In The
Beginning...
My earliest recollections of wanting to broadcast on shortwave go back to when I was in 5th grade. I had an Astronaut-5 from Radio Shack to listen to the BBC. One day I was visiting a friend who had an old Hallicrafters Radio and noticed on the radio that there was a switch on the unit labeled "send" and "receive". Was it possible to get a transmitter for shortwave that easily? I had fantasies of getting a radio like that and starting my own station. Little did I know what was involved in operating a "big" station like the BBC.
Eventually I kinda lost interest in shortwave and my interests turned to other things. When in Jr. High School I redeveloped a lost love for trains, a love that I have not given up since. Also in Jr. High I started doing DJ work for the dances at school. I practiced a lot at home and developed a real knack for mixing and sound engineering. In high school I started doing roadie work for some bands and it landed me working as a roadie for a few big name groups like The Police, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, and the Stray Cats. I used to love to travel to the different towns and see different things and see new railroads.
After high school, I worked at a few local pizza shops and kept doing DJ work. I always wanted to have my own station.
One evening my Mom was telling me about a guy named "Captain Midnight" and how he pirated over the Playboy Channel (or was it HBO?). The news was full of stories about "pirate broadcasting". I decided that I was finally going to do it.
I started going to hamfests and looking for a unit that had a microphone input (that is how limited my knowledge was). I found a unit that was an E.F. Johnson Viking II. I bought it for $50.
I had no idea how to operate it and found an old ham named "Norm" who showed me how to operate it. He showed me all right! I showed me how to burn it up! Now I had no transmitter and was afraid to take it anywhere because I didn't want to get turned in.
I communicated with people I saw in Popular Communications, and finally was able to meet up with some people that were able to help me get the Viking repaired and get my station on the air.
Action Radio was born. I gave the location "From the City Of Three Rivers" an obvious reference to Pittsburgh. The FCC bought it too. I was on the air one night and they were driving around Pittsburgh looking for me. A friend at a station in Pittsburgh called me and told me about it. He said that after I signed off they decided to pull an inspection on the station that he worked at and found a few violations and pulled that station off of the air until an engineer could come and correct the problems.
The name Action Radio came from a sign I saw in an old house (Norm's house to be exact). I was working at a pizza shop and thought that there might be a station in operation there. I went around back and saw a real antenna farm. Norm was a ham who even had a tuned tower! He gave me the sign and it still hangs in the room where the studio once was.
My original slogan was a parody of international stations from Cuba and South America. Nobody ever caught on that the interval signal was a parody of Radio Habana Cuba.
I originally got on the air with a Heathkit DX-60 loaned to me by Radio Animal. Later the Viking was repaired and I was ready to go on with it. Damn! What an improvement. My signal was kicking out all over the country! I was quite impressed!
