WWSC countdown to 75 — Remembering reel-to-reel tape

This is the latest in an occasional series of posts leading up to the 75th anniversary of Glens Falls radio station WWSC on Dec. 18, 2021.

Bob Bayle remembers the transition from recorded disk to reel-to-reel tape recordings for commercials aired on WWSC.

It was tricky because there were four or more commercials on the same tape.

“It was a pain in the neck because you had to find the right place on the tape,” he said.

Bayle and Don Metivier, in the late 1950s, used to hang out at the WWSC studios on the second floor of the Rialto building on Warren Street.

One weekend in 1958 announcer Bob Jennings had a Sunday morning remote broadcast and Jennings asked Bayle to take his Saturday night shift.

That’s how Bayle became the regular Saturday 10 p.m. to midnight announcer for a little over a year while he attended Siena College in Loudonville.

Roy Akins, 17 at the time, showed Bayle the ropes the first night.

“Back then, of course, you had the records, the turn table. You had the board.”

Akins, whose formal first name was Le Roy, later partnered with Jennings as the DJ team Bee Jay and Roy Lee.

WWSC management thought Roy Lee sounded catchier.

Akins later was an engineer at at WFIL, a high-power radio station in Philadelphia from 1964 to 1971.

He returned to Glens Falls in 1972, and in 1973 started the Adirondack Community College broadcast program.

He later was Glens Falls mayor.

Bayle returned to WWSC part-time from 1964 to 1968, filling in as needed as an announcer and newscaster on weekends and summers during his day job as a science teacher at the Glens Falls school district.

Being a radio personality help him bond with students.

“So my students got a kick out of that,” he said.

There was a new twist when Bayle returned to radio in 1964. He had to pay a fee for a Federal Communications Commission broadcast license, something that either was not required or was overlooked in 1958.

Bayle said he learned a lot from WWSC broadcaster Sheldon Bullock.

“He was a character — that guy. … He was a fountain of knowledge about jazz.”

Bayle said he preferred evening shifts to drive time because he had more flexibility about what songs to play.

“I usually went to the easy listening — the Barbara Streisand stuff.”

For news, he either read Associated Press wire reports or reports that news editor Fred Carota, a former Post-Star reporter, had written during the day.

“He really knew the people in town. He could get the stories. He made the calls.”

Bayle detested filling in as host of the WWSC “Speak Out” listener call in show.

“I didn’t like that because you’d get some real characters calling in.”

Sources: Feb. 25, 2020 oral history interview with Bob Bayle; The Post-Star June 9, 2007

Click here to read the most recent previous post in this series.