Rob Christie

[jon]

Nice, if short, article on Rob Christie (AM Drive on Magic 99) in October's Edmonton Life magazine, also featured on-line at http://www.edmontonlife.ca/special_section...sonalities.html

Interesting part of the interview is his start in Radio, at CFOX Montreal.

[Neumann Sennheiser]

<!--QuoteBegin-Rob Christie+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Rob Christie)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I actually built a makeshift radio station in my basement when I was 13?it didn?t
really broadcast anywhere but I had it all laid out with the turntable, the tape recorder and the microphone hanging from the ceiling like I?d seen in real radio stations. I?d make up shows, write my own commercials and enlist friends to come in and be other radio personalities. They all thought I was nuts.[/quote]

Maybe not so surprising how many of us tell this same or similar story. I and a buddy (who never did get into the business) had a little hobby station set up in his room; broadcasting to his mom in the kitchen. I know Tom Lucas had one too. Any of you other guys??

[jon]

Most I ever did myself was record songs off CKLG-AM on my father's Seabreeze tape recorder, then record my own extro.

Many of us in Vancouver in the late '60s had a slightly better alternative: 5 watt pirate station CFAY in Surrey, broadcasting on 1357.25 KHz. I owned much better equipment, so wouldn't bring any of my own vinyl, though I did bring my father's Seabreeze a few times, so I could play some music I had.

The owner got both Elektra and Chess U.S. releases, so there was some interesting stuff to play.

The owner reserved the right to do Traffic reports at any moment he felt inclined, and those who know him, know that a single accident on King George Highway could be a 5-10 minute on-air event for him.

[radiofan]

Right up there with the traffic reports were the frequent 'range checks' around the Whalley area of Surrey with his dad behind the wheel of the old green '53 Ford.

If I recall, the official C-FAY reel to reel machine was a portable Sears brand [maybe Kenmore] that held 3' or 5" reels. I used to being my 'Electra' reel to reel that held 7" reels.

[pave]

For two years (ages13-15), I fell asleep every night with the earpiece of a crystal radio stuck in my head - and, as it turned out - my brain.

A classmate of mine, who already worked part-time at C-JOY in Guelph, invited me down to the station one night.

Game over!

[jon]

If I recall, the official C-FAY reel to reel machine was a portable Sears brand [maybe Kenmore] that held 3' or 5" reels.

The official CFAY mic. and its pre-amp also belonged to the tape recorder. You turned the mic. on with the switch on the side of it, at which point the spindles would rotate on the tape recorder, typically with no tape reels on them.

The whole thing always reminds me of some scene from Toy Story.

[Mike Cleaver]

When we first moved to Kelowna in 1960, i had a Knight Kit radio transmitter, a little three pot home-made "board", two cheapo turntables with crystal pickups and a Shure Starlite crystal microphone. I put a big long wire antenna on it and could broadcast to houses within a block. That's also when I started hanging around CKOV, filling the pop machine, carrying the remote console up and down the stairs and doing other odd jobs so I could hang around the "real" radio station.