George Thomas Remembers Dave Sanjek

A friend died recently who was directly responsible for my start & style in radio. Dave Sanjek was on WCNI in the fall of 1972 at Connecticut College For Women (the year the school went co-ed) doing a jazz radio show. He was playing absolutely amazing selections but talking for what seemed like a half hour between each cut. I called him up at the station and said something to the effect of, “you're playing great music, man, but you talk too much." He got off the air at the end of his show, asked around and found out who I was and showed up at my dorm room with a stack of LPs under his arm.

We started listening to what was, at the time, very rare jazz, delicious stuff, and then he noticed the photos all over my walls from The Farm & Wilderness Camps in Vermont where I had been a camp counselor that summer . It was an instant trade. He found the summer camps of his dreams, I got a start in radio and a lifetime education in music: jazz, Holy Modal Rounders, Dave Van Ronk, on and on. We also shared a love of poetry. He gave me Living/Dying by Cid Corman and Hayden Carruth's great poetry anthology The Voice That Is Great Within Us.

In my 39th year of radio, I think of him every show I do. Thank you Dave for all of it: the 20 page catch-up letters with writing so dense you could walk on it; your dad’s record collection; your mother’s exquisite Chinese cooking; the joy of an obscure movie. You shared it all. I miss you terribly. And yes, Oliver Nelson’s solos on Blues And The Abstract Truth were the best.

Studs On The Radio

"Working With Studs" will air at 7 p.m. July4th on VPR.

In all honesty, when I saw the name of this program, I thought it might be some ironic piece about beautiful radio hosts whose faces are never seen.

It didn't take me long to find out that Studs is a singular proper noun. "Studs" is the name everyone called Louis Terkel. Studs Terkel, I learned, is THE original iconic radio voice of Chicago.

I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of him before! Talk about long running shows, The Studs Terkel Program aired on 98.7 WFMT Chicago five days a week from 1952 - 1997. He's known for preserving the oral history of the American working class, in their own words.

Studs' energetic voice is nothing short of inspirational. His charisma and curiosity brought out the truth people didn't even know they had in them until they were interviewed by Studs.

Our own Walter Parker interviewed Studs Terkel in 2005 to promote his book, And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey. And after his passing in 2008, Commentator Bill Mares recalled his experience with Studs Terkel.

Tune in Monday night at 7 for "Working With Studs," a remembrance told in a seamless blend of documentary and reminiscence by a crew of Stud's co-workers paired with previously unheard tapes of Studs himself.

Why Radio Is So Cool

As a VPR listener you know there are a myriad answers to that question, but today, it’s all about two words:

Tropospheric propagation.

I should back up. We got this email from a listener over the weekend:

I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion and I got a lot of static, which happens occasionally on 88.7. I caught the call letters of the interfering station, WAGP 88.7, Christian Radio from Beaufort, SC serving the Savannah, GA area with 100,000 watts. I live in Porter Corners, NY on the first rise of the Adirondacks at 1000' elevation. This is amazing reception for FM. I just thought you would like to know.

Might seem strange, but this is actually an annual phenomenon, according to Rich Parker, VPR’s director of engineering: This time of year always brings reports of reception of distant stationsin various places around the country. In case you would like to know more about this phenomenon, there is an excellent article on WikiPedia here.

Radio is so cool!

A Dark & Stormy Night

A troupe of young actors from the Flynnarts summer camp program spent the day at VPR recently creating two radio plays. Under the direction of the Flynn's Joan Robinson, the young campers created sound effects and acted out their parts in the VPR Performance Studio. It looked and sounded just like the radio theatre of the '30s and '40s. The rain came down, thunder boomed and mice skittered across the floor as a mini drama the children wrote themselves unfolded.

They also performed an episode of the radio theatre classic, "Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy".

VPR's Senior Audio Engineer Sam Sanders recorded and mixed the finished product.

Learn more about the Flynn Center's camps and classes.

Learn more about "Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy".

From the Mountain to Your Radio - Your Pledge at Work

VPR Director of Engineering Rich Parker send this note yesterday:

It's the first day of our membership drive with volunteers answering phones and we always get a lot of questions about how VPR signals get to various parts of Vermont. When VPR started, there was only one transmitter, WVPR at 89.5 - it was on the top of Mt. Ascutney, overlooking Windsor, Springfield and the Connecticut Valley. Due to the faithful and generous support of our listeners and underwriters over these past years, we are now able to broadcast across the state of Vermont and nearby border states from nine full service FM stations and fourteen low powered translators - carrying VPR News and Information and VPR Classical to our listeners.

Because of technical advances and innovations, and with some infrastructure support in the form of grants from CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) we are also able to provide the new digital HD radio to our listeners. With the capability for 'multi-casting' - putting multiple program streams on one frequency - we are able to serve our listeners better with more of the program services they enjoy. This is particularly important as we continue to expand our VPR Classical network - in areas where there is not an available signal for VPR Classical yet, it can often be heard on the HD-2 multicast channels of our other VPR News and Information stations.

But how does all this get to you - or more importantly, how does this all get into your radio? VPR has the majority of it's transmitters atop many of the high mountain peaks of Vermont. Today, we'll show you a little bit of the WVPS facility atop Mt. Mansfield.

The picture above was taken in late October, shortly after WVPS went on the air with it's new antennas, on a brand new tower atop Mt. Mansfield. The day before, tower riggers had just finished installation of the last panel antenna - it was a beautiful and sunny fall day!

As you can see from the picture, Mt. Mansfield can be a difficult place to work for much of the year, but the high elevation is key to the wide reach which WVPS has across the northern part of our state. When you turn on your radio to 107.9, you can picture the radio waves coming out of those panels at the top of that tower, going through all that ice and snow, and finally ending up at your radio receiver. While it sometimes seems like magic, it is the result of a great deal of hard work by our capable and very talented engineering staff - who sometimes have to go up there to work under less than ideal conditions.

We'll be profiling our other sites as time goes by - I hope you'll stay tuned; and I hope you'll make a pledge - we really couldn't do it without you! For the VPR Engineering staff - Mike Seguin, Brian Marshall, and Asa Sourdiffe I say 'Thanks for your support all these years!' 

Rich Parker, GSEC
Director of Engineering
Vermont Public Radio

Sunsets and Radio: Bringing Us Together

Who says November in Vermont is bleak and colorless? Probably no one who ever caught one of our signature stunning autumn sunsets! In a time when technology can occasionally work to isolate people it's comforting to be able to still have a shared human experience like a sunset that simply stops you in your tracks. Radio is like that too. Last evening's sunset pyrotechnics were followed by the Will Patton Gypsy Jazz Ensemble's red-hot performance at 8 on VPR. Could it get any better than this? [If you missed the show, you can listen here: Will Patton Live on VPR ]

Cheryl Willoughby
VPR Interim Director of Programming (and fan of great sunsets and swingin' gypsy jazz!)