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Radio Pack Rat

D

DavidKaye

Today, a lot of radio people live in the past. They go on about the glory days of Top 40 or whatever was their favorite format way back when. While I'm fascinated by things from the past, I've never wanted to live there. Things are much better today than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago, in all areas from technology to food quality to health to the ability of geeks like me to learn about anything under the sun.

Well, this leads me to my current project: I've been trying to consolidate my massive paper holdings. Y'see, I've been collecting data for decades, much of it related to broadcasting. This has been how I could refute a statement made on a broadcasting newsgroup or forum; I had the data. I could quote KSL's Herb Jepko from a newspaper article from 1968. I could find out what format KOBY had in 1958.

But a change has come over me. I'm not sure why; maybe it's just the desire to live more simply or something, but I've been getting rid of old stuff.

Bye bye Arbitron Tapscans from 1990. So long to memos from talkshow producers of the past. Ta-ta to photos of radio and TV studios from 1985. Good riddance to newspaper radio listings from 1960. And goodbye to engineering studies about the feasibility of digital TV, quad stereo, and antenna patterns.

I'm even dumping audition tapes I collected from various folks when I was a program director, which is a godsend to them, really, because some of those folks who have gone on to better things had some very embarrassing audition tapes.

IT FEELS REALLY GOOD! I know that I might not be able to find a really obscure fact (such as when did Don McKinnon leave KEWB?), but maybe I shouldn't need to care.
 
Please consider donating your collection to a worthy cause, maybe a college or university library for example. You might get a tax deduction for a charitable contribution. It sounds like a priceless collection that would help people studying the industry, and it sounds very interesting as well.
 
marshallstax said:
Anyone "dumping" radio-related memorabilia -- especially any Bay Area related stuff - should run it past the folks at the Bay Area Radio History Museum: http://www.bayarearadio.org/

and/or the California Historical Radio Society: http://www.californiahistoricalradio.com/

Just because you don't want it shouldn't mean it's gone forever for those wanting to know the backstory of Bay Area broadcasting.
Click to expand...

David F Jackson has said that they have more stuff in their archives than they can put online because tons of stuff needs to be scanned. So, where are you folks who are so gung-ho on preserving history? You should be volunteering to help scan those documents.

I doubt that anything I have/had is of such importance as to be useful. Believe me, as an amateur historian myself, I know that there is already tons of stuff available now that people have saved. For instance, pre-Internet I learned that the original KGO callsign was given to a station in Altadena. How did I learn that? The UC Berkeley Library has bound volumes of early FRC and Commerce Department rulings.

The stuff is out there already, so don't chastise me for wanting to clean out my home.
 
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