CHOO Radio Recollections

An on line scrapbook of images & text for former staff and listeners alike

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(ABOVE) Simplified CHOO master control board diagram included in booklet given to part timers, circa late 1970s/early 1980s, original artist unknown! I got mine in 1979 from my first CHOO PD, Tom Edge, a great guy, and a terrific radio man.

(BELOW) From the same booklet, diagrams showing the CHOO master control music wheel (up on the wall to supposedly insure a proper rotation of types and categories of music played) and a bird's eye view of the vertical filing system used to house the 45 rpm records kept in the control room just above the turntables. (See photo on page one.)

(RIGHT) For those of you who have forgotten what 45s looked like, or have never seen one, here's a closeup of the label for that Olivia Newton-John song I mentioned earlier, written by a Canadian Adam Mitchell, which bizarrely qualified it as Canadian Content! Since 1970 all AM radio stations in Canada have had to play 30% Canadian music as part of their licensing requirements. The way it was calculated in those days was designated the MAPL ("Maple") system, in which a point was awarded for Music composition by a Canadian, one for Lyrics written by a Canadian, one for a Canadian Artist and another for a Production wholly recorded in Canada. If you had two or more points, that was a CanCon recording! The circular symbol you see, originally designed by Stan Klees for RPM Weekly and adopted by the Canadian recording industry, made it easy for DJs to quickly determine a record's CanCon status.

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