WBPZ AM-FM Lock Haven

Before I continue on with the WKAD story, I noticed I had forgotten a very interesting part of my radio past, the 11 months I spent as the "Evening Guy" at WBPZ in Lock Haven. Some time after I left WLYC in 1966 I went to see the late Harris Lipez at WBPZ looking for a full time job. He had none, and told me to come back in early 1967 as he felt he would have an opening at that time. True to my word, I appeared in January 1967 at the station, and true to his word he said that he was in fact going to have an opening for the night shift, 5:00 PM to Sign Off (1:05 AM). I guess that Harris admired the fact I had remembered for so long and he hired me to start in February, just prior to my 20Th birthday.

WBPZ was a very interesting place in many respects, Harris' brother, Judge Abe Lipez was a stockholder as was Bill Piper Jr. or Piper Aircraft, all in all, there were a passel of stockholders, I believe over 20 some owning as little as 1/2 %. The station was located down town on the third floor at 132-1/2 E. Main St. Below the station on first floor was the Lock Haven Lunch, (best chili dogs and fries I ever had) and a furniture store. On second floor was a J.W. Church meeting hall. I remember how much I hated to arrive late, as I drove 55 miles one way and had to run up the steps arriving out of breath for the 5:00 PM station I.D. or when there was boxes of teletype paper to bring up. The delivery driver would stack them on the landing and the first few steps and each employee (male) was expected to bring one up with him.

When I first started there the control room equipment was the original stuff they had signed on with some 20 years earlier, an old RCA board, and turntables, one of the old EV long mikes, some newer cart machines and a Gates Spot Tape unit. That was an interesting idea from the days between producing commercials on reel to reel and the first broadcast carts. The unit had a manual slide track selector for one of 42 different tracks that could run up to 90 seconds. The tracks were recorded on a very wide magnetic tape belt, that would break at the most inopportune moment, causing all tracks to have to be re recorded, usually my job. The dis advantage, other than breakage, is the you could not play tracks back to back, and the rewind made a horrid noise like someone shoveling scrap metal. The control room also had two Magnacorder reel to reels, one (PT 6) dedicated to Unkle Joe's Woodshed's 5 minute commercials. Unkle Joe's was a discount store "on the hill in Flemington." The other was a "maggie" 1023 a great machine to do editing and recording. The usual assortment of remote controls for the AM and FM, monitors (both modulation and frequency) and one great patch bay that you could do just about anything with. It was not too long after I arrived, 4 or 5 months that the owners sprang for a new console a Gates "Gatesway", new turntables and another cart machine replacing the Spot Tape unit. I remember stying overnight as Al Stratmon the Chief Engineer and I installed the new board between 1:00 Am and 6:00 AM, we made it, but morning man Jim Eckert had to put up with Al and me under the console running wires to the patch bay.

The staff ws quite large, as you may imagine, for all programming, with the exception of 3 hours a day from Mutual Radio Network in the evening shift, was live, and even that was tended to by yours truly. When I first got there Jim Eckert was doing mornings 6:00 am to 12:00 noon. After Jim left to go teach at Career Acadamy Broadcasting School in Milwaukee, he was replaced by Chuck Studley. Jim Remick (JRZ) was on Noon to 5:00 pm and I was 5:00 Pm to 1:00 AM. John Lipez, Harris' son was the News Director along with Keith Kline, and Joe Hutchinson, Sales was handled by Dick Yohe and Benny Mathews, in the office was Jane Edwards (I think) Barbara Yohe and Ray Reese the Comptroller. Part timers included Barry Stott, Marc Sommer, John Salomone, and Randy Dory. The station was busy commercial wise and carried a lot of sports. If I remember correctly Harris Lipez was inducted into the Pa Sports Hall Of Fame a few years before he passed away.

My shift at WBPZ started as I said at 5:00pm, from 5 to 6 I played kind of an easy listening format and lots of comemrcials. On the Half hour we had Mutual News and a short sports feature. From 6 to 7 was the news block, local, and then Mutual commentary. 7 to 9 was more Mutual feature programming. I can't for the life of me remember when they were. This time was spent by me in one of two ways, either doing my production, or sitting at the back of the control room, looking over Main St in Downtown Lock Haven. That was pretty nice in warm weather, in that college town! One other thing I did while I was on the air was to write the local news for 11:00 pm, making police and fire calls. I started my music shows at 9:00 with "The Music Hall." From 9 to 10 I played Top 40, from 10 to 11 is was country, 11 to midnight big band/easy listening, and from midnight to sign off at 1 am it was classical. I really did have to do much in the last hour as Dick Lipez, and son of Harris, recorded the intros and outros to the show and left a music list. During that time I usually finished up my production and caught a bit of the Tonight Show on TV. At 1 am, I did a 5 minute news cast and signed off. The station also carried Philadelphia Phillies baseball. Not being much of a sports fan, it was quite boring and my attention span was to say the least, short. My duties during the games was to do the station I.D.'s and insert any local commercials. The games were fed on lease telephone line, like Mutual Network, and if that system when down, we had an agreement to pick up WRAK's FM signal for the game broadcast. That was a good back up EXCEPT, that station I.D.'s could be a bit tricky, since you had 10 seconds you had to "pot down" the feed and insert your call letters and pot back up for the game. If someone, or everyone, was a bit slow, or the game announcers called for I.D.'s too quickly then you might hear far more than your own. That happened one night, I suspect everybody was asleep at the switch, and at least three sets of call letters made it on the air before WBPZ's.

As I mentioned earlier WBPZ carried a lot of local sports, Harris Lipez and Keith Kline were the play by play team. Since this was way before cell phones we had a system. They would go to the school set up and if they were within range listen on the FM. I was instructed when to monitor the line, in cue, and when they asked send a tone over the air to let them know I was receiving them. This usually worked pretty well, notice I said usually. One night they were, I believe, in Bellefonte for a game, I was listening, and they came on the line right away. Keith called for a tone and I sent one, there was a push button on the console, no response from him. I hit is again, still nothing. In the mean time he is calling for tones, I keep sending them. I was monitoring the air signal, so I know they were going out. I even cut the audio and sent nothing but tone for 10 seconds. Keith and Harris were getting pretty agitated with ME because I was not answering them, which as I said I was. I got listening to the line carefully when they were not talking and low and behold they had a State College station, close to WBPZ's frequency on their radio. Finally Keith said something to the effect "I'm going to go call Kel and read him the riot act." Well, I was READY! A few minutes later the unlisted line rang I answered and Keith was in high boil. I interrupted his fuming, and said, "I've been sending you the tone, but you won't hear it with your radio on the wrong station!" Keith said, "oh," and hung up. A few more minutes went by and I hear Keith back at the microphone. Harris asked if he got through to me and set me straight, Keith said, I think we are listening to the wrong station. I hear them tuning it, and all of the sudden they finally had the station. They called for a tone, so I cut audio and laid on the tone for a good 30 seconds. They laughed and apologised to me and said "looks like we've got you now."

Keith Kline was not my favorite person at the station, but for the most part he left me alone. He was usually doing morning news so he was long gone when I came in. I remember he left sometime while I was there, but I don't remember where he went, or for that matter even care!

I left WBPZ in November of 1967 to become WMPT's News Director, that chain of events is mentioned elsewhere in this BLOG. I did return to WBPZ in 1970 for a few months to do the Saturday overnight shift. All in all WBPZ was not a bad place to work, a good staff and a lot of talent. I had the opportunity to see Harris one last time in about 1996, I was in Lock Haven making calls for my business, Watts Multi Services, and stopped at the station. It was almost as if I never left! They had moved to Belefonte Ave, but there was John Lipez, Jane, Randy, and Mark, it was nice to see them all and I will cherish the time I had with Harris that day as we talked about the old days!

Well that is my look back at WBPZ, I hope I remembered everyone and the good times we had there!