How did you get started with electronics?
I guess it started when I was a toddler. I used to grab the knobs on the record player, and my dad understood that I had this attraction to amplifiers and things. I was about five when he really knew I was into electronics and sound, so he bought me one of those kits to make a bunch of electronic projects. He would read the instructions while I would connect the wires up. Most parents would probably say, "Don't touch that! You might get hurt!" but he was actually encouraging me to mess around with wires. By the time I was eight I built my first mixing console and I took it to my third grade class.
What year was this?
This was 1972 and '73.
Were you doing tube electronics or solid state?
The first amplifier I had was an EICO HF-20 with a really huge output transformer and a couple of 6L6 [tubes]. The only reason I got into tubes was because that was the stuff people were throwing out. Solid state was taking off and it was like, "Why do we need these big heavy tube things?" I went to a garage sale and a guy sold me this classic amplifier, so I proceeded to shock myself and blow up speakers. The things that amazed me most were the radio stations and the transmitters. We had a station in town and my dad would take me up there. It was 500-watts with five towers right across from the Concord Pavilion [Concord, California]. I met the engineer there. There was a guy playing 45s on turntables and right behind him was this transmitter with these really big glowing tubes. You'd actually see the orange glow on the plates of the tubes modulating with the sound coming out of the console. So when I was 12, I built my first radio transmitter.
You had your own?
Yeah, in my bedroom.
How many watts?
Not too much. It would go around the block.
Which is totally illegal, right?
Yeah. I started off modifying wireless microphones and tearing apart a Mr. Microphone. I was kind of obsessed with putting signals out on the radio, but it never sounded like the big stations. I asked the guy at the Concord station how come it sounded really cruddy and faint, while stuff on commercial radio was huge and full of energy. He told me, "You need a limiter. I've got a pair of Gate Solid Statesman limiters just sitting in my garage. I'll let you have them." They were actually the worst limiters I have ever heard — that's probably why they were sitting in the guy's garage. I wish I'd known how to modify them back then. Now I modify limiters and they sound amazing, but I ended up throwing that pair away several years later. When I was 13, I was trying to start a cable FM station on Concord TV cable. I met this guy, Steve Bryan, and he introduced me to the [Gates] Sta-Level. He brought these Sta-Levels over and it just changed everything. The audio sounded amazing for the first time ever. I've been sold on the Sta-Level since I was 13.
By the time you were 18 you were fully employed in radio?
I had a job when I was 15. I was offered a job that I couldn't take until I turned 16. The day I turned 16 I became a maintenance engineer for this 1000-watt AM station.
And you had no formal training?
Yeah, I did actually. I guess I'm leaving some stuff out. From the time I was eight I had a study guide to get an FCC license, which you can't get until you're 12. On my 12th birthday, I went to the FCC office in San Francisco and took the test for the third class radio/telephone operator's permit, which allows you to operate a radio station.
Did you pass?
Yeah. I got my license when I turned 12. My high school, Clayton Valley High School, had KVHS — a 5000-watt transmitter, behind glass outside the studio door. There were some classrooms next to the tower there. The teachers couldn't watch movies because the radio station would bleed into the amplifier of the projector. They would have to turn off the station so the teachers could play their films. From the time I was eight, I would go hang out at the high school. When you're that young, the kids in high school are kinda mean — they would throw my bike in the dumpster and things like that. I was hanging out at KVHS as much as I could. I'd watch what they were doing and how they operated the station; and I'd help out when they would let me. The instructor was very engineering intensive — they built their own mixing console from digital parts before those were really being used for consoles. They built a digital transmitter remote control and they moved the transmitter up to a hilltop. There were these guys there; one guy went to work for National Semiconductor Corporation and the other guy for another big technology outfit. They were really smart, for high school kids, and I got to hang out and watch them put stuff together. I was watching all this and learning. By the time I actually got into high school I was kinda bored with the school's radio station and was looking for other things. I was hanging out at the commercial local stations. I'd help take out the trash and, if they let me, I'd watch what they were doing. When I was 16, I was so ready to get into the field and get a job, so I worked in San Francisco.
