In 1994 I made my first attempt as a radio DJ.

I was in my first year at Trent University, and I remember vividly driving past the Trent Radio building every day.  I immediately felt a pang of envy; some friends and I had done some DJing in high school, but I had never gone “on the air”.

I would later learn that getting into a college radio station isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds (the basic requirements are to have a pulse, some initiative to show up on time, and a basic understanding of the CRTC or FCC’s rules), and I got a call from CFFF about a week after dropping off my application.

I had the advantage of familiarity with a mixing board and the basics of cueing, so the orientation was fairly uneventful.  What blew me away was the seemingly endless collection of music they had, including a voluminous amount of old vinyl.  There was nights I would spend endless hours in the stacks, running my hands over the worn cover-art.

My first night on the air was as a “fill-in” for a no-show DJ.  It was an awkward amount of time; an hour and twenty-two minutes.  I showed up with enough of my own records to play music for about three continuous days, and clumsily worked my way through the requisite call letters and public service announcements, and never once thought to myself that someone might actually be listening.

But I had the bug, and would continue as a DJ (first as a stand-in, and later with my own late-night show) for well over a year.  It was exhilarating, frustrating and incredibly boring; as good of a show as you may have, the night always ends with the anticlimactic silent walk out to the car, and the lingering question: did anyone actually listen tonight?

College radio taught me a few important skills.  The first one was the idea that the show must go on; in the midst of blown fuses, skipping records and failing XLR connectors, I had to make sure there wasn’t the least bit of panic in my voice.  The second skill was to use a microphone properly - and that wonderful Audio Technica side-address microphone that they had was the kind of microphone you could almost crawl inside of; it had a warmth that other broadcasters may be able to relate to.

I also learned how to put on a show - and not just in the “radio show” sense, but the idea that there’s more of a formula to entertaining people than just telling jokes and playing music.

I didn’t do anything remarkable at Trent Radio; it wasn’t so much about the shows I was producing as it was the skills I was developing - for another radio experience I’ll be blogging about shortly.