ANdrew 8-8000

[Paul B. Walker, Jr.]

When I worked at KYYZ 96.1, we'd have daily on air contests, the most common
being the "Cash Carousel Spin" and it was up to me what caller number I
picked. Out of habit, I usually said, "Caller Number 3 will play the game"
or "Caller Number 6 gets to play"

We had one studio line, 701 572 3333, and I simply answered the line 3 or
how many ever times I needed to. We had no roll over lines and really only
one number i nthe studio..

However, if KYYZ had a guest coming on who couldn't make a toll call, we
could give them the toll free # to the AM that could be answered in the FM
studio.

When I worked for a certain AM station just outside Dover, New Hampshire on
Knox marsh Road, we actually had two lines if you can believe it.. if you
called the main number and it was busy it rolled over to a second,
unpublished number. (And ironically, that second unpublished number was used
by a seemingly unrelated entity to buy an FM translator i nGloucester, MA)

When I was at KNLV-FM, we'd give away gift certificates to a local diner for
lunch and Id say "Caller #4 wins now from Regional Radio KNLV". We actually
didn't have a studio line, but when I was holding a contest, the main office
line, 728-3263 would serve as the contest line.

I'd just tell the secretary I was running a contest and she'd let me answer
the phones. We had 3 lines, 1 being the main line and 2 being roll-overs.
I'd simply answer the 3 lines as many times as it took to get the correct
caller.

Paul Walker
www.onairdj.com


On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 7:08 AM, Brian Vita <brian_vita@cssinc.com> wrote:

> Roger Kirk wrote:
>
>> Kevin Vahey wrote:
>>
>>> BZ gave 2 reasons for not going to 931. The main reason was callers
>>> from outside 617 would almost always get a circuit busy which would
>>> have played havoc with talk shows [snip]
>>>
>>>
>> IIRC, the 931 exchange was designed to moderate "contest" & "talk" traffic
>> by only allowing a small number of calls from each exchange/area code (don't
>> remember which) giving a busy to the rest of the callers.  It was to avoid
>> clogging up tie lines from one exchange to another.
>>
> Typically how many actual "lines" did these stations have in the day?  How
> many today?
> I've always been curious.  When you hear the host say "line 6, you're on
> the air", are there that many lines or are the first five the bus ofc, fax
> and modem lines?
>
> Brian
>