the original Canuck's logo bumper sticker.

It could almost have been Production 3, but it had the 12 pot version of the McCurdy board.

Big Daddy actually started at NW late '71 or early '72. I first met up with him at a remote somewhere in the bowels of Surrey in the spring of '72.

From what I can see of the record on the turntable, it looks like the Ode label, so it's likely something by Carole King.

[Laterider]

It was a custom built McCurdy with nothing but the switches and pots on the actual control board.
All the amplifiers were rack mounted where they could be worked on without disturbing the jock.
They carried that tradition through with the current Ward Beck boards in the TD tower.
All the amps are in racks in the control rooms with the boards just handling the controls.

This board was a custom design by Jack Gordon. It was a 24 input passive mixer that required all board inputs to be pre-amplified to a +4 dbm before being put into the board. The board had only one program amp and one audition amp and one amp used to give the mix-minus for the monitoring. All amps were McCurdy AT 242's) This concept was good for mono only and when stereo was used at CFMI the board was a conventional McCurdy 4312 with the amplifiers in the console as was all the Ward Beck boards in the TD tower. The blue color was an original McCurdy blue which engineering got loaded into spray bombs and used to color match most of the custom made gear in the studio. The turntable in the picture was a Russco 12 inch which had a platter the size of a brake drum.

[Jack Bennest]

[Jack Bennest]

is this the ward beck?

maybe laterider could tell us what cosmetic changes were made
in control room a to make this pix so woodie? did frosty want that?

[Laterider]

The board in the picture was a special "one off" custom design that we had McCurdy build. It was a full 24 channels in a row and was the board that McCurdy used to pattern their future strip line consoles. Technically it had some awesome features that were not included in subsequent boards due to costs. This board had to replace the two tiered 24 channel mono board because AM stereo was on the horizon. At that time the total control room was revamped and the original Altec A7 speakers that sat on the floor were replaced by the JBL 4311's and the wood design and other acoustic features were added to the room including a new turntable and other pieces of millwork. All of this equipment was pre-assembled and wired and tested in the old studio "A" and installed in one night. Frosty was the first to operate it and he had a long list of modifications he wanted done to it ASAP when engineering arrived the next day after the all night installation. In the picture are Ted Smith, and John Plul. I can't tell who the jock is from behind or the guy next to Ted Smith. I believe the year would have been close to 1985.

[Laterider]

By the way the official McCurdy model number for this special board was "NW9824". When NW moved out of New West the board was sold to Dan Forre (spelling?).

[Jack Bennest]

Thats Mayor Tom Baker and the young feller at the board is "Red" getting acquainted with his short run at the Big NW

I am intrigued by the reference to the old "A" studio. Where was it?

When I worked there - A was at the south end of the newsroom side
and cfmi was right across from the coffee room

Production had a hall to separate it from the On air side

and the year named was correct

"1985 - Red Robinson Hosted a satellite rock 'n roll show on CKNW and the W.I.N. Network"

[radiofan]

"A" studio was the voice studio attatched to Production 1.

"A" studio was also used as election central on election nights.

The last pic posted by TD is the CFMI Control Room around 1980.

[Laterider]

Radiofan is correct. Studio A was opposite production 1. On the opposite side of studio A was what was known as FM production where Dave McCormik did all the Discumentaries. Studio B was opposite production 2 and studio C was opposite production 3. Originally CFMI and CKNW simulcast the news at the top of the hour so the news booth was centered between the on air studios of CKNW and CFMI. Close to 1985 the newsroom expanded to include news positions for CFMI (Jennifer and Rosie) and a full time sports position (Davidson and McRae). There were many changes made to the studio equipment and allocations between January of 1969 and January of 1996. Davidson even had his own personal plexiglass bullet riddled smoking booth in the corner of the newsroom built after the Davidson vs. Markley fued.

[Jack Bennest]

my site is down for some reason so I cannot even see the pix

I am confused on the studios but do remember when the annex to the south was used for WIN and other things


I would need a layout to figure out all of what RF and LR said

[Heard It On The X]

From what I can see of the record on the turntable, it looks like the Ode label, so it's likely something by Carole King.

Or Cheech and Chong!

[Glen Livingstone]

Or Cheech and Chong!

Chong: "Who is it?"

Cheech: "Its Dave man! Will you open up, I got the stuff with me!"

Chong: "Who?"

Cheech: "Dave man, open up!"

Chong: "Dave?"

Cheech: "Yeah Dave, come on man open up I think the cops saw me!"

Chong: "Dave's not here!"

[radiofan]

I thought his name was Abe!