Rock Radio Scrapbook

AIRCHECK OF THE WEEK
For week of April 1, 2012
Edition #674

Talent: T. "TRUCKER'" BRADLEY
Station: CFRW Winnipeg
Date: March 15, 1977
Time: 15:19

(Courtesy Tim Bradley)

The CFRW call-letters stand for Coming FRom Winnipeg.

It was a fitting radio stop for T. "Trucker'" Bradley, whose voice has come from radio speakers in the 'Peg for many years.

Tim Bradley has jocked at five different Winnipeg stations in a career that began in 1973 at CJNR Blind River, Ont. The native of Timmins, Ont., moved to CKCY/CJIC Sault Ste. Marie in 1974 before taking his place at another northern Ontario station - CKSO Sudbury - in 1975.

Bradley's first Winnipeg gig was from 1976 to 1980 at the legendary CFRW. He did 9 p.m.-midnight and the occasional Saturday afternoon shift at CFRW, part of a stellar lineup that in 1977 included Ron Able (6-10 a.m.), Pat Holiday (10 a.m.-2 p.m.), Steve Jackson (2-6 p.m.), Gary Christian (6-9 p.m.) and Mark Elliot (midnight-5 a.m.). Canadian broadcast legend Bob Laine was the general manager with Pat St. John holding PD duties.

Bradley left CFRW in 1980 become promotions director/swing jock at CITI-FM in Winnipeg. That was followed by gigs at CKPR Thunder Bay, Ont., (1988) and four more Winnipeg stops: 1290 Fox (1989), Q-94 (1993), Bob-FM (2002) and again at CITI-FM (2007-2010).

Enjoy T. "Trucker'" Bradley on CFRW here.

(CFRW in 1977/Courtesy Tim Bradley)

(The Tim Bradley Collection)

More 1977 airchecks here!

Talent: TOM "CAT" LODGE
Station: CHLO London, Ont.
Date: August 11, 1968
Time: 6:12

Tom Lodge made radio waves on both sides of the ocean, and for a time was literally on the waves.

The English-born Lodge got his start in radio at CFYK Yellowknife in the late 1950s. He became manager for the CBC station CBXH Fort Smith, N.W.T., in 1960, but later returned to England as a CBC correspondent. Lodge then went to being on the airwaves to being on the both the airwaves and the sea waves in 1964 when he joined the new offshore pirate radio station Radio Caroline. He became program director in 1965 and scrapped the rigid format, allowing the deejays to be spontaneous in both their presentation and choice of music. It was free-form radio at its best, and the listeners loved it.

By 1966, Radio Caroline had an audience of 23 million, but its success proved to be its undoing. In 1967, offshore stations were banned under the Maritime Broadcasting Offences Act. Radio Caroline (named after the daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy) went off the air and Lodge briefly worked for the BBC's newly created Radio One. In 1968, he moved back to Canada for a stint at CHLO London, Ont. Two years later, he founded a training program for recording engineers and record producers at Fanshawe College.

Lodge moved to California in the mid-1970s and where he began practicing Zen Buddhism. His Zen Master changed Lodge's name to “Umi” in 1998 and he became a Zen Master. Lodge began guiding people in Zen at his ashram near Santa Cruz, Calif.

Lodge, a published author who also worked as a cowboy, used car salesman, gold miner and winter fisherman and once played in a skiffle band, died March 25, 2012. He had been suffering from cancer. The son of writer Oliver W.F. Lodge and grandson of physicist Oliver Lodge (a pioneer in wireless telegraphy) was 75.

Enjoy Tom "Cat" Lodge on CHLO here.

(The Don Shuttleworth Collection)

More 1968 airchecks here!

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