On Feb. 22, radio station WJSV celebrates 40 years at Morristown High School. We asked alumnus Derek Vintschger, class of 1999, to share his memories of the station.
By Derek Vintschger
WJSV was an amazing experience.
I kind of always knew I wanted to do something with radio and / or TV so it was a no-brainer for me to sign up for Broadcasting my freshman year.
It allowed me to not only learn how a radio and TV station worked by actually running one myself, but by the time I graduated high school I knew what I wanted to major in, and pursue as a career.
I majored in Television / Radio in college, and because of my experience at WJSV I had a leg up on practically everyone else in my major through all four years of school.
I already knew the basics, and even a lot of the more advanced aspects, with a lot of the little tricks of radio and TV production that you learn along the way, while still in high school.
Nowadays anyone can shoot and edit video on their cellphone. Twelve years ago, computer-based editing was only in its infancy, and was well out of the budget of a high school.
So to shoot and edit video you needed very specialized equipment. I knew how to edit video by the end of my freshman year. Without WJSV I wouldn’t have learned that until my second semester in college at BEST.
Also, despite having two radio stations at Ithaca, I didn’t participate in either. I’d already done it for four years. I knew what it was about. I knew how to do it. I certainly liked it. But I wanted to move on.
Funny moments? Plenty. I was a huge pain in the butt! Mrs. (Virginia) Lyttle was still there my freshman year, but by my sophomore year, Mr. (Norm) Wallerstein took over.
For my “How To” project I did “How to Be Annoying,” which included tricking Mr. Wallerstein into what he thought was pretending to moonwalk, but really was getting him to walk backwards so I could put the sound effect of a truck beeping while backing up under it.
Everyone was attracted to WJSV. We had smart kids, dumb kids, band geeks, jocks, theater kids, all kinds.
One neat thing WJSV allows is kids in the school who have their own band to play their music on the radio. I did a CD for a band of kids from the high school back in 2004, and they could have their CD played on the radio. Pretty cool for any band.
Derek Vintschger, Morristown High School class of 1999, is a freelance audio engineer specializing in live music for television. His credits include the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” The Paul McCartney Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at The White House, PBS Great Performances – Stephen Sondheim 80th Birthday Concert at Lincoln Center, and World Series shows for the MLB Network. He received an Emmy nomination for “Spectacle: Elvis Costello With Bruce Springsteen.”
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