CHASING MY "ON-AIR" DREAM 

    When Greg Newman came to 4GG (pronounced Double G) on the Gold Coast, someone told me that he was a committed Christian. I contacted him and we soon became good friends.

    One day, while working at my father's shop in Surfers Paradise, I received a phone call from the program manager of a commercial radio station at Kempsey on the New South Wales mid-north coast. He had heard from another Christian friend, Don Gillespie, also from the Gold Coast, but at that time working in Christian media in Sydney - that I was seeking to break into radio. This program manager was a Christian and was hoping to hire more Christians for the staff of what was otherwise a secular commercial radio station

    He contacted Greg Newman the same day, encouraging us both to send tapes of our announcing. With Greg's help, I recorded an 'air-check' tape in the production studio of 4GG, and the two of us drove down to Kempsey to 2KM, to meet this man personally.

    I was SO EXCITED! I was sure this was the break I had been waiting (and praying) for. After all, when would a secular commercial radio station normally contact someone unknown to them with the possibility of a job offer? This has to be it, I thought.

    The program manager took us both into one of the studios not being used at that time, and proceeded to thread my tape on the reel to reel tape recorder. He played it through the large studio monitor speakers. After a short time, he stopped it, rewound it and said nothing. After a pause, he asked for Greg's tape. After listening to Greg's tape, he asked him if he would like to take up a position with them. Greg declined, as he really wanted to stay on the Gold Coast.

    About two weeks later, I received a letter from the program manager, bluntly telling me he thought I had a major speech problem. I felt DEFLATED, to say the least.

    Did I ever realise my dream?

   I am happy to say YES! When I applied to join Radio Rhema in New Zealand in 1980, they had been on air for more than two years. Initially, they too rejected my application to be an announcer, stating that they were potentially a network station, and did not consider my announcing to meet their standard. They did, however, offer me a full-time off air position.

    Backtracking a little, between the completion of the "AIR-TV" broadcasting course I had undertaken in Brisbane in 1978 - and July of 1981, I had gained some on air experience at two community FM stations in Lismore, in the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, and also at 2SER-FM, Sydney, where I did a Sunday evening shift while studying at a Bible college in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

    Although I was disappointed at first that Radio Rhema did not offer me an announcer position, after praying for direction, and receiving encouragement from Pastor Alun Davies, one of the lecturers at Commonwealth Bible College in Katoomba, where I undertook a third year of study in 1980 - I accepted their offer and took up my position in Christchurch in July 1981.

    For the first eighteen months at Radio Rhema, I was employed as a "studio operator," my main role being "carting" music. For those unfamiliar with the workings of radio stations of that ere, this meant recording song tracks from vinyl records onto cartridge tapes for airplay using specially designed studio cart machines.

    I also had to load the carts with tape initially, transferring tape from large "pancake reels," to individual cartridge cases facilitate recording of tracks of varying lengths. This work was carried out overnight with me working from around 9pm to 6am the next morning, as the studio was used for program editing during the day. Mostly, I enjoyed this work, as I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was helping the station to transition the use of carts on air, a more practical means of presenting music on air than the tedious task of having to cue every music track on record turntables.

    With some help of a professional speech and drama teacher, and lots of practice, and with God's working, after eighteen months, the station manager made a decision to give me some 'on-air' shifts. Towards the end of the eighteen months, I was getting a little disillusioned, and losing heart that I might ever be allowed on air. Thankfully, the encouragement from other announcers helped me to keep the vision alive of being on air, and with their encouragement, I made another demo tape of my announcing. The station manager, Dudley Scantlebury was impressed enough with the improvement in my speech to offer me some on air music shifts, for which I was extremely grateful. I believe God honoured my faithfulness in working at nights on my own, and seeking to do a good job in the area in which I was employed for those first eighteen months.

    For the next five years at Radio Rhema, I was on air five, and sometimes six shifts per week, with the network starting to grow with the establishment of relay stations at Nelson, and the nation's capital, Wellington. At times, there were also short term broadcasts to Auckland, New Zealand's largest city - in the North Island, and also Invercargill, in the far south of the South Island.

    One of the highlights for me during that time on air was the privilege I had of presenting a weekly song request program on Saturday evenings for prisoners and their families, reaching into a number of prisons in Christchurch and Auckland.

    The program, called "Someone Cares" was initially hosted by a well-loved older lady announcer, Anita Wilkinson, with support from Prison Fellowship Ministry in Christchurch.

    When Anita was unable to continue, I had the opportunity to become the regular host, linking prison inmates and their families on the radio with song requests and greetings received at the station by letter.

    My dream to become a commercial radio announcer was never realised, but I believed that God placed that desire in my heart originally because He knew that one day the door would open to radio in His service.

COMING UP NEXT: THEN and NOW