John Caracciolo has been a mainstay in Long Island radio for decades, from learning his trade at WNYT to the glory years at WLIR to now overseeing stations like LI News Radio (103.9 FM) and La Fiesta (98.5 FM).

On today’s episode you’ll hear more about his journey from engineer to entrepreneur and why he thinks radio is still a vital force in people’s lives. You’ll also hear about the people he misses from the scene, including Bob Buchmann (WBAB) and Jack Ellsworth (WALK, WLIM).

Links

• JVC Broadcasting
• LI News Radio
• New Wave: Dare to be Different (WLIR documentary)

Dr. Alex Magoun is the outreach historian for the IEEE's History Center (IEEE stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). On today's episode, he gives us the history of the History Center and the organization's drive to document and preserve the innovavtions and developments fostered by its members over the years.

Along the way we talk about engineers and inventors such as Philo Farnsworth, Edward Armstrong, and Vladimir Zworykin. We also discuss what drives innovation in technology, the public and commercial aspects of funding it, and the many organizations and individuals dedicated to preserving its unique history.

Additional Links:

• IEEE History Center

• IEEE Global Museum

• "Why Frankenstein Became Electric"
  
  

John Kannenberg is the man and the mind behind the Museum of Portable Sound. Based in Portsmouth, England, the Museum is actually found wherever John has his iPhone 4S. Visitors sit down with John, don their headphones, and enter the Museum by listening to the curated galleries of MP3s on the device.

We talk to John about the inspiration for this unique institution, how he keeps it running, and the implications for the presentation of radio history.

Additional Links

• Museum of Portable Sound
• Invisible Threads

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Bob Lundquist. Bob was a long-time member of the Long Island Radio & Television Historical Society who spent much of his professional life as an engineer at the RCA "Radio Central" facility in Rocky Point.

This interview between Bob and Connie Currie was recorded in 2015. 

Our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to Bob's family and all who knew him. 

We're revisiting our Long Island Home Front oral history project! Although most of our interviews foccused on people who experienced the years of World War II on Long Island, we also met a few current Long Island residents who, in the 1940s, were living nearby.

So today we're bringing you excerpts of our talk with Jo Schenk Eichner. Born in Brooklyn, she was living in the Bronx when war broke out. In her oral history, she discusses her youth in a working class family of German immigrants living among the wealthy residents of Spuyten Duyvil. She also discusses shortages during the war, air raid drills, ships on the Hudson, and more.

Radio notes:

• The Make Believe Ballroom was a musical program that debuted on New York's WNEW in 1935.

• Gabriel Heater was a Brooklyn-born radio commentator for WOR and the Mutual Network.

Links

• Long Island Home Front
• National Home Front Project
• Music
  • Sweet Lily Swing by Tri-Tachyon
  • Used under an Attribution 4.0 License

In the late 1980s, WFAN was on the rise as the first all-sports radio station in the country. They brought a fast-paced, rowdy style to the air, epitomized by the likes of Don Imus, Steve Somers, and Mike Francesa.

At the same time the New York Islanders, years past their glory days and playing in an aging barn of a stadium, found themselves on the wrong end of WFAN's jokes. Imus, Somers, and Francesa mocked the team and the Nassau Coliseum mercilessly.

On today's episode, Queens native and media historian Nick Hirshon describes his research into this moment in sports and communication history. We discuss the rise of WFAN, the struggles of the Islanders, and the importance of recovering radio (and Long Island) history.

Links

• Nick Hirshon
  • @nickhirshon
  • The myth of the Nassau Mausoleum: A brainchild of the first all-sports radio station. Journalism History, 41(3), 139-152.
• WFAN (Audacy)
• Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Listen to LIRTVHS board member Connie Currie relate some of the radio-related stories and personalities from the town of Islip, Long Island. Including:

• Edwin H. Armstrong in Bayport and Sayville
• Norman Brokenshire in Lake Ronkonkoma
• Clarence Mackay
• WRST in Bay Shore - Suffolk County's first radio station

Music from Pixabay.