ICQ Podcast
If you haven’t subscribed to the ICQPodcast produced in the United Kingdom by the father and son team of Martin & Colin Butler, you’ve missed a good listen! What I’m about to say may deter your future listening but I hope it won’t!
I’ve joined the team as a U.S. correspondent, reporting on significant happenings in amateur radio from “across the pond” here in the former colonies. It was back in my early 20s when I last created, mixed, and otherwise produced any audio content. As founder of the campus FM radio station at Georgia College, then WXGC, I spent four years, from freshman to senior year, getting the idea of a campus radio station like WREK at Ga Tech in Atlanta or WVVS at Valdosta State in Valdosta, GA across to administrators and fellow students. Milledgeville (GA) had country music on WMVG (AM & FM) but we had little to no rock-and roll. We worked to take over the Student Activities Budget Committee with 7 students and two of the Faculty/Staff members voting with us to get the meager funds. Finally, a 10-watt Harris FM transmitter kicked on with my former roommate Greg Duckworth as the lead DJ. I moved on to help build a local AM commercial daytime station, WXLX, there in Milledgeville. I served as the first News Director for the 1060 News program there until I left for graduate school. While I held a FCC Commercial Broadcast License, I didn’t learn the code. In grad school, forget it! I was lost in the reading just to keep up with classes. But I never forgot the thrill of “lighting the lamp” each morning when I opened and when the red light came on in the news room through the glass from the main control station.
When Martin & Colin mentioned the need for a U.S. correspondent a few months ago, I sent along a note with a meager contribution to their ‘cast saying that I would be happy to work with them. The current podcast, Series 6, Episode 9, is my first appearance on their show. They may have other U.S. correspondents as I agreed to do at least a monthly segment….but I’m proud to be one of them!
If you have any news items or things of interest, feel free to send them along to my call sign at arrl.net.