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?
