Oh No…another remote???

My blog on remotes got a lot of reaction from my fellow broadcast engineers.  Mike Maimone from the Rush Limbaugh show reminisced about some of the stupid things he did on remotes, including the years that he did Yankee and Jets games at WABC.  His list included, "risking broken fingers by putting in my own patches in the phone room at Giants Stadium, breaking into my booth every weekend by walking outside the press box on the ledge, punching a hole through the wall in a brand spanking new stadium (I believe it was Joe Robbie in Miami...) to get my broadcast line,....and that dopey bus." Jack Maldonado, Operations Director at WABC Radio, and I were talking about remotes the other day, and agreed that the one thing all remotes have in common is that you come home from them with at least one story!  One of his favorites was the NBA Finals game he worked when the Lakers matched up with the New Jersey Nets, and that "during every timeout, Shaquille O Neal would sit right in front of my equipment, and his sweat would drip all over." Former WABC Radio Engineer Laurie Kline remembered the year she "got assigned to the Pace Car for the NY City Marathon, since I was the shortest engineer available and wouldn't take up that much room!"  Laurie also commented, "What a trip down memory lane! Loved Bob Deitch's Pina Coladas…"  So, since Laurie brought up the subject, here's the story of the WPLJ Dr. Pepper Concert Series remotes, including Bob's Pina Coladas! In 1977, Dr. Pepper took over sponsorship of the Central Park Wollman Skating Rink concert series from Schaffer Beer, and that lasted till the series moved from Central Park after the 1980 season.  Each year, WPLJ Broadcast a number of these concerts live on the radio.  In fact, if you search the web for the Dr. Pepper Concert Series, you will find many "bootleg" copies of these concerts that were recorded from the WPLJ broadcasts.  There was an incredible array of singers and groups that participated, but this isn't really about what happened on stage.  No, if you want to know about the performers at the series, then I'd suggest a Google search, however, if you are interested in knowing what happened backstage during those broadcasts, read on… For every concert that they broadcast, WPLJ would rent a bus from a Boston company.  The front of the bus contained a lounge and bathroom, and the back of the bus was basically a mobile recording studio with a 32 channel mixing board.  Every concert was under the direction of WPLJ Chief Engineer Bob Deitch, and while the Boston company would supply a couple of people with the bus, the WPLJ crew was made up of WPLJ's production engineer Jon Black (who would mix the concert), WABC/WPLJ's maintenance supervisor George Berger, and 5 other NABET engineers from the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department.  This was a choice assignment, and a group that most of us on the 8th floor wanted to be a part of, for several reasons. This was in the day of tight union control, not only at ABC, but also all around NYC and the stage at the Wollman Rink was IATSE jurisdiction (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees).  That meant that only their union people could do work on that stage.  This caused a problem for WPLJ, because under the terms of the NABET/ABC Master Agreement, we had to do all work associated with a WPLJ broadcast.  One would think that this might preclude the broadcast from happening, but this was also the era when cost was no object and a deal was worked out.  In compensation for not being able to set up the stage, each NABET engineer who worked on the remote was given an additional six hours of overtime.  The days were by nature, long, so this six hours was often on top of a real five or six hours of OT, so this made for a very profitable work assignment! Our equipment had to be set up before the usual early afternoon sound check, so we'd roll in with the bus early in the morning.  There were some Saturday mornings when we found some interesting things waiting for us…like the day the obviously chemically impaired gentleman was busy rolling the biggest joint we'd ever seen (looked more like a burrito), or the day when our arrival woke up a group of cross dressers who were sleeping in the park, and who looked like they'd had a hell of a Friday night!  Once the bus was in position, we'd start pulling out microphone snakes, microphones, stands and the like.  We'd deliver them to our IATSE brothers for set up on stage.  Then we'd make sure all the cables were buttoned down and plugged into the bus, do our own mic check, and be ready for the band's sound check.   One of the provisions of WPLJ having permission to work these concerts, was that our presence had to be transparent.  To live up to this, we had to be set up and out of the way before anyone from the band or their sound folks were even on scene.  So by early most afternoons, we were done with all the work we'd have to do till after the concert.  This meant we had 8-10 hours of nothing to do before we had to work again.  So what does a group of radio engineers do for 8-10 hours in Central Park? Well, one thing we'd do was eat.  ABC would buy us lunch, so on a rotating basis a couple of us would trek to a deli outside the park, place a huge lunch order and schlep it back.  We'd also drink!  I know…shocking!  While Jimmy McGuire might have a cooler of beer to share, the real afternoon attraction was Bob Deitch's Pina Coladas!   As I said before, this was an era of tight union control at ABC, and as management, Bob couldn't handle any of the equipment.  But, as a former NABET member, Bob needed a task, and so it was decided that since it wasn't ABC equipment, Bob could run the blender! You might say that Bob's Pina Coladas were the fuel that ran the WPLJ Dr. Pepper Concerts! Needless to say, it was a happy group as the afternoon wore on, and the concert goers started to show up.  We'd be happily (some of us more so than others) sitting on the grass by the bus as the concert started, and spend a lovely night under the stars listening, talking, and yes, sometimes snoozing!  Once the concert was over, it was time for us to break down the stage - the IATSE folks' tight control seemed to weaken after the concert when they just wanted to get home.  To be honest, many of us were somewhat drunk at this time, so it was always an adventure!  I remember that after my first concert I decided that as good as Bob's drinks tasted, I needed to practice some control because I just couldn't go through the whole night snookered!  But we were not the only ones! In an era of peace, love and drugs, there were always a bunch of folks from the audience who were stoned, drunk or otherwise chemically altered, and most seemed to show up after the concert!  One night, while Kiki Hooper and I climbed the scafolding of the stage to get down a crowd mic, we also had to dodge beer bottles.  Seems that someone had taken up a position outside the rink where they could see the stage, and spent the night enjoying the acts with a large stash of Heineken beer.  I guess that they decided that Kiki and I looked like good targets, and green bottle after green bottle smashed just feet away from us on the stage.  Thankfully, they were all empties, and I think the fact that they'd consumed the contents, made for their bad aim! Every night as the bus drove away from the rink, a large group of us would have to walk in front of it almost in a police line to make sure some passed out concert goer wasn't killed as we drove over of their comatose body.   Then there were the young ladies who wanted to hitch a ride with us on the bus, or who thought that the bus was that night's group leaving, and thought they might be looking for some groupies.  They were quite a crowd at those outdoor concerts, and they were a great remote…even if now I have no idea who's show we were broadcasting! So thanks Laurie…there you have the story of Bob Deitch's World Famous Pina Coladas, and the WPLJ Dr. Pepper Concert remotes!

Remotes

Over the years I've been in radio, I've been involved in hundreds of remotes.   They've run the gamut from me being alone with a Shure mixer and two radio lines in an office buried in the bowels of Yankee Stadium (meeting the need to NABETize the Network World Series radio coverage one year when WABC was the Yankee Flagship station), to multi-borough location (including the Goodyear Blimp) remotes involving most of the station's personnel (The NY Marathon when WABC did wall-to-wall coverage).  The one thing that all remotes have in common is that being out of the radio station, you're out of your comfort zone. And where you go from there is often not within your power! One of the earliest remotes I remember doing at WHN was the night of the 1972 Presidential election when Richard Nixon was re-elected over Democratic Senator George McGovern.  Nixon won with over 60% of the popular vote and an incredible 520 electoral votes, so it was an early night. But that's not what I remember most.  What I remember most is being sent down to the Roosevelt Hotel, being assigned my position in "Radio Row," and setting up for the night while I waited for WHN reporter Joe Bragg to join me.  My first problem was that I was sent with little in the way of equipment.  My second problem was that I was assigned a position next to an older gentleman from WOR Radio who had more remote equipment with him than I even knew existed!   Getting the radio line connected to the mixer was easy enough (but my WOR friend had a state-of-the-art Shure remote mixer while I had some old Collins mixer that looked more like a portable typewriter). And when it came time to hook into the pool audio distribution box, I had another problem.  The box was set up with Hubble connectors which I'd never seen before or since. They were for audio distribution which, of course, I didn't have.  So I had to call back to the station, they had to get a Hubble connecter and make a cord and then get it down to me.  And what did my WOR friend do?  Well, while I sat there waiting, he just opened up a small black suitcase that was FILLED with every type of adaptor known to man!   It was truly a beautiful sight to behold. Each adaptor was securely fastened in its place, ready to be retrieved and used on a moment's notice.  Oh, and what did I use to call back to WHN to tell them I needed the adaptor?  Well, in the early 70s, when even the idea of a cell phone was high science fiction, and when the man from WOR had a nice dial phone, I had a box that I needed to crank in order to create the current which would buzz a buzzer back at the studio!  Can you say cheap?  But wait, there's more, and the biggest embarrassment is yet to come.    Despite my relative young age and lack of experience, I was 22 at the time and in my 6th month of working in professional radio, and despite my lack of equipment compared to some of the engineers from other New York radio stations, I was doing my best to look like I belonged.  All that went out the window when I reached into the remote case, and took out the AM radio I was to use to monitor the station for Joe's reports.  Rather than have a radio in stock or go out and buy one for the coverage of the Presidential Election returns, the ever-cheap Engineering Department at WHN went to the Promotions Department to get a radio.  So what did I get?  Well, I reached into that case and took out a screaming yellow Panasonic Toot-A-Loop radio, and instantly any hope of appearing to be a professional went right out the window!   I think I'll remember that radio and the look on my WOR friend's face for the rest of my life! At WABC, I've done more remotes than I can even count and I'd have to say that I was always better equipped than I was at that WHN remote.  Many of the remotes over the years had a common element. That's the story I'd like to tell here.  It's the story of the WABC Remote Bus! During our early talk years here at WABC, we seemed to do remotes all the time.  It could have been our big time coverage of the NY Marathon, our annual St. Patrick's Day Parade coverage, broadcasting the Art Rust Jr. Sportstalk Show live from Jets' training camp at Hofstra University, participating in Queens Day festivities at Flushing Meadows Park, or Bob Grant's show live from City Hall Park during a huge demonstration.  The thing all these remotes had in common was the WABC remote bus. The idea was simple.  Since we do all these remotes, so let's have a vehicle built that's ready at a moment's notice and equipped with exactly what we need.  Contact was made with an RV builder in the Midwest, and a contract was drawn up.  Plans were made, and drawings of custom furniture and walls were passed back and forth.  It was going to be a great facility with a "studio" across the back of the bus, separated from a "control room" in the middle of the bus with a soundproof wall with a big glass window.  The floor was to be elevated for running cables, the roof would be raised for added ceiling height, and there would be a viewing platform on the roof that could be used for a different perspective of events.  It was to be equipped with multiple cell phones, a built-in PA system, great logos on the outside, and a bathroom, fridge and lots of other comfort features for use during long remotes.  On paper it looked like an ideal tool.   On paper!    One of the first things we noticed when the bus got delivered to WABC, was that the floor did get raised to facilitate studio wiring, but the roof didn't get raised to match.  We never figured out if it was a miscommunication or a drawing that was changed during the design process and never noticed. Perhaps it was the need to trim some items when the project went over budget, but the reality was a lack of headroom in the back studio.   Hard with taller hosts, production folks and guests…great for engineers like Mike Maimone and me!  Not only did the roof not get raised, but the viewing platform really didn't come to pass either.  Oh sure, there was a ladder up the back, but when you got to the roof, there was a roof!   Now that we had a new toy, the powers that be were hot to roll it out and to show it off at a remote.  This was great, but upon delivery, none of the "radio" equipment was yet installed.  Rush orders were placed for equipment, and emergency overtime was authorized to get the radio part of the bus built.  Because of the rushed nature of this work, not a lot of flexibly was built into the engineering areas.  The bus was basically built for the first remote we did with it.  The by-product of this was that every time we tried doing something different with the bus, the only way to change what it did was to re-wire. There were lots of those early remotes that I remember engineering with the consol opened up, and WABC Transmitter Engineer Larry Mussman inside with soldering iron in hand! One huge problem with the bus was the fact that it was much longer than the chassis that underpinned it.  That meant that the back end was about 10 feet behind the rear wheels, which caused the rear to make a huge swing in the opposite direction the front was going every time it was turned.  An early remote we did with the bus was broadcasting WABC all morning from opening day at Yankee Stadium.  The location of the broadcast was right across the street from the Stadium in the Players' parking lot.  I don't know if you have ever been to opening day at the old Yankee Stadium, but having been to several during WABC's tenure as the Yankee Flag Ship station, I can tell you that they are crazy, busy days, with loads of fans, press, and virtually everyone who knows anyone in the Yankee organization in attendance.   We were scheduled to go on the air at 6AM and the bus was parked in an Players' empty lot several hours before that.  Our remote broadcast was to last till the Yankee pre-game show and the lot was very full by the time we broke down the remote.  Parking the bus in an empty lot at 3 AM had been no problem, but all morning players, members of the press, and VIP guests had parked around the bus making the job of getting it out difficult.   There was lots of back and forth maneuvering and adjustments to mirrors. There were folks running all around checking various clearances, kind of like a scene from the 50's Lucy and Desi movie, "The Long, Long Trailer!"  After 10 or 15 minutes of maneuvering, it looked like it was free.  I'm not going to mention the driver's name (no…it wasn't me), but lets just say that he forgot about the huge swing the back end made.  Suffice it to say, the freeing of the WABC Remote Bus from the Yankee Stadium Players' Parking Lot was not without cost.  The cost was the front bumper of one of the player's cars the back end ripped off as the bus turned to the right and the back end pivoted to the left!  After that episode, a mandatory driver training course was instituted for all who might drive the beast! Then there were the 3 installed cell phones that were part of the telecommunications equipment on the bus.  This was back in the 80s, when unlike today, everyone didn't have a smart phone in their back pocket.  A cell phone was kind of an unusual item back then, and these phones saw their share of private calls as well as business calls made during a remote.  Problem was, although the bus did have a generator and the ability to be powered by land lines, the phones were wired directly across the vehicle battery.  I remember one Queens Day remote when, after a day of broadcasting, Mike Maimone, Jimmy McGuire, Al Gold and I had packed up our equipment and were prepared to leave the park, only to find that the bus had a dead battery.  It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't to be the last time the bus left us high and dry! Here I am a long time ago engineering  a remote in the bus. Note the 2 Shure outboard mixers stacked on top of the ITC Cart Machine As the years went on and management changed, the remote fever diminished at WABC and the Remote Bus was relegated to more of a PR role.  One of its last tasks was as part of a VIP entertainment area for clients at home football games when we broadcast the Jets.  Mike Maimone would drive out to the WABC transmitter in Lodi, pick up the bus and drive it to the Meadowlands on his way to engineering the Jets broadcast.  Eventually it was decided that the bus had outlived it usefulness and Chief Engineer Bill Krause was tasked with finding it a new home.  I believe the ownership was transferred to one of the ABC west coast stations and they sent someone to New York to drive the bus to its new home.  Frankly, the bus had led a checkered life at WABC, and Bill was happy to be getting rid of the responsibility.  He met the driver at the airport, drove him to the transmitter, gave him the lowdown on the bus, and sent him on his way.  But even that was not to be the last we'd hear of the bus.  The next morning, Bill told us that the previous evening, from somewhere in mid Ohio, he had gotten a call from the driver.  No, it hadn't broken down, rather the driver was asking Bill's help as he was locked in the bus and couldn't get the door open!  Try as he might, he just couldn't get out and wondered if there was a trick to it!  There were lots more remotes over the years at WABC and WPLJ, and perhaps I'll revisit this topic in the future.  Just off the top of my head, I can remember the WPLJ Dr. Pepper remotes at Waldman Skating Rink in Central Park, when Chief Engineer Bob Deitch's main role was running the blender to make pina coladas.   Or the remote that Kevin Plumb and I did at the New York Auto Show where we got locked in the Javits Center after the show closed.  Or remotes with Art Rust Jr., Curtis Sliwa, Bob Grant, Sonny Block, Joy Behar, and many more all over the tri-state area, and the stories that go along with most!