Comments on: KBSU-AM adds news/talk to 730 AM

By: JC

JC — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:41:53 +0000

You have now lost a listener. I listed to Jazz all day long. Am very disappointed.

By: 20 Years Ago

20 Years Ago — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:35:36 +0000

Wow, it is a small world! You must have been at the station in the early days. By the time I got there, Duane had passed away from cancer. I believe Don was his brother. Cathy was still there and the only other person was Don doing sports. I don’t remember ever seeing any salesmen. The GM who hired me was a guy, I believe his name was Warren, they brought in to make changes after Duane had died. He got fed up because Cathy and Don refused to let him make any changes or cooperate with him. He just didn’t show up to work one day. The station in the log cabin building and was spider infested! I was terrified every day I went to work because I’m scared of spiders. There were everywhere! I was hired as as a reporter, switcher, editor, and anchor for the pre-taped morning show. I would write the copy, set up the camera and record, edit, drop fonts, and do everything myself. I wasn’t there to long before I got the job at 7 and was glad to have the door hit me on the way out!

By: RadioActive

RadioActive — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 02:01:16 +0000

Jeremy- Keep up the good fight. Do what you can to keep the students’ foot in the door. You are right, someday if you have the station you can be able to perhaps conduct a cou’ de ta (takeover) and get it back.

The present student programming and air shifts are oh so tiny but its something to have and to hold. Dont be affraid to develop the current music line up into something that BSU students so value that they will not only protect it as there own but expect more from it and the administration as well!!!!!

By: RadioActive

RadioActive — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 01:57:33 +0000

Cable 8 TV. It is a very small world…..

I still have some Beta 1 arhive tapes I hope to digitize someday and preserve! The station was started in the back end of a hearing aid center on SW 4th Avenue by the present Lumberman’s and what was the Chambers Cable TV HQ. It was then moved to the red log cabin style building over by the I-84 near KSRV AM. You might remember it since it had no working bathroom most of the time. You must have worked with the GM, Duane Kertla (sp) Cathy Yasuda-Miadea (sp) Don (I can’t seem to swallow while I am trying to speak in public or relax my lips either) Allen-the sports guy, Tim (the Sales and PR Guy) Randy Harrono and of course Claudia Weathermon got her start there as well….woopee… It is a small world. Cable 8 went belly up sort of after they were notified they could no longer simocast the WGN baseball or other sports when they got the low power license. They then resorted to other programming… It was a crappy little station to work for…oh the memories!!!

By: Jeremy Miller

Jeremy Miller — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 05:50:00 +0000

As General Manager of the student-run element of the new KBSU line-up, I want to assure Tim and everyone else that the Boise State student aspect of KBSU is still very active. We’re supplying the programming from noon-midnight every Sunday.
Someday there will be greater influence coming from the student body onto the local airwaves. In the meantime, you can listen to us on Sundays, or online where we have music and programming, available 24/7, including podcasts.
http://pulse.boisestate.edu

By: 20 Years Ago

20 Years Ago — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:54:36 +0000

I was with Cable 8 in Ontario. It was so small, I don’t even remember the call letters. I was there for only three months and left to work for KTVB. I’m around, but not in broadcasting anymore. Found good 8-5 work with a major company in Boise and have been here ever since. I’m around. Do you have a personal e-mail you don’t mind sharing?

By: RadioActive

RadioActive — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 02:57:34 +0000

Wish I could say I knew those names. I started UI in 84 but did not switch majors till 85 or so. We had access to the back room edit bay near the break room oposite the engineering offices. It was sufficent to edit tapes and packages for the Mostly Moscow program and do a Resume tape or two. My instructor left a lot to be desired and I was not very motivated by his personality or his teaching styles.

Most of the equipment was crap including the camera which was an old tube unit that on some occasions had a battery pack that only gave you enough juice to get the tubes registered and the white balanced and then it died. They later bought a decent Sony tube camera and better ENG gear for us.

I remember a Ken Sagotta in Engineering who had a great demeaner and sense of humor, Russ was the station manager and the time and their was a Kelly, who was a really nice female student who helped me out a lot keep my cool from time to time. I owe her a big thanks for her patience! There are others that I owe thanks to as well.

There seemed to be a great deal of tension with the administrative staff that could be sensed in the air whenever I was there. It was generated my the malcontents in Boise always screwing something up in some area of the stations operations, funding, programming, fund raising, etc, etc, I felt for them as they knew it was a close call all the time.

I have several 3/4 and betamaxes in storage but not currently accessible. If you would like to preserve your historical productions before the media slides off the tapes, and I hope you will for others as well to come, you can find them very affordable on Ebay, or they occassionally show up at local thrift stores….

Its good to befriend someone who works there and give them list of what you are looking for- most times if you they are sincere they will help you out. If THEY are not sincere, slip them a twenty after the sale as a thanks. Next time you go in you will probably have the back room full of all kinds of electronic gear to choose from everything from Edision machines to STL dishes…

I asked one time what happened to the old RCA TK studio cameras with the turrent lenses hoping they were squirreled away in some dark forbidding warehouse waiting to be rescused but they had been sent to the surplus sale only a few years prior to my term there.

Darn, I would love a TK-44 studio camera or other vintage TV camera for my already crowded living space. I once saw what I think was the tri-pods in the library basement…but we wont go there on that one. That was years before they remodeled the building and I know they are probably part of fender somewhere today.

What city in Oregon did you work for? Stay in touch its good to trade old war stories here.

By: 20 Years Ago

20 Years Ago — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:04:00 +0000

If I recall correctly, I believe the producer of Timber Thieves was Larry Klein. I got to U of I just as he was preparing to leave. The writing was already on the wall as to the future of IDPTV when I was there. Students still had access to much of the goings on at the station. Mostly Moscow had just started up. Seema Sanee (I butchered the spelling on the name) was the anchor at that time. I was a reporter. If I had access to a 3/4 ” machine, I could copy my old stories to disk. Better yet, if I had access to a betamax, I could laugh myself silly when I anchored for a tiny station in Oregon. But I digress…. It was already pretty evident that the legislature wanted to cut the costs of operating the station. They wanted to create a central MC switcher in Boise and have satellight stations in Pocatello and Moscow. When I was there, there were FT MC ops in Pocatello but in Moscow, students were able to pull a few volunteer hours a week as MC ops for the daytime shifts. There were two or three FT ops for the all important night and weekend shifts. My last job in the broadcast media was at KAID. It was there that we went through the complete change where everything was run out of Boise. By then, Moscow was almost already a completely automated station. There was an op at the board mostly to perform microwave switching for classes to WSU. Pocatello had a little more control and their own ops. We said goodbye to all of them and ran everything from Boise through the use of computers and three different program streams. The first computer system was a giant waste of money and time. It didn’t work and it had to be scrapped after a year. So, no more student work there.

STS was spearheaded by two guys, Tom Neff and Steve Barber (RIP). I got involved from the get go and was the treasurer. I remember when we made the World’s Largest Cookie in the Palouse Empire Mall to raise funds. Wow… I haven’t been back to Moscow since I left in ‘85.

By: boiseengineer

boiseengineer — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:31:31 +0000

RE NNC station:
The key words are “had” a station “back in the 70’s”. It just went away.

By: RadioActive

RadioActive — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 18:14:02 +0000

Yes, Timber Theives was a little before my time. But I felt the effects nevertheless. As I understood it, KUID-TV was a top of the notch production house back in the late 70’s and 80’s. The program delt with wood that was “stolen”. If I remember it was cedar wood.

It was packaged and sold to other PBS TV stations and it went nationwide. I never got to see the program but I did get to read the booklet that went with the promotions package. DOES ANYONE HAVE A COPY? At that time companies like Potlatch had so much power due to the natural resource industry being so economically dominate that they could tell the legislature how to think. Just like other sectors still do today…

The University of Idaho had a lot of clout with the Timber, Mining companies, and other natural resource based companies. The entire North Idaho region was booming. A lot has changed and with the decline of such it has left the region still affected. Possibly one of the reasons why BSU has grown so much as the economic growth as been transfered to south western Idaho instead.

KUID-TV created at least one big name from the group as I understand it, he went on to be an executive producer for ABC’s Nightline. There are probably others as well.

The cutbacks in funding to CH 12 pretty much left the station nothing but a shell of its former glory days. Sadly this political crap still goes on and on

STS- The Society of Telecommunication Students was still there in the mid to late 80’s not sure of its current status.

Thanks for your efforts to lobby the legislature- your efforts probably saved the station from being given away or worse. It gave later students the chance to at least experience being in a fully operational TV station as Master Control Operators, or getting hands on engineering training. We did a great many Vandal games and Mostly Moscow programming through the UI School of Communications etc, since we had a working studio to do so.