This is a scratchpad post to collect “stuff” for the upcoming 50th anniversary of WORT.  Cautionary notes: the newsletters and other documents behind the “click here” links are hosted here on my site.  Also — this is still under heavy editing/development (I’ll take this warning down when I feel like it’s close to done).

My interest is in the first two and a half years of Back Porch Radio — from a few months before it was incorporated until the station went on the air.  If anybody has any tips or info, please let me know.

Wishlist of documents

• Initial application for the FCC license (locations -FCC archives (Engineering File in hand, still looking for non-engineering exhibits)

Key Dates leading up to going on the air

WI Dept of Financial Institutions – Articles of Incorporation – click here

• 12/13/1973 — Back Porch Radio Broadcasting, Inc. is incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.  Articles were drafted by me, with a lot of help from Robert Jay Stein (our Washington DC based lawyer), Terry Clifford and Tom Thomas (Terry and Tom eventually became the founding staff — and arguably leaders — of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters).   Filed with the state by Mike O’Connor (as incorporator).  Mark Korbell (a colleague of mine from WHA) and David Deveraux-Weber were the other two initial board members.

FCC “Broadcasting License Record” — This FCC microfiche summarizes the process of applying for the license  click here

Key Dates and Documents (click on the links where I’ve got copies of the documents — thanks to Melissa Askew at the FCC and Samual Flores of Berry Best Services for their help on retrieving these).  Click here for a zipped archive of all the documents they retrieved.

• 4-12-74 — BPED-1816 — Application for construction permit — first received by the FCC — written by Terry Clifford, Tom Thomas and Mike O’Connor, engineering by Jeremy Lansman, filed by Robert Jay Stein.  This copy is from the FCC’s Engineering file and is missing most of the narrative parts of the application (the non-engineering ones) I’ll keep trying to track those parts down.  (click here)
  • HAAT (height above average terrain) – 149 feet,
  • ERP (effective radiated power) – 8.54kw
  • Antenna – Gates-FMA-3, 3 bays
  • Transmitter – RCA-BTF-3 (3kw output power)
  • Location – 101 E. Mifflin St (the top of the YWCA Building) –  43°04’34″N 89°23’09.0″W
  • Funding Guarantee – $10,000, provided by Mike O’Connor
    
• 5-25-74 — Letter to WORT and WUWM — notifying both applicants of an interference collision between our applications encouraging us to work it out between us.  WUWM (Milwaukee) was pursuing a very complex application for a major facilities change.  Neither of us were aware of the other application because they arrived at the FCC almost simultaneously. (click here)
• 8-16-74 — Our amendment resolving an interference issue — in which we reduced our proposed transmitter power from 3kw to 1kw in order to avoid disrupting the application from WUWM.  Engineering by Jeremy Lansman, submitted by Bob Stein and Mike O’Connor.  (click here)
• 9-20-74 — Request for information as to the availability of the operating funds we described in our application.  They’re comprised of a loan of $10k from Mike O’Connor and additional money from donations and fundraisers.  Another exchange I don’t remember, but we must have satisfied them with our response.  (click here)
• 11-14-74 — Construction permit granted!!  Woohoo!   This was probably when we fully came out of “stealth mode” and really started promoting the project to the Madison community.  (click here for the permit and here for some FCC internal engineering working papers)
• 1-17-75 — Call letters assigned — we first applied for WART, but by the time our request arrived at the FCC that call had been snapped up by an “arts” station.  John Ohliger (RIP) mentions my bright (and quickly shot down) idea of WOMB in his “Early Days at Back Porch Radio” speech.  (click here)
• 5-13-75 — Application to amend the Construction permit to move the station from Capital Square to 2047 Winnebago St — written/submitted by Mike O’Connor, engineered by Jeremy   Note the cool WORT stationary created by Jeff Lange.  There’s also a letter from Earl Fessler confirming his commitment to lease us his facility for the princely sum of $175/month.  I wish he had been in better health during those days — that lease had a lot to do with getting us on the air as quickly as we did. (click here).
  • HAAT (height above average terrain) – 104 feet,
  • ERP (effective radiated power) – 3.975kw
  • Antenna – Earl Fessler’s Collins 732-A, 4 bays
  • Transmitter – Earl Fessler’s Collins 37-M-8 (rated at 8kw(?, Pat Ryan, serial number?) but we only used the first, 1kw, stage) output power 1kw
  • Location – Earl Fessler’s old WMFM studios at 2047 Winnebago Street – 43°05’35.0″N 89°21’12.0″W
  • Funding Guarantee – $10,000, provided by Mike O’Connor
    
• 8-4-75 — Application-to-move-to-Winnebago granted (click here)
• 11-6-75 — FCC Form 341 — Application to transition out of Construction Permit to fully-licensed.  This is primarily a technical document demonstrating that the station was capable of broadcasting in accordance with FCC standards.  Prepared by Pat Ryan and Mike O’Connor.  (Click here) 
• 3-9-76 — Broadcast License granted (we went on the air under the Construction Permit and ran that way for several months before the permanent license was granted). (Click here)
• And not really an event, but something people tend to forget — CETA funding.  For the first few years, much of the staff was paid for (not very much, though!) by CETA grants.  It’s hard to imagine how the station could have become so impactful in its early days without that funding.

First broadcast – December 1st, 1975

Many thanks to Aaron Scholz who recovered and restored this recording from the original recorded by Richard Mahler (RIP) who’s no longer with us.  Richard was focused on audio and news news production and Spanish-language programming and recorded our broadcast from his home.  Click here to read his recollection of that event in the “WORT – 25 Years of Community Radio” book.

I’m running the board and was spectacularly unprepared for the broadcast.  I hadn’t previewed John Ohliger’s demo broadcast and cut away from it abruptly when some reversed audio appeared.  To compound my error I blamed John for the problem.  Argh!  But wait, there’s more.  I also hadn’t checked to see if the next show I cut away to was ready to go.  What a mess.  It’s no wonder Richard panned my effort in his article.

Here’s a list of the voices I recognize and the first few places they appear:

Key Events/Dates of the Big Upgrade – late ’70’s

This section got too big for this post – click here

Scans of early newsletters – Spread the WORT

 

Volume One Number I – click here for the whole issue

Published April 1975

I’m missing this one — any help tracking one down would be much appreciated.  All hail Doug Ranney, audio-archivist at WORT.  He just sent me a link to his scan of the issue which I’ve poached and posted above.   He’s got LOTS of historical material (and might be interested in some help with his archiving effort).

Volume One Number II – click here for the whole issue

Published mid-summer 1975

I write about how these alternative institutions we’re creating provide value to da peepul who do the work.

Don Alan – writes about how decision-making was coalescing in the emerging program, news and music committees.  The consensus process that we evolved at WORT left out (at least) one thing — how to avoid the single-person veto — so we had some really exhausting meetings.

Jeff Lange (RIP) – writes about the implications of the decision to abandon our plan to house the station and transmitter on the Square and instead rent Earl Fessler’s old WMFM studio, transmitter and tower on Winnebago Street.  In hindsight, that probably saved us a year or more getting on the air.  Note:  we organized and put that station on the air in 1 year after we came out of stealth mode with a  construction permit and announced the project to the world.  Not bad!

Somebody (me?) – provides a status update on the big accomplishments since the first issue came out.  The first example of the staggeringly small amounts of money that powered the effort.  Raised $4000, spent $1,800.

Don Alan – writes about the National Alternative Radio Konvention, which, since we didn’t have enough to do getting the station on the air, I volunteered us to host.  Don’s opener captures this pretty well.  “A National Alternative Radio Konvention (NARK), so unkle Mike hasn’t been dragging us halfway to the moon by our ears with endless dribble about a “pie in the sky” radio that’s listener-sponsored, with community input and free-form programming.  No folks, skeptical as I can be, this scheme is real, crazy maybe, but NARK displayed that it does work and it’s beautiful.”

John Ohliger (RIP) and I – write about the two community-radio cultures we hearken from.  John writes a story about Pacifica and I write about the KRAB Nebula.  KRAB Nebula was Lorenzo Milam’s gang of crazy people (including me) who founded lots of community radio stations in the early 70’s.

WORT made it into Lorenzo’s list of “Sympathetic Broadcasters” in his third edition of Sex and Broadcasting.  Click here for the list.  The entry must have been written between the end of 1974 (when the CP was granted) and mid 1975 (when we signed the deal with Earl Fessler) because WORT’s address is my apartment on Midtown Road, Verona (much less snazzy than what’s out there now).

Gay Eder (aka Goldie) – shares the recipe for a WORT-shake and writes about our outings to salvage an old Wisconsin Public Radio transmitter.  She reminds us of my accidentally not shutting off the 440 power to the transmitter thus almost electrocuting Mark Stoelting (another WHA engineer who, along with Pat Ryan and Al Reiland, built almost all of the audio and radio infrastructure at WORT).  Other senior engineers at WHA very quietly helped us as well but chose to remain anonymous at the time and I’ll continue to honor that promise unless we can track them down.

That transmitter was our third — Jeremy Lansman had one that we specified in the application, this one was the one we were planning to use until the third one (Earl Fessler’s Collins) came along.

So this one eventually made it’s way to Cincinnati and became the transmitter for Nan Ruben and Steve Lewis’s WAIF (Stepchild Broadcasting) project.  I drove the transmitter out there in my van and participated in getting the transmitter on the roof.  There was a very tense moment when the crane that lifted the transmitter to the top of the building turned out to be just a foot too short for the transmitter to clear the knee wall around the roof — so the crane operator “swung” the transmitter over it and a few people (with no safety gear at all) “caught” it and lifted it the rest of the way over the wall.

Jerry Dahlke (RIP) – writes about the two benefit concerts that happened that summer — one by Bonnie Raitt (who would later return for a repeat visit).

Themes:

The layout — these early hand-drawn WORT newsletter just gun me down.  My memory is that Jeff Lange did the the heavy lifting but it seems like others must have contributed too.  Pay especial attention to detail when looking at the front-page layouts.  Astounding.

The crystal — several mentions of the new crystal that we needed to buy in order to re-tune the transmitter from the WMFM frequency to WORT’s 89.7.  That re-tuning, not just of the ancient transmitter but also the antenna, is the gating item that needed to get done before we could go on the air.  Pat Ryan bore the brunt of the pressure on that Herculean effort.  I did the tower-climbing stuff (dismounting and remounting the antenna and coax, and tuning the antenna).  The first time up the tower was terrifying — Jeff Lange (RIP) was my spotter — we sat at the bottom of the tower cried together when I got back down to earth.

The advertisements — are a wonder to behold.  Some bring back fond memories of Madison in that time (and of their owners, who were our sponsors).  Others are just a laugh riot and display wondrous creativity.

 

Volume One Number 3 – click here for the whole issue

Published in November 1975 — the last issue before we went on the air.  The period leading up to the December on-air date was grueling for Pat Ryan, Mark Stoelting and Al Reiland, the engineers who carried us across the finish line.

Undetermined author (me?  Jeff?  Don?)  – chronicles the “whole history of WORT” which lays out a timeline of events that mirrors my recollection.

• WORT was a new project (and corporation) that came after several prior community-radio efforts, including David and Danielle Deveraux-Weber’s Human Radio Corporation.
• I was set on this project by Lorenzo Milam after I told him that I was following my sweetheart Carol Patterson to Madison.  My recollection is that Lorenzo provided funding that supported the effort to apply for the FCC license but I never knew the details.  Terry, Tom and Bob (see immediately below) might.
• The first year was the “stealth” effort by Terry Clifford, Tom Thomas, Jeremy Lansman, Bob Stein and me to shepherd an application through the FCC without letting anybody in Madison know about the frequency that Jeremy had found for us (for fear of drawing a Petition to Deny like the ones that had stalled similar efforts in Minneapolis and Chicago).
• The second year was the very-public year-long effort to organize and build the station that quickly added the core volunteers who you’re reading (or reading about) in these newsletters.

Jeff Lange (RIP) — writes about the “curious fack” that nobody can quite explain how decisions get made at the station.  A lovely piece that reminds me so strongly of Jeff every time I read it.  I really miss that guy.  I think David Chandler had it right when he wrote in WORT – Madison: 25 Years of Community Radio   “To this day I believe Jeff was the indispensable person at WORT.  He could do almost anything and he did — wiring, carpentry, paste-up, painting, carpet-laying, writing, artwork, ‘requisitioning.’  He launched ideas and provided inspiration of all kinds, and eventually carried a ten-ton load of recruitment, training and production work.  Despite his deeply guarded personality, Jeff was a leader because he was a doer.”

I will add another unsung contribution — the Back Porch Radio Handbook published in 1977.  It’s a revised version of the KDNA Handbook which was written and assembled by Tom Thomas and published in the January 1972 edition of KDNA’s program guide Fat Chance.  This remains one of the most succinct summaries of the goals and values of the community radio movement that I’ve ever read.  It would be neat to update it again, given today’s digital reality.

Unknown — writes about the horrific radio interference that overwhelmed WORT’s immediate neighbors.  Living right next to a broadcast station is miserable because of that interference – which is allowed (and protected) by the FCC.  We did what we could to help, but…

Progammers! — write program listings!  For their programs!

Unknown authors — write program listings!  For tapes from Bill Thomas and Betsy Rubinstein’s NFCB Tape Exchange (see below).

John Ohliger (RIP) — writes about his hopes, dreams and fears about what WORT might become.  I think the 50th would have seen him smiling broadly were he still with us.

David Chandler — writes about the number and variety of formats of shows that will appear on WORT — comparing it to the (then dying) “Progressive” radio format.

Jeff Lange (RIP) and unknown others — lay out the first edition of the Program Schedule — a masterpiece of hand drawn and hand lettered design that occupied the centerfold of the newsletter.  A stupendous undertaking.  Capturing the pioneering programmers who all worked hard at non-programming tasks too — as that was kinda the expected thing, doncha know.

Don Alan — reports on the “constitutional convention” meeting of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters in Columbia, MO (hosted by Pat Watkins, Steve “Checker” Dreher and the other volunteers at KOPN) that followed up the NARK meeting.

John Ohliger (RIP) — writes an invitation for folks to create radio dramas at WORT.

Themes:

This was the last of the three “pre-air” newsletters.  There were a lot of people who had worked really hard to get us to that place.  You’ll have seen articles by some of those folks, but check out the centerfold Program Guide for lots more.  And there were even more than that.  For example, the people who did the engineering (Pat Ryan, Al Rieland, Mark Stoelting and many others) don’t appear in these pages for the most part.

I love this issue because it captures the Whole Thing — the excitement of an oncoming launch, the exhausted satisfaction from many big accomplishments and jobs well done, the hopes for the future.  Pretty darn nifty.

 

Volume Two – January 1976 – click here for the whole issue

Jerry Zeiger — writes about the effort he led to build up a record library for WORT.  A daily event was the hoped for arrival of new records — some days none, some days a couple and on Good Days five or more.  All had to be cataloged, ID’d with colored tape on the end and shelved.  I think Jeff Lange built the shelves, which looked pretty empty at the beginning.

John Ohliger — writes about Media Interbang, a weekly commentary about bias in local TV news coverage. .

… and more…  i’m still working on this stuff…