Re: [IRCA] Where were you on 22 November 1963

["R. F. Tetro" <rtetro@xxxxxxxxx>]

I was in 7th grade general science class.  They made an announcement on
the PA system that the President had been shot.  Then a few minutes
later they announced he had died and dismissed school TFN.  We went back
after the funeral.

My father, who was a 1st Division Marine on Guadalcanal in WWII, along
with several other Marine Corps League families from our town, took our
family to Washington, where we watched the funeral procession.

By the way, I always make note that one of the great writers of the
twentieth century also died on 11/22/63.  Because of the Kennedy
assassination, few people note the death on C. S. Lewis (writer of The
Chronicles of Narnia, etc) on that date.

I also remember 77-WABC dropping music and going to full coverage.  My
local radio station, WALL in Middletown, NY, had no network affiliation
(but did have an excellent news department) so played somber classical
music with news updates until they could arrange a feed from co-owned
WMCA in NYC, then carried their full coverage.  As I remember, the
engineers at WMCA were able to get a dial-up feed together in about two
hours.  I was later told that, because stuff like this was not generally
done in those days, WMCA's engineers had to rapidly build a few
down-and-dirty phone couplers to feed WALL and the other Strauss owned
stations with program audio.   WMCA couldn't do it via their on-air
phone system because, obviously, it was being used heavily.

Funny thing is, when I went to work for WALL in the early 70s, they
still maintained a 'Disaster Music' library in the control room -- just
in case.  When I was managing WABN in Abingdon, VA on 9/11, I basically
followed the same concept until we could get full coverage on the air.

73,
Rene'

Rene F. Tetro
Lansdale, PA, USA
W2FIL, WPXG816, WPXU288
Coordinates:  40D12'41"N  75D18'22"W
Grid:  FN20IF
Email:  rtetro@xxxxxxxxx
Moderator:  www.radioveronica.us and www.dxhub.com



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