July 2024
NOTE FROM PRESIDENT WAG
Members,
Mark your calendars!
These are the dates and link for upcoming AHRS Business meetings for the remainder of 2024. All are on Mondays at 7:00 PM. Details of the December meeting (which is in-person at the Shop and is also our annual holiday social) will be sent prior to the event.
DATES: Aug 26, Sep 23, Oct 23, Nov 25
LINKS:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86330579924?pwd=ckZLWEJMb0V2ajhBUzh0S2liQnlmZz09
Meeting ID: 863 3057 9924
Passcode: 631140
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Those pesky WIFI internet outages at the Shop seem to have been corrected but let one of the officers or board members know if you encounter any problems at the shop.
Harry Butler, who authored the book on the history of Alabama radio broadcasting entitled: Alabama’s First Radio Stations 1920 -1960 History of Radio Broadcasting in Alabama, died in June was working on its 2nd Edition at the time. We have been in touch with daughter Sydney Gunter who will be a family contact as we work to bring this work to completion and publication. She also sent us a photo of an AP broadcast journalism award , he won in 1972.
Boyd Bailey’s electronics class was held at the Shop and via web on August 3rd. This is the first of a series designed to take us into solid state electronics, keeping a focus toward the application to vintage equipment and radios of the 50s, 60s and 70s. This also provides the platform to review basics that apply to everything we do in radio restoration. Topics included:
1. Review of basics, Ohm's Law, and Kirchhoff's Law (including how to pronounce)
2. Introduction to the RadioShack Learning Lab, "Basic Electronics, Transistors and Integrated Circuits, Workbook I", by Forrest Mims. See the link below,
https://www.zpag.net/Electroniques/Kit/Radio_Shack_Electronics_Learning_Lab_01.pdf
3. Fundamental 'breadboard' techniques and orientation to include:
- Workbook I pgs 1 thru 13
- Overview of some potential projects
- A look at a couple breadboarding lab devices
The September class is tentatively scheduled for the Saturday after Labor Day, the 7th. Note:
The following link should work for future classes in perpetuity (or until otherwise notified):
Topic: AHRS Radio Restoration Class
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88180351990?pwd=N2lucjB3WVhtR05nTSs5S0xGcURadz09
An email to the “regulars” from Boyd and to the membership at large will be sent closer to the event.
Our latest auction is not yet scheduled as we need to restock and recover from August’s upcoming activities:
· We are exhibiting at the Alabama Broadcasters Association annual meeting on August 8th in Hoover.
· The Board of Directors and Officers meeting (by invitation only and in person) will meet on Tuesday, August 13th.
· On Saturday the 24th, we plan to host Boy Scouts interested in radio and the Radio Merit Badge at the stop for an educational session.
· We are planning a major radio history exhibit at the Homewood Library, starting November 1, 2024. Anyone interested in assisting with the preparing the exhibit please contact Steven Westbrook.
And the big August event, the Huntsville Hamfest, is approaching on Saturday, August 17th, 2024. (We are only there as a Society on Saturday.) We surely can use volunteers to help select items, transport them, and man the tables. Please let us know if you can help! We really need assistance from those with ham experience to help select items of potential interest to attendees. Let me personally thank Dee Haynes and John Herndon who have taken the lead restoring a Johnson Viking transmitter that is now cranking out about 100w CW.
Joe Dentici III brought his two kids to the shop to visit the radio studio his father ran, which is now one of our exhibits. During his visit, we recorded a short oral history of his time working at the station while showing the children how their granddad broadcast primarily 1960’s Top 40 music from his home. We’re working on editing and archiving the audio.
The Alabama Record Collectors Association met at the Shop for their July 21, 2024, meeting.
A project that has been seemingly ongoing “forever” is tube sorting and storage. Often, it has often appeared to rest mostly on the shoulders of John Outland; think Atlas in Greek mythology. Lately, it has become very focused thanks to the leadership of John [center], Ray Giles [left], Grady Shook [right], and Gene Samples [we did not get him in a group shot but can assure everyone he is not buried beneath a tube avalanche], and other volunteers. Once completed, we will have some more information about the new storage situation!
We are reviewing our requirements as a not-for-profit to assure we are in compliance with our obligations as such. This work has largely been done by our new Executive CMTE (EC) comprised of elected leadership, plus a member from each of the three classes of Directors and Dave Cisco, Board chairman.
The cataloging of our equipment holdings is set to begin, in anticipation of uploading to the museum management software PastPerfect. A grant request to CAWACO RC&D was made several months ago by VP Steven Westbrook, on behalf of AHRS to support this effort. A grant for the expenses incurred was received a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to everyone involved.
Last month’s puzzler:
A tease for next month’s column? My good friend of over 40 years, a retired family doctor who also loves tech (but not Dr. Boyd Bailey), decided to ask an AI program to write poetry about me, as a physician, and one who likes to (mostly aspires to) repair antique radios. We will let the AHRS editorial board and its poetry CMTE decide if any of the results are worthy of reprinting….
Respectfully submitted,
Wag
President, AHRS
drminims@aol.com
Joe Dentici
(Article from Bhanwiki.com)
Joseph A. Dentici Jr (born May 25, 1945; died June 29, 2006), also known as Russ Knight was a highly-regarded broadcast engineer, a disc jockey for WSGN, and the operator of a pirate radio station.
Dentici, the son of Joseph and Clara Dentici, grew up in Mountain Brook, graduating from the Birmingham University School and the Elkins Institute in Texas. He began his radio career working with WYDE in 1965 and WYAM in 1966. He joined WSGN in 1967 as that year's version of "good guy" Russ Knight. He also worked with WAQY.
After graduating college in 1969 he went to work McClendon Broadcasting, the Jackson, Mississippi-based owner of several Southern stations formatted for African American audiences. He helped to build the equipment that got WENN-FM 107.7 on the air in 1969. In 1975 he took over chief engineer duties when Carl Martens retired.
The next year WENN went into receivership after McClendon died. Manager Joe Lackey formulated a plan for the staff to buy the station. After a few unsuccessful attempts to secure a loan, they approached A. G. Gaston, owner of Citizens Federal Bank. Instead of approving a loan, Gaston bought the station and relieved Lackey of his duties. This provoked a walk-out of the staff, including “Tall Paul” White, Erskine Faush, Shelley Stewart, Maurice King, Pat Williams, and Weldon Clark. After “Tall Paul” White read an announcement, Dentici shut down the transmitters. The incident made national news, with black employees striking over the firing of a white manager.
Later that year Lackey was offered management of WATV-AM, which had a 1000-watt transmitter and operated from a room on the 20th floor of the Thomas Jefferson Hotel. After refusing to sign after the owner's rejection of "black music", Lackey countered by offering to run the station for 90 days at his own expense, after which the owners could do as they wished. In one 12-hour overnight span, Dentici and WATV's chief engineer overhauled the broadcast equipment for a relaunch, with Tall Paul opening the show with Maxine Nightingale's "Right Back Where We Started From".
The publicity generated by the ordeal helped WATV become the number one rated station in the period immediately following the relaunch and WATV is now owned by Stewart and Faush.
In 1987, after WSGN had closed shop, Dentici began recreating the WSGN show for oldies-format WCRT-AM. He spun singles from 45s, provided his own patter, and aired archived promo spots and period advertising. When he left WCRT the next year, pleas from the Alabama Record Collectors Club and Birmingham Record Collectors Club convinced him to keep the broadcast going on pirate radio.
Dentici's pirate station operated on Tuesday evenings from 7:00 to 10:00 on AM 1610 and FM 100.1 from radio equipment in the attic of his Mountain Brook home. Club members would gather at the Shoney's outside Eastwood Mall every week to listen in on the broadcasts. During the day Dentici worked as an engineer for WBHM-FM and the shortwave broadcast (WEWN) for the Eternal Word Television Network.
He helped Ray Edwards, the chair of the mass communications department at Jefferson State Community College, re-engineer WJSR-FM. Dentici's WSGN recreation went legit with permission from Gadsden State, who owned the rights to the WSGN call letters, and a Saturday night time slot on WJSR. Meteorologist James Spann chanced upon the broadcast and became a fan and friend of Dentici's, contributing weather reports to the station.
In 2000, Dentici retired from EWTN and he and his wife, Suzi, moved to a house on Neely Henry Lake where he began airing 60s music from his home-built station to his Ashville-area neighbors on Saturday evenings. His home station is on display at the Alabama Historical Radio Society Shop in downtown Birmingham, Alabama.
He and Suzi divorced in 2001. On June 28, 2003 Dentici remarried. He died in June 2006 of complications from leukemia and was buried at Elmwood Cemetery. Dentici was posthumously inducted into the Birmingham Record Collectors Hall of Fame in 2016.
Columbus Took a Chance"
....Joe Dentici on 'the WENN incident'
The late Joe Dentici was a radio engineer of legend ... he helped get WENN-FM on the air in 1969, notable as being one of the first black-formatted FM stations in the country. He was also known as Russ Knight on WSGN, and spent years as an engineer for EWTN Radio's shortwave complex in Vandiver. In addition, Dentici was also a much-beloved "pirate" broadcaster, entertaining many in the late '90s with recreations of the classic WSGN 610 from a studio he constructed entirely from refurbished radio gear (the turntable you see in the picture he literally rescued from a trash dumpster in Tuscaloosa!). He built the transmitter he used, and did all the equipment restorations himself. "Russ" truly was the last of a radio engineering breed, and we sadly lost him in 2006.
A couple of years ago, Dentici generously provided this first-person accounting of an upheaval in Birmingham radio in the mid 1970s, something which attracted national attention: an all-black DJ staff walking out in protest of the firing of a white station manager! -Webmaster
= = = = =
I was a part of the firing of WENN's white manager. His name is Joe Lackey and is to this day one of my closest friends. I have never in 40 years of broadcasting been around a man of such genius. A close second would be Ben McKinnon at WSGN. Men like these are rare.
Negro Radio or Ebony Radio as it was called back then was a different animal and Joe Lackey understood this. He treated his people with respect and in return earned theirs. I know because after graduating college in 1969, I went to work for McClendon Broadcasting based out of Jackson Mississippi who owned WENN and twelve other Negro oriented stations in the South and in Costa Rica. My job was to build 107.7 WENN FM and I'd have a full time job.
The FM was the first station at the time to have live talent 24 hours a day. I worked 10 PM to 5 AM, having Tuesday and Wednesday off. The Chief Engineer was Carl Martens who became a father figure to me. In 1975 Carl retired and expressed his desire that I be named Chief Engineer of WENN AM-FM. Joe Lackey discussed this with the head office and came to me with the offer. At first I declined because I was afraid that I could not fill Carl's shoes. I remember Joe Lackey coming to me with Carl assuring me that I was ready and to give them a decision no later than the next day.
My Father who was still alive at the time told me to do it. My Father was a Civil Engineer and had kept a close watch on me even though he had desired that I follow him in the Construction Industry. We talked a good bit and I told him of my fear. He then took my arm and said "Son, Columbus took a chance" and that's all there is to it. I took the job. Managing six other Engineers and being Corporate turned me into a man.
Carl Martens, six months into retirement, had a stroke and died soon after that. In 1976 I believe, it wasn't long after that John Maclendon died and as part of his will all broadcast properties were to be sold and the funds put in a trust for his family. WENN-AM/FM was sold to a man from Atlanta who had a station there. For the life of me I can not remember his name but WENN was very successful and it supported his desire to continue to buy other broadcast properties. This lead to receivership and the courts appointed an overseer.
Now comes the good part. During this time nothing could be purchased without permission of the overseer. Over a period of time, this man saw how well Joe Lackey managed the station and his relationship with his staff. His views became less stringent. He was so impressed with how WENN was managed. He realized that we had kept the other properties afloat so what I consider a "first" happened. The overseer went on a trip to Europe with his family and gave Joe Lackey control of the daily operations of WENN during his absence. My father told me that just does not happen, but it did.
Joe Lackey came up with a plan for all of us to buy WENN. That included the sales force, announcers, and myself. The station was doing very well but the loan amount was more than the physical assets were worth. The banks wanted to help, but being conservative in nature, they would not give us the loan. We could have paid it all back in 10 years. First National suggested that we approach Citizens Federal, owned by multi millionare A.G. Gaston.
The black employees did not like this at all because they considered him less than honest. Gaston sent down his Vice President, Louis J. Willie, to go over the books. They liked what they saw and bought the station out from under us. That was the last straw.
The announcing staff at that time were:
“Tall Paul” White
Erskine Faush
Shelly "The Playboy" Stewart
Maurice "Thin Man" King
Pat Williams
Weldon Clark
Each employee met with either A.G. Gaston or Louis Willie. None, not one person wanted to stay with this group. Efforts to buy the station for us failed and a little after 7AM, Tall Paul -- who had huge ratings -- read a statement about what was going on in truth to the audience. When he finished, I shut down the AM on 1320 and the FM at 107.7, went to the secret electrical switch shutting down any connections to the remote controls and we all walked out.
This made national news as ABC, NBC and CBS came to Birmingham as blacks went on strike and quit their jobs over a white man. No one could believe it. Somewhere I have a picture taken by Chris McNair of all of us in front of the WENN studios right after shutdown. Chris McNair as you may remember, lost his daughter in the 16th Street Church bombing.
Joe Lackey and myself started searching for answers as for what to do. We had an entire radio station out on the streets. During this time Joe Lackey paid each of us out of his own personal savings. I had come from a comfortable family and my Dad helped me, but the announcers were another story. To the best of my knowledge this lasted for about three or four months.
Some investors out of Fort Worth Texas had bought a daytime 1000-watt station on 900 kilocycles which was located on the 20th floor of the Thomas Jefferson Hotel (later the Cabana Hotel). News of what had happened in Birmingham was all over the broadcast world and Joe Lackey was contacted by them to manage WATV. He could do anything he thought would work ... except go Black. He refused.
In this day and time this won't seem like a big deal but in the early 70's it was unheard of. Many times we were called "ni**er lovers" ... just came with the times. Joe Lackey countered their offer with what I consider the most brilliant idea of the day. WATV could not pay its own power bill. It was a failure in every way. Joe Lackey made this offer: let me take my entire staff to WATV for 90 days. I will pay my people myself and if in 90 days it's no better, we will just walk away and you can do with it what you want. They finally agreed. In life there are some points that you wish did not have to happen, but they do and that was the WATV staff had to go.
I knew the Chief Engineer and this was rough on me as well. WATV was automated with some live talk. The turntables were in the bathroom tub in the hotel room, the console was a 1954 Gates Dulux, the Transmitter was a Gates BC1-E made in 1949. This place was a museum. I did not think it could hold up to what we were going to do. Joe Lackey just smiled and told me, "I have faith in you, Joe". WATV signed off the air at 6 PM and was to return with a different format at 6 AM. I am glad I was a young man because what had to happen in 12 hours was nothing short of a miracle. I had finished putting what we had together with the WATV Engineer and at 5:30 started preparing to go on the air. Tall Paul was there and very nervous as he did like being 20 stories above the ground.
I can still remember walking into the studio that morning and handing him a copy of Maxine Nightingales "Right Back Where We Started From." At 6 AM all hell broke loose as what we were doing had been in every newspaper and TV newscast for a week. Paul's theme was Annette's "Tall Paul Song." The theme started and the phone lines -- and there were six which rolled over -- lit up, the hotel was swarmed by listeners and South Cental Bell's 326 exchange shut down due to overload. We were in the middle of a rating period and when the Arbitron came out, WATV was number one. Every station in the three county area demanded a new survey as this could not be true. Arbitron re-did the survey and WATV was a bigger number one than before.
Not bad for a daytime kilowatt at 900 kc. Joe Lackey told us all in a staff meeting that what we had done was due to the fact that we all worked as a family. Each one of us was a link in a very strong chain. If the chain had broken by one or more giving up this would have never happened. The investors, banks and others never saw what was so crystal clear: a radio station is its people, that's what made us great.
The hotel made us move and we found a building on Ensley Avenue to be our new home. WATV is still there today and is now owned by Shelly Stewart and Erskine Faush. WATV made radio history over again as the first black AM Stereo station in 1982. Frank Giardina put WSGN in Stereo three weeks before I did WATV. As the station was able, a state of the art studio and transmitter facility was built.
My Daddy was right... "Columbus took a chance."
-Joe Dentici a/k/a Russ Knight
February 18, 2005
Article for Birmingham Rewound
Birmingham Records Collectors
39th Annual Record Show, August 16, 2024
2024 Record & CD Show Info
We will have over 100 tables. Over 60 dealers from across the U.S. will have tens of thousands of LPs, 45s, CDs, and other memorabilia.
- Date/Time: Friday, August 16, 2024(11AM-2PM is for BRC members only with the general public hours being 2PM-8PM), Saturday, August 17, 2024 (9AM-5PM) and Sunday, August 18, 2024 (10AM-4PM)
- Location: Gardendale Civic Center. 857 Main Street. Gardendale, AL 35071.
- Admission: $5.00
Dealer Info
- Dealer Set-Up is Friday, August 16, 2024, beginning at 9:00 AM.
- Birmingham Record Collectors P.O. BOX 59533 Birmingham, Alabama 35259
Society Name Badges
We are ordering Society name badges for members. The cost is $8.00. If you are interested in purchasing a badge please get payment to Steven Westbrook, personally, by August 31, 2024
Quote of the Month
What disease did a cured ham actually have?
-Unknown
We meet every Saturday (unless a Holiday weekend) at 8:30 A.M. until around 11:30 A.M., at the one-story AHRS Shop at the corner of 8th Avenue North and 18th Street, (1801 8th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35203). Please use the rear (Southeast) entrance.
The Shop is open on Tuesdays at 8:30 A.M. until around 11:30 A.M. Note that parking can be a problem on Tuesdays, so you may have to find street parking occasionally.
Regular monthly members meetings are on the fourth Monday night starting at 7:00 PM with the Executive Meeting starting at 6:30 PM
Please come join us!
The electronics classes are generally on “Zoom” and “in-person” at the AHRS Shop, typically the first Saturday of each month (except when something special is taking place, then we agree on an alternative Saturday)
Check your emails for the schedule and how to participate.
We start from the beginning Ohms Law, inductors, resistor and Capacitors color codes, as well as what each component does within the radio circuits. We also teach how to use test equipment used in the repairing of radios. We teach troubleshooting radio troubles, as well as how to read a radio diagram.
Currently the class is studying advance topics relating to troubleshooting and project radio repair. We are retooling our website in hopes of archiving prior classes for those who may have missed a prior class. Email will provide timely details on date, topics & links.
There are coil winding classes, and one-on-one repair help. Come join these classes!
Membership dues are $25.00 a year, payable beginning in January. If you have questions about your dues, you can contact Treasurer Mike Woodruff at 205-823-7204. Dues can be mailed to AHRS at P.O. Box 131418, Birmingham, Alabama 35213 or paid on-line at https://alhrs.org
Be sure and check out our website at https://alhrs.org, which has copies of all newsletters from 2006 to the present (click on News), videos, photo galleries, museum, Old Time Radio columns, Projects, Reading Rooms, Archives, and Contact Information. Within the next few months we hope to update our website and add additional content and new capabilities
President – Richard “Wag” Waguespack
(205) 531-9528
drminims@aol.com
Vice President – Steven Westbrook
(205) 305-0679
spwestbro@bellsouth.net
Recording Secretary – Grady Shook
(205) 281-3007
gshook@bellsouth.net
Treasurer – Mike Woodruff
(205) 823-7204
woodruff_michael@hotmail.com
Boyd Bailey, Member and Instructor
(334) 412-6996
boyd.bailey@charter.net
Newsletter Editor/Webmaster – Steven Westbrook
(205) 305-0679
spwestbro@bellsouth.net
Web Address:
https://alhrs.org
E-mail Address:
ahrs2000@gmail.com
Youtube Channel: Alabama Historical Radio Society - YouTube