My Personal Recollections of the Beginning of WORT (community radio in Madison, Wisconsin) by David Devereaux-Weber My first recollection of radio was as a kid listening to the stations my parents and grandparents listened to. I was in Janesville, so I heard WCLO (AM), the Chicago and Milwaukee stations. My dad liked to listen to the Milwaukee Braves and the Green Bay Packers on radio. My own first radio was a Philco transistor radio back in the 1960s. Ray Gronier, my uncle was an engineer for WHA in Madison, and I still remember my first tour of the WHA Transmitter in the early 1960s. When attending Janesville Senior High School, Miss Hermina Knapp ran the 'Radio Pep Club', an after school activity. It was a fifteen minute high school news show taped at the high school, and played later at WCLO. My older brother Tom Weber and Mark Timpany participated in the show. Mark and Tom got part-time jobs at WCLO. Mark has always had a smooth deep voice, which sounded good on radio. He was allowed to announce. Tom was a 'student engineer' - he played tapes and records (this was long before compact discs). Back then, Vern Williams was the station manager, Caps Sutherland was the program director, and Bob Daily, Dave Fish and Tom Clark were some of the announcers I remember (Daily is now station manager, Clark is now on Wisconsin Public Radio). I followed Tom Weber as a student engineer in 1967. Often at least one of us kept the others company on the weekend shifts, and we went out to a restaurant after sign-off. Tom and I appeared to be quite different back then. He was a hawk, I was a dove. He got an appointment to the Air Force Academy. I attended the UW Parkside (between Racine and Kenosha) from 1969 to 1971. These were the years of the Viet Nam War, the hippie, anti-war movement, counterculture period. It was during this time that Mark and I read several of Marshall McLuhan's books, including "Understanding Media" and "The Medium is the Massage". In 1971, Mark and I went to Washington DC to protest Nixon's bombing of Cambodia. The war and the anti-war movement had become an incredible force in my life. When we got back to Racine, Mark and I were drawn to Madison by the anti-war and counterculture movement. By this time, Tom had followed his interest in journalism to rise to editor of the Talon, the Air Force Academy newspaper. He made the mistake of writing an editorial critical of the powers-that-be, and was kicked-out of the Academy and shipped off to Thule, Greenland. Although he started out as a hawk, the military gradually helped him to see the error of his ways. He came to oppose the war. After his stint in the Air Force waqs up, he came back to Janesville and went to work in the News Department at WCLO. He died in 1974. This was also a turbulent time for the radio industry. Youth became a powerfull new demographic. FM radio was under-utilized in the mainstream radio industry. The radio establishment had a problem - not many people had FM radios, the range of FM was smaller than that of AM, and most stations programmed their FM station as a 'simulcast' (broadcast the same program on AM and FM simultaneously). Since there were so few FM radios, separate programming for the FM side would generate too little advertising revenue. It was not too difficult for counterculture people to get some time from an FM station. In Madison, we started to hear 'Up Against The Wall Radio' on WMFM and 'Radio Free Madison' on WIBA-FM. Despite the fact that they had a 'Class B' license (which meant they could go up to 50,000 watts, WMFM had a short tower on the east side, and so had a small service area. We joked that with the short tower, they warmed-up the neighborhood with the power. WMFM did not have an associated AM station, so they had tough going selling commercials. Also in Madison, I found Peoples Office, an "underground switchboard". Peoples Office operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and kept track of community events and resources. Anyone could call and find out when and where anti-war demonstrations were being held, where to get free medical help, what to do when experiencing a "bad trip" on LSD (the group called Acid Rescue), and so on. A Peoples Office staffer did an occasional calendar announcement via telephone on Radio Free Madison (WIBA-FM), a predecessor to WORT's Insurgent Radio Kiosk. It is difficult to describe the tangible sense of the culture and the counterculture during this period. Mark and I had experienced the potential of radio, and the frustration of commercial radio. We had to do something -- the revolution that McLuhan had described, as manifest in the anti-war movement and the counterculture -- was going on all around us. In 1971, at the Whole Earth Co-op store on East Johnson Street, we discovered "Sex and Broadcasting", a book about alternative radio by Lorenzo Milam. Milam described the Pacifica stations and other community stations. Milam also operated the "Alternative Radio Exchange", a newsletter about alternative or community radio stations. Mark and I created "Human Radio Corporation", a non-profit corporation, put together some letterhead stationery, rented a post office box, took out an ad in the Alternative Radio Exchange, and started to put a community station together in Madison. We got a letter from Mike O'Connor, who had helped aother community station start, and was interested in moving to Madison. Mike came to town, and took a look at what we had done to that point. He didn't think the Human Radio Corporation bylaws would work in obtaining tax-exempt status from the IRS, and didn't like the name. Mike put together the incorporation papers and bylaws for Back Porch Radio Broadcasting. We started to have regular meetings, and began to recruit interested people. From November of 1971 to November of 1972, I worked as an engineer for WLVE(FM) and WIBU(AM). Both stations operated out of the WIBU studios in Poynette. WLVE was the former WWCF, started by William C. Forest (WCF) in Greenfield Township, outside of Baraboo in the Baraboo Bluffs ("WWCF, high above the Baraboo Bluffs"). Forest had also started WIBU (Wind Is Being Used) in Poynette. Forest sold WWCF to Tom Holter, who changed the call letters to WLVE ("Love Stereo") and changed the format from MOR (middle of the Road) to AOR (Album Oriented Rock). Jim Packard (now of Wisconsin Public Radio) was the Program Director. I also worked as an engineer for WTSO from August 1973 to March 1977. WTSO was owned by Midcontinent Broadcasting. The General Manager was Roger Russell. The Chief Engineer was Sherman Stern. I remember Roger was very interested in the beginning of WORT. I'm not sure if he thought he was trying to gently let me know that the station had no chance of survival, or if he was simply facinated with another approach to radio. During this time, Midcontinent purchased the FCC License and transmitter of WMFM from Earl Fessler and turned it into WZEE. Midcontinent moved the transmitter out to 5700 Tokay Blvd., adjacent to WKOW Television (Channel 27). When Midcontinent raised the antenna height from about 100 feet to 1000 feet, the coverage increased dramatically. I remember a time when I was working for Midcontinent and Sherm had me helping him move the transmitter from Winnebago Street to Tokay Boulevard. Midcontinent had purchased a new transmitter, but wanted to use WMFM's old Gates transmitter as a backup transmitter. (Sherm had no use for the even older Collins transmitter - he thought it was junk. It was later to become WORT's first transmitter.) I remember that Earl Fessler had started to clean the transmitter's disposable fiberglass air filters with a vacuum cleaner (Mr. Fessler was always frugal). Sherm noticed some new filters in a box, and took some money from his pocket to buy the new filters from Mr. Fessler. I also worked for Complete Channel TV, from 1972 to 1980. Complete Channnel TV became TCI Cable of Wisconsin, then Bresnan Communications, and is scheduled to become Charter Communications in 2000. I used some Complete Channel tools, test equipment and supplies to help put WORT on the air. The Complete Channnel TV office was next door to WTSO/WZEE and WKOW televison. Midcontinent Broadcasting was a part owner of Complete Channel, and had recently sold WKOW. In addition to Mark Timpany, other early engineers were Pat Ryan and Al Reiland (of WHA).