One Day Before the Launch of The Master CraftsMon

Yesterday was Saturday. The days seem to leak together at times. I wandered up to KEOS at about 4:30pm CST and got ready to load some programs. Yes, KEOS buys programs and someone has to be there to put them on the air. I pulled a couple of VHS tapes from the satellite fed VCR's and rewound them. Alternative Radio comes on at 6pm. Getting a VHS tapes cued is always a hassle. I popped it into the VCR connected to the sound board and messed with it until it cued up. One of the engineers for the station was there and we searched a Macintosh for a document to print out music playlists. No luck. I loaded the CD for Earthsongs in CD#2 and the daily Jim Hightower in CD#1, potted up those devices so I could just push play on the CD players and the program would go out over the air. After the engineer left, I continued to look for the blank playlist document. Like an idiot, I did not watch the time. I rushed in at 1658 and waited for Southwest Stages to end. I cut Southwest Stages off at 15 second before the top of the hour and gave the Legal ID, KEOS 89.1FM College Station and promptly pushed... the wrong button. After moving back and forth between Hightower and Earthsongs, I got Hightower on the air. I said, "Oops" over the air and that was the end of it. Once Hightower was over (about 2 minutes), I played the Earthsongs over the air. I went back to looking for the blank music playlists.

Oh, you don't understand what I'm talking about.

The music playlists

If I play music over the air, I have to write down the artist, song title, album name and music publishing company. I do three music shows in addition to Master CraftsMon:

Afternoon Musica - Monday, 1400-1600 CST - Classic Rock 
Music in the Morning - Wednesdays 1000-1200 CST - Celtic Music 
Morning Air - Fridays 1000-1200 CST - Blues and Jazz

We're out of blanks ones right now and the engineer was going to go make some copies. KEOS is all volunteer, including the nonexistent secretary. If we had a paid staff, then we would not have to worry about the logistics of the station. BUT that is not the case. No one gets paid at KEOS and where all the stuff we use to keep it going comes from God knows. I surely do not.

I am holding the 3 two hour slots open until someone volunteers to take those slots. We've had less than 10 people get through training since June. It's not hard training. I don't know what the problem is. Thank God, it is not my problem, per se. I mean, if I were charge of training, I would be the pushing the trainees hard to get through and take over these slots, so I can concentrate on Master CraftsMon. Most of them would give up and go away.

By the way, do you want to have a music radio program? I have three you can have... they're cheap... honest... you go through our training program and I will give you one or all of them. Come by the station at 207 E. Carson in Bryan, TX, fill out the application and get the process started. Within 12 weeks you can be on the air. And I do not mean, twelve weeks of training, I mean, 12 individual lectures you have to go through. That's all. The problem we have is that people are not willing to make those 12 trips to the station. Why? Got me.

I must say that I do not like any of the music programs I do. I am just not competent enough in music to put on shows like this. I never bought many tapes or records or CD's, so I do not have a collection of music like some of the music show hosts. I signed on to do an experimental talk show. I'm doing the music shows, because no one else can or will.

The Sound Board

Oh, I will have to post a set of pictures of the sound board. It's just a set of sliding switches hooked up to various sound devices. Our sound board has two cart player (kind of like 8 track tapes), four microphones, 3 CD players, and 2 turntables. In addition there is a tape player (music used to come in these little 4 1/4"X2 3/4" boxes), a VCR, an MP3 player and three satellite feeds.

I've used all of these on shows on KEOS, except the carts. I don't know whether the station still uses those or not. Not my business. I worry about stuff I have to use, not stuff that other people use.

Each device can be connected to the air using a sliding switch on the sound board. The sliders are potentiometers (Wikipedia has a good writeup on this device) with settings from 1 to 10. The goal is to keep the needles on the soundboard out of the red. If the needles on the sound meter peg (go out of the red and become so high that the sound meter cannot measure it), then the listeners are getting a distorted sound. Some recordings on CD's or coming off the satellite feed are too low, so the pot has to go up toward 10. I have to set my microphone to between 2 and 3, because my voice seems to peg the meter easily.

If you are wondering why it is taking me so long to cut up the script and put it on this blog, well, I have to think about it. I have problems starting things. Most of my life I have been working with crisis management situations. Someone would call me in to fix a computer software problem after the project has gone critical. It has not trained me to do startups which Master CraftsMon is. I do not think there is a show like it on the web. I could be mistaken.

That's the one thing you have to get through your head. Failure is an acceptable outcome for a project, if you use the failure as a learning experience. The fear of failure as an excuse not to try is a copout. In times past, when you failed, you died or someone killed you. In America, you can fail ten thousand times and, if on the 10,001st try you succeed, people applaud and the history of failure is a source of pride. People in America admire a man that tries, fails, and tries again. It is the source of our national strength. America is an experiment. We have failed more times than we have succeeded. The reason we are so successful, the only world power, is that our successes are real dillies. We've worked out a method whereby the people that fail do not die or give up. A person who fails enough times and learns from each failure becomes a master craftsman, the best in their field. Something to think about. I gave you the example of Jesse Owens above. We shall be talking about him in depth.

Ah, well. I have other things to put up for the show. I get sidetracked occasionally. Try to keep up.