New WCF Music Page

At 19, I was just a teenager when I started working in radio. I adored the team at the station. My job was part-time, and how I landed it is a wild tale—one I’ll keep brief.

My dad, secretly plotting to trade in our old car, had a surprise in store for us. One afternoon, he announced we were going out to eat—a rare treat. We were thrilled, dressed quickly, and piled into the car. Even my mom was curious about our destination, but Dad wouldn’t spill the beans. The suspense was real.

Finally, we pulled into...a car dealership. Surprise! Turns out, they were giving away hotdogs and sodas. “Go, eat kids,” Dad said. Wait—what? This was the grand surprise. Classic Dad move. If you ever seen the TV show Married with Children, my dad would be Al Bundy with little to no script. Unfortunately, my sister was not Kelly if she had been we would have gotten along much better in life.

My sister was thrilled with free food and soda. Me? Not so much. What caught my attention was the radio station crew broadcasting from a van in the parking lot. As I watched, it became clear things weren’t going well. Their sound quality was all static, and their remote equipment kept shutting off. One guy even ran into the dealership to call the station and do the broadcast over the phone, which sounded absolutely dreadful. I felt so bad for them.

At 19, I was a self-proclaimed audio nerd. My stack of stereo and broadcast magazines was as tall as me, and I’d read every single one. I was mixing music in my room on gear I pieced together myself. My sister, on the other hand, cared about audio as much as she cared about taking out the trash. Somehow, she managed to land a job at the radio station despite having zero experience. Her story of that day. Meanwhile, I was DJing at a skating rink on weekends—a gig I got by fixing their sound system when it was cutting out. Loose cables on the mixer? Fixed. The owner was impressed and asked if I wanted to DJ. I said sure. 16 years old. Boom—instant DJ.

Back at the dealership, I was already a pro at mixing, phrasing, and fixing anything audio. That’s who I was at 19. My sister, at 18, was a connoisseur of food it seemed. She’ll tell you this story is a lie and that she was hired at this time by the station and she hired me later. I bring this up because every time I tell this story I hear her voice in the background yelling liar ... to this day. It is just PTSD from her, I think. I asked Robin then how or who hired you this day what did you do? "I was standing there a guy gave me a card said we are looking for female DJs and said apply so I did, and they gave me a job." And then I say who took you to the station? "I don't remember." And then I say who auditioned you and what did you do? You didn't have a broadcast tape to show? "I don't remember." She has heard me talk about my friend the station engineer over the years she knows the name Dale. I ask who trained you in radio? "Dale did." Hahaha the station was spending 100 dollars an hour for an FCC employee to train you. 

She doesn't get Dale works for the FCC not for any radio station. Y106 is his assignment, and this is the guy training you? Not even the general manager has the authority to tell an FCC engineer he needs to train one of his employees ... oh my. Then like a Christian her story changes to, "YOU RON! You were the one that trained me."  "After I Robin hired you to do so." She’s nuts, but that’s a whole other story. I hired her because the station had me working at their transmitter a job I wasn't hired for. Someone quit and Bill tried finding someone. But now the guy was leaving, and I had to go and meet the guy at the transmitter look at him one night to see his PA programming and I was good. The promise was Bill would keep working on finding someone, it wasn't happening, so I hired Robin. I had hundreds of songs still to transfer to cart. Dale needed help. Rick needed a hand Mark needed a hand and Bill needed help because after I went to Leesburg my hours got cut at the station as a part timer. My hours were being eaten up at the transmitter. As a loving brother instead of asking a friend which I should have. I asked Robin if she wanted to try radio. It's been horrible ever since, yes, I am talking decades with her.

So, anyway there really hurting now. People are stating we are losing this client guys. So, similar to the skating rink when I was 16, I said, "I can fix it." to this one guy who looked in charge. I said this because I have been watching and listening. This one guy said you need to call Dale. Then the conversation was how Dale the station engineer is like 100 bucks an hour to have him work on his day off. If they do this the gig, is toast. They lose money here paying there engineer to come out and fix this. So, after hearing this and watching them trouble shoot the problem. I just wanted to help.

Making a long story short, the guys are looking at me, "right kid, you can fix this for us." they didn't believe me. So, another broadcast went bad, and they were using the phone again to do there live broadcast. This one guy said to me in all hesitation. "Look if you can fix this, I'll give you a job."

I didn't know these guys. I thought this one guy was pulling my leg. Give me a job, right...

So, here’s the long story short: I started at Y106.7 that week, hired by none other than Bill Michaels, the station's programming director. I was just there to help, not expecting anything in return. Before I knew it, I was everyone’s go-to person. I worked mostly with Dale, the station engineer, but Ron was the unofficial jack-of-all-trades, and I quickly joined the ranks. Engineering assistant? Check. Programming Directors assistant? Sure. Promotions Directors assistant? You bet. Music Directors assistant? Why not. Part-time on-air? Absolutely. Driving the station van and handling promotions? Of course. Basically, I was the station’s Swiss Army knife. 

Dale and I took on the Herculean task of rebuilding the broadcast booth, transitioning from albums to carts. I recorded, tagged, tested, and labeled every song—talk about repetitive stress. We installed cart racks too, which was no small feat. The music director was way behind, and the FCC was ready to hand out fines. So, there I was, part-time, doing everything short of making coffee. What a ride!

I have that kind of talent, my audition with Bill was funny. He only knew I fixed them up but didn't know what I actually knew. Hahaha, that guy walked me into their production room. Full, production room. 3 Sony reels, 16 channel board, 4 cart machines, 3 mics, tape deck, turntable, Yamaha possessing deck. A lot of stuff. I only seen this in magazines. Bill said, "Ron, go ahead and figure out what does what and come get me when you have the board figured out." He left. That was funny as hell, wasn't it? I loved the guy. He treated me like his adopted kid. In a good way. He really was like my radio dad.

Here is the thing. There was nothing labeled at all. Tape on the 4 cart machines "deck 1 2 3 4." but nothing labeled on the board or anything. Where is the channel for the mics? So, I started potting up channels until I heard in the headphones my voice. Okay. Mics 1 2 and 3 are here. 40min later I go out and find Bill and he is with Dale, and this is my first meeting with Dale. "I have the room figured out Bill." As I said earlier my insane sister said she was hired first and when you ask her about her audition with Bill it is miss clueless. "I forgot." Ron says, "Your first gig in radio and you cannot remember what you did to addition for the job?" Lie and lie and she is fighting with me decades that she hired me and not me hiring her. I taught my sister everything she knows about mixing and using a board. If you ask her who trained her, she'd say it was me, since she started with zero knowledge. "Think, Robin," I say. "How does a 100,000-watt, multimillion-dollar radio station hire an 18-year-old girl who knows nothing? Then they expect you, Robin, to hire someone to train you on how to do the job? What kind of twisted logic is that?" She actually believes this bizarre story she cooked up, which has no sense or reason. It's absurd, delusional, and, oh, did I mention downright hateful?

According to my sibling she was hired couldn't do anything so they allowed her to hire me so I could train her in radio. Is that the biggest pile of monkey shit you ever seen, or heard? This is the sister who turns her back on her family every chance she got. So, evil.

We go in, Dale trailing behind, and I get to work. I'm recording on the cart machines, spinning a record on the turntable, and running it all through the Yamaha processor with a flange effect slapped on the song. Then I hit play on the Sony deck, which is already cued to some random commercial. I show Bill and Dale the whole setup, and they’re both standing there, jaws on the floor. "How did you figure all this out in under an hour? Nothing's labeled!" Bill stammers. "I thought you'd give up after 10 minutes, saying it’s impossible to learn the room."

But Ron, let me tell you. Dale, the guy who could win the "Meanest Person at the Station" award, actually wanted me to apply with the FCC and become a station engineer. Turns out, this grumpiest of grumps was the nicest guy to me! He practically adopted me, and we worked side by side without a single hitch. Honestly, I helped everyone with anything they needed—it’s just my thing. It’s who I am, and yep, still am. I just want to help, even you.

FYI: Y106.7 Leesburg Orlando signed off the airwaves in 1989, but oh, the untold tales of its glory days in the 1980s! We weren’t exactly the big players, and upper management treated us like the forgotten cousins at a family reunion. But hey, we were number one with women aged 18 to 46—something crazy like that, quite the powerhouse demographic! Naturally, we dubbed our nightclub promotions “Y” parties, and boy, did they live up to the name. Guys a Y106 party anywhere, ladies were 5 to one at any party we had. Not maybe all the fun in world for the ladies ... then again, we gave away drinks to all the ladies and guys had to pay. Now I remember. Not sure who had more fun now. Completely legal, of course (though honestly, it’s a miracle no one landed in jail on some nights). And there I was, the assistant promotions director (19 and 20 years old 😏), ensuring the chaos had just the right touch of order. Hahaha! I loved all of them.

Oh, you may ask how I was underage and in a bar? Same way I worked in bars at 18 mixing house bands. I work for the band not the club. You have to be the real deal. When they see you work, you'll never hear another word about your age. It's true I was mixing live bands (house bands) by 18 years old. I literally do it all. So, if you don't want me to work for my people, my people cannot play. Same in radio, but then in radio no one asked if I were 21 everyone assumed so and I never said I wasn't. If you are an entertainer and you work in a bar you can be young. You cannot drink. You drink and get caught they the owners can have you arrested. You just do not mess up. People are counting on you. So. your there to do a job. And Ron never liked to drink because of the headache and throwing up. I usually like to skip those things in life.