A Cape Cod Tradition

My next stop would come at WQRC, a "light adult contemporary" radio station in Hyannis, Massachusetts. They billed themselves as a "Cape Cod Tradition". I was to be the on-air talent overnights, three days a week... part time. It turned into five nights a week at times as they rotated people in and out. The skill they appreciated most of mine was (go figure) my computer skills.

The station was automated. But at night, they needed to take the automation off-line and defrag the hard drive where the sound bites, commercials, weather, news and other such things were recorded throughout the day. Funniest thing the operations director (who was not much older than I was) said to me was, "Wow, you sound better without the automation." Duh!? Doesn't everyone. Eventually, the OD would change and the new guy who came in was pretty cool. In addition, the guy on after me (the morning shift) was a guy named Dave Reid who had also got his start at WRPI, as a member of the community. And the guy on before me (who's name escapes me) was personal friends with Tony Bennett. He even got to go to the Soupbowl[1] with Tony when he sang the nation anthem.

WQRC has changed a lot since I was there, from what I can tell on their web page. New staff, new format (I think). They were featured in the movie Summer Catch starring Freddie Prinze Jr.

Anyway, this was a great experience. I was there a little over a year (I think) and I got to do commercials and be a voice in an indy movie and help improve the automation. So much so that they didn't need a live body to read news and weather, they could get it off the satellite feeds. And with FCC rules changing, a live body wasn't needed to take meter readings.

Yup, I helped put myself out of a job. I decided that would be the last of radio for me.

[1] The NFL won't let people use the real name of this event so I'm just going with the flow.

Fate rears it's ugly head