livin' la vida vinyl

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

While there remain a precious few radio studios with functioning
turntables, it's rare to see those units actually functioning.  Most
stations have long since disposed of their LPs and 45s.  Not only does
WUNH 91.3 Durham NH still have turntables in the air studio and vinyl in
the library, I hear the CD players were removed from the studio earlier
this month for "Vinyl Week."  Gotta love it!  Although some of the air
talent is UNH graduates with considerable vinyl experience, there must
be young folks at the station who never had to cue a record in their
lives.  I imagine the idea behind this was to have a brief moratorium on
the latest and greatest and force hosts to dig into the past a bit.  The
side benefit is that a new generation got a taste of what deejaying used
to be like--including skills like reading information from a spinning
label and gauging how much time is left on your cut by observing the
progress of the stylus toward the end of the band rather than watching a
digital display count down the seconds.