HomeMy WebLinkAboutBen Downs Talks Shared Frequencies Transcript, WTAW First 100 YearsProject HOLD
WTAW Interview
Ben Downs | WTAW General Manager
Tom Turbiville | WTAW Radio Host
Laura Quezada | Transcriber
00:00:00 Dick Bolin (DB)
Here's the latest news from the Associated Press. Anytime now, the big…
[Unintelligible news broadcaster speaking]
00:00:06 Speaker 2
The Aggies win 74-72! Here's your ri…
00:00:12 Speaker 3
…1620 WTAW.
-------------------------------
00:00:15 Tom Turbiville (TT)
This is WTAW, the First 100 Years, I'm Tom Turbiville. WTAW is now, as all radio stations are,
24 hours, 365 days a year; we never close. But it's not always been that way. Here's general
manager and super historian Ben Downs.
00:00:36 Ben Downs (BD)
We talk to people about how radio works and everything and people think it works today the
same way that it worked back then, but it doesn't. Back in the very earliest days, WTAW would
sign on for 15 or 20 minutes in the morning to give the weather forecast for the farmers and the
stock market report, the stock-- the livestock market report, and then it would sign off. And
another station would come on, WJBO or… or, uh, station K-- KTBC and Austin would come on
and take over the frequency, and then at noon, WTAW had an agreement that all the other
stations would go off the air and it would come on and do the Happy Homemaker Show. And
then after 20 minutes of the Happy Homemaker Show, it would sign off. And so, there were freq-
- the frequencies were shared back then, and if you didn't have anything to say, you just didn't
turn on the transmitter.
00:01:33 (TT)
Back in the 1920s, as a matter of fact, of all people, the University of Texas school station shared
airtime with WTAW. When we wanted to broadcast an A&M football or basketball game, we had
to request the extra time from the FCC. That's the way it was on WTAW, the First 100 Years.