Moose FM (Haliburton) morning show host is broadcasting from his basement.

Meanwhile, in a slightly larger market, a peek at John Moore's base of operations for CFRB mornings, from his Twitter feed.

Great picture, RadioActive. I heard John mention he'd been posting pictures of the "Newstalk 1010 Deer Park Studio" on his Twitter feed and checked it out. As a bit of a tech geek, I appreciated this picture taken out his window which showed his mixing board which is obscured in the above photo.

John already had more of a permanent "home studio" setup in place from his voiceover work. I know Jerry Agar posted a picture of his setup on a table and Ryan Doyle commented his setup is in the corner of his bedroom.

Last edited by AspectRatio (March 25, 2020 3:32 pm)

Thanks for the pic. I love seeing some of these home hook-ups. Hard to imagine that just a few decades ago, almost none of this would have been remotely (you should pardon the expression) possible. I wonder what radio stations would have done then?

Here's NT1010's Jerry Agar's set-up: (Good thing he stands during his show. That chair doesn't look very comfortable.)

I believe this afternoon during the afternoon drive show The Rush on Newstalk 1010 I heard Jay Michaels speaking about the changes in his family with a couple of job losses due to covid19, and that he's either thinking of, or is "picking up stakes" and moving everyone home to the east coast. I was in the middle of something so couldn't listen closely, or to what he said after that. Would Jay be able to pull a Drex and broadcast on 1010 from Fishtown (I call it that with affection having gone to university there) Did anybody else on the big yellow board hear Jay speak about this? It was around the time Doug Ford was first on with them...

Last edited by betaylored (March 25, 2020 11:10 pm)

betaylored wrote:

Would Jay be able to pull a Drex and broadcast on 1010 from Fishtown (I call it that with affection having gone to university there) Did anybody else on the big yellow board hear Jay speak about this?

Yes, you heard correctly (and funny enough, the reroll is airing as I write this). Jay and family are moving out to the East Coast, to the house he already owns out there, and will continue do the show remotely with Ryan from there instead of his "about 11 minutes away from Ryan" Toronto residence. He also spoke about putting items in a storage locker, etc.  Jay indicated he'll fly back to Toronto as soon as him and Ryan are permitted to be in-studio together again.

Thanks RadioActive, Jay will also have to take the one hour time difference into account when he moves back temporarily to Halifax.

Most of the radio hosts seem to have adjusted fairly well to the remote aspect of quarentine broadcasting. They're the blanket brigade, sometimes sitting under the sound dampening material during those times the kids or pets are making noise in the next room. At am640 Stafford at the studio and Supriya (under the blanket) have worked out a good way of passing control of the conversation during a guest interview back and forth, and over on Newstalk John Moore and Robert Turner are back to the usual quips.

Toronto radio is doing a wonderful job being part of the familiar fabric that helps us navigate through these days, it can't be easy but the hosts seem to know that people are tuning in even more than ever for distraction and information, and the sound of another human voice.

Any day now somebody is going to do a hey it rhymes promo "1010 radio, your official isolation station!" In fact I could have sworn I heard something exactly like that air once at the beginning of this past week, I had either Newstalk or am640 on. But I must have imagined it right? I can't decide if the promo worded like that was/would be cheeky and comforting, or odd and opportunistic.

Last edited by betaylored (March 26, 2020 11:27 pm)

RadioActive wrote:

I can confirm that among the promos running on RB, one of them contains the tag line "your isolation station." I also thought it was a bit eyebrow raising but they're using it anyway.

Wowza, thanks a second time RA, at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if someone suggested an Iggynoramus quarentine tagline for this forum: "the big yellow board for the bored!"

Stay safe everyone.😁

My friend works for the Canadian Press, and all their radio newscasters are now doing their national casts from home. Here's his set up in his dining room in downtown Toronto. The excess pillows were put up to cut down on the echo, because his ceilings are 10 feet high and the newscasts aren't supposed to have reverb!

 

This isn't a local station, but personalities from legendary radio station WGN Chicago are now broadcasting from home. The pic below belongs to afternoon drive guy Roe Conn, and what a set-up! (If you're interested, you can see what other staffers are using here.)

[img]https://wgnradio.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/03/Roe-Conn.jpg?resize=1024,768[/img]

I love seeing the set-ups for some broadcasters forced to work from home in less than ideal conditions. In the pics below, an on-air voice for KCBS San Francisco couldn't get the echo out of her makeshift studio, so she improvised with some blankets and a bedspread.

Another staffer was forced to broadcast out of his car for a day, until they could cook something up in a back bedroom. Note the sound dampening pillows in the driver's seat.

See the story on the KCBS site here.

[img]https://images.radio.com/kcbsam/IMG_5457_1.jpeg?width=775&height=&crop=4032:3024,smart[/img]
[img]https://images.radio.com/kcbsam/IMG_2335.JPG?width=775&height=&crop=971:1295,smart[/img]

Yes, quite a nice setup.  I get the feeling that Roe Conn at WGN does his show from home most of the time.
It looks like his home studio has been around for quite a while.

Now that the at home hosts, (except for Mike Stafford of course) and the board ops at the actual radio stations have been doing this for a while, it would be great if the sound levels could be stabilized somewhat.

There's a noticable volume jump when hosts at home throw it back to the station for spots and news. The Rush afternoon drive show on Newstalk 1010 was off the charts wacky yesterday, and constantly turning the volume up cause you can't hear the hosts, and then leaping out of the chair at the loudness of the station end of things gets tiring.

RadioActive wrote:

Is there some kind of a backup generator that runs the equipment or would they suddenly just vanish?

My computers, etc. all operate through uninterruptible power supplies. They keep things humming along for the 10 seconds it takes for the natural gas generator to automatically fire up. During the big ice storm, it ran for 54 hours straight while we cooked dinner for neighbours and entertained them with movies on the big screen. Ah, technology in dangerous times. 

This 12,000 watt unit runs the whole house, including central air...

 

RadioActive wrote:

Dial Twister wrote:

RadioActive wrote:

Is there some kind of a backup generator that runs the equipment or would they suddenly just vanish?

My computers, etc. all operate through uninterruptible power supplies. They keep things humming along for the 10 seconds it takes for the natural gas generator to automatically fire up. During the big ice storm, it ran for 54 hours straight while we cooked dinner for neighbours and entertained them with movies on the big screen. Ah, technology in dangerous times. 

This 12,000 watt unit runs the whole house, including central air.
 

I would love to have one of those but I hear they're incredibly expensive. If you don't mind, what was the price range for that unit, does it power the entire house and furnace and how long could it last if the hydro stayed out for days (as in the ice storm a few years back?) 

I believe you'll find everything but the financial answer in my post above...see RED.

As for the cost, I acted as my own general contractor, prepared and laid out the gravel pad, dug the trench from the house to the generator, ran the wires and gas line, installed the automatic transfer switch and simply hired an electrician and a gas fitter to make the final connections. All told, it came in at well under $4,000 - about 8 years ago. One of the smartest things I've done.  
Oh, and as long as natural gas is coming down the street, it'll keep running. Like I said above, during the big ice storm, it ran non-stop for 54 hours.

P.S. Can be easily adapted to run on propane too.

 

I suppose it was inevitable that something would finally go wrong with one of the big players broadcasting from home. It happened on Friday, when John Moore suddenly disappeared from CFRB around the 6 AM newsbreak, after his remote to the station broke down. Jerry Agar popped up to take his place.

Agar, who was still at his own house, was understandably completely unprepared for the sudden segment, and he kept asking producer Robert Turner what to talk about next. Meanwhile, while the pair was vamping on air, Moore got into his car and zoomed down to the actual studios, entering the Richmond St. HQ for the first time in five weeks. 

He noted that it felt odd being back and he felt compelled to wipe down every button and every mic in the studio. I've heard some odd artifacts on RB since this started, but it's the first time I'm aware of a complete breakdown that required someone to rush downtown to sit in the main air chair. 

Meanwhile, another odd interruption plagued the competition the evening before. Just after midnight, Charles Adler was replaying an earlier editorial on 640 about the Chinese government's complicity in the coronavirus mess, when the signal suddenly went out. (Conspiracy fans would undoubtedly see a sinister sign here, but the truth is the line simply went down.)

What was interesting is what happened next. Stations on automation usually have an emergency file to be played if that happens and it kicked in right away on the Toronto Corus outlet. It turned out to be an old broadcast of another talk show.

Really old.

It was an ancient Tina Tirginani show about taxi drivers and traffic tickets. 

Not only has Tina not done an actual show on the station for years, but it was non-COVID-19 related, which in itself made it stand out. It was from so long ago, that she actually referred to the place as "AM 640" as opposed to the Global News branding it uses now. Maybe it's time to update that one! 

Overall, though, I've been very impressed how well this "broadcasting from home" thing has worked. It's been an amazing test of technology and for the most part, it's come through like a champion.