{"id":727,"date":"2023-09-21T14:15:58","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T14:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wmpg50.wpengine.com\/?p=727"},"modified":"2023-09-21T14:15:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T14:15:58","slug":"michael-sefton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/michael-sefton\/","title":{"rendered":"MICHAEL SEFTON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I was the student manager at WMPG when it was broadcasting on 91.1 \u2013 It had a 100 watt ERP \u2013 from a 10 watt transmitter in the science building.&nbsp; The two broadcast boards were both tube type and the broadcast had a low hum that was apparent to anyone with a discerning ear.&nbsp; We broadcast about 19 hours a day during the school calendar. Eventually, we saved money from our annual allocated funds for a new solid state board that finally stopped the 20 hertz hum. Our announcers had to have a 3<sup>rd<\/sup> class FCC license that required a test.&nbsp; I took a group of 12 down to Boston my first year at MPG. I borrowed the school van. Of the 12 people in the van half had never been out of Maine and they were college students. The licenses had to be posted in the studio. &nbsp;<em>Music with the Masters<\/em> was our 1-2 PM show daily with Harvey \u2018Wah Wah\u2019 Weinstein. He played jazz and some blues in his show.&nbsp; When I was elected station manager I vowed to build the calendar to 24 hours\/daily.&nbsp; That was tough.&nbsp; I also wanted to broadcast remotely.&nbsp; This was done via a telephone line. Eventually the quality of this became acceptable, but it was exciting to be broadcasting from Portland Campus \u2013 even on a fire escape once! Right!&nbsp; We also did hockey games announced by our sports director was Dave McGowen. He insisted on us reading news 4 times a day. We had the teletype just off the pub on the Gorham campus.&nbsp; Beer was always being found in the studio. Not good. It was a joy cueing the music and setting the mood for those infrequent telephone calls. It was a special place for the 4 year I was there.&nbsp; After I served, John Falcone (Bio1981) became the station manager. I was disciplined once by the student assembly for buying WMPG bumper stickers at a local print shop that cost $90.00 \u2013 I almost lost my job because I thought I had some discretionary money but no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We had so much fun. Benny Green (Greg Arsenault) was our music director.&nbsp; Bruce Childs was our engineer. Several of us worked commercially too.&nbsp; I worked week-ends at WLAM and WLOB. Also a blast! I was station manager being paid from a stipend plus my work study. We had a professional engineer to help keep us on the air.&nbsp; Occasionally we would get calls from truckers on the Maine Turnpike. We were always in competition with the UMO radio station and the UNH station that would occasionally be heard when we were off the air. But WMPG had several station Legal ID\u2019s by Bonnie Raitt and Jon Pousette Dart and others. During the time I was manager, I often encouraged the late night guys or girls to stay a bit later \u2013 perhaps until 2 or 3 AM but was called at home because University Police found the DJ sleeping at the turntable in front of the board, Zzzzz! Album just spinning \u2013 skip-skip-skip at the end. I had to come in and shut down the transmitter. Occasionally we would have tickets to the Spring music show and gave them away.&nbsp; There was more than once that no one would call after the announcer offered free tickets to Tom Waitts, Maine Mariner\u2019s hockey, and others.&nbsp; In my last few months I negotiated a small advertisement with WMPG logo and the telephone number. WBLM was a huge role model to the guys who were most skilled at editing tape.&nbsp; Very clever productions including their own station ID\u2019s and program announcements. I am listening to MPG now in Boston. The streaming internet is a game changer and evens the playing field for all radio stations around the world.&nbsp; Sirius XM makes me nauseous from their lame repetitive music. I can\u2019t imagine paying 4 cents a year for Sirius-XM.&nbsp; Thanks for this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was the student manager at WMPG when it was broadcasting on 91.1 \u2013 It had a 100 watt ERP \u2013 from a 10 watt transmitter in the science building.&nbsp; The two broadcast boards were both tube type and the broadcast had a low hum that was apparent to anyone with a discerning ear.&nbsp; We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"wmpg50","author_link":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/author\/wmpg50\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/50.wmpg.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}