| A word from Andrea Ho ...
Here's what I can remember - not much, but hopefully something useful. 1992: Manager: Andrea Ho
We held 2 fortnight-long 24-hour test transmissions, one in the middle of the year (about the end of 1st semester?) and one at the end of 2nd semester, which was the maximum allowed under the then-current legislation. The 1st was held from the top of Melbourne Central (that bare concrete floor, with the windows meeting at a triangle at the roof, would have been a great place for a party!) and the 2nd held from the top of 101 Collins. Both were microwaved from the roof of building 10/12 at RMIT. The first test transmission saw an attempt at playlisting, primarily to avoid that terrible habit of people playing the same songs every hour, but the execution was a disaster, and ultimately abandoned. (That was all my fault, incidently. You don't learn without making mistakes, I suppose.) The programming format was strengthened by having a 5-day breakast crew during the week, consisting of Chris "Hollywood" Moore and Jarrod Watt, AKA 'The Flying Burrito Brothers", I think. We were located on the third (top) floor in the now mythical Building 18, above the chaplaincy on level one and student gallery and Women's Room on level 2, and across a large room from the RMITV office (they only had one little plywood room and 2 desks then) - I have some photos of the saga of painting the bloody station during January before term started, so that the place would look a little less grotty. We nearly died from fume inhalation as the temperature escalated to
above 30 degrees and nothing protected the station from the elements except
some corrugated iron and the ceiling. We had 2 pokey studios, all
analog apart from the CD players (we still used mostly vinyl then, record
companies were only just starting to sample CDs), with a space in between
where the control rack sat, open to the world!, a loungeroom for broadcasters
to hang out in with big, brown ugly but soft chairs, a library with a lockable
door and the manager's desk with a shitty 386 PC computer (the only one
we had), and at the end of the hall a broom cupboard filled with an unintelligible
tangles of cables and tools called the Tech Room. The lounge faced Swanston
Street, opposite Hungry Jacks and a
On two occasions, Jarrod picked me up and hung me by the ankles out
of the window there - allegedly for 'stress relief'. I don't suppose it
was too dangerous as there was an awning over the first storey, but it
was both frightening and humiliating (imagine seeing, upside down, people
standing at the tramstop, turning and pointing at you while you scream
your lungs out...) Had the desired effect, I suppose, it's hard to be more
stressed after an event like that! All sorts of students came in and did
all sorts of programs, of the usual varying content and quality. I only
had to ask one student to leave for behavioral problems, which was done
with the Management Committee's sanction, and it was probably one of the
most difficult things I did all year.
Andrea Ho was station manager of SRA-Fm in 1992, and now works as station manager of 2UNE in New South Wales. |