I'll start this off with two that happened to me.

1. A few years ago at the dawn of computerized on-air automation, I was doing a remote. At the end of the break, the board op couldn't get the
computer to go back to playing music. Unfortunately, there were no other music sources
in the studio, so I had to walk him through the reboot proceedure ON THE AIR! I tried to make it entertaining for our listeners, but it took
about 10-minutes to get things back to normal.

2. While in the co-pilots seat on a two-person morning show, at the end of a break I unfortunately said "What the f..k" and it went on-air not knowing that my mike was still on.
Now I never swear anywhere near a microphone. Ever!

I was introducing a song by "Con-Funk-Shun" and I was talking a bit too fast when I screwed up the middle part of the band's name... I'm sure you can guess what I said in it's place.

I didn't realize it until I listened to the aircheck.

That's a good one. Some of my other embarrassing
moments wouldn't be taboo today, those moments would just be normal content on pretty much any morning show.

My lovely wife while working at the KPDQ called our then governor-Neil Goldsh** without knowing it. Todd Dorsey who was listening in ready to do a traffic update mentioned to my wife..."Do we have a new governor?" Of course my wife was a bit confused by that comment and said..."uh..well..no."

Your wife's not the only one, Chris! Years ago, KATU's Richard Ross led to a story about the then-mayor. Neil's last name was written THREE times in the lead. Dick nailed the first two no sweat, but the third one bit him! "Channel Two's Tim Storrs caught up with Mayor Golds**t, uh (slight chuckle), Goldschmidt today and filed this report." Much laughter from the booth!!!

Kq4,
That was Tom McCall when he was trying to pronounce Goldschmidts name and said it Goldsh.t.... paused and then said "Son of a Bit.."
That was not live but being taped for a commentary. He had to look over his script again.

Jimbo, the Dick Ross flub I mentioned is memorialized on tape. We can add Gov. McCall to the list.

I remember when Dick Ross flubbed up the end of live coverage on KATU of the airline crash in S.E.Portland. At the very end he told viewers to stay with channel 8 for the lastest updates. KATU at that point cuts the audio and you see Ross looking at someone and then mouthing to the camera and waving his hands NO! NO! CHANNEL 2!!!! CHANNEL 2!!!!

Doing my entire show and finding out the next day that none of what I said went on the air due to some odd automation setting. Everything was there except my voice. Sounded great on the studio audio!

I did the same thing once and was completely off the air for about 3 hours on Sunday morning!

Jim Sayers on KCYX liked listening to the board instead of the transmitter because it sounded better in the studio. One afternoon he ran an EBS Test but forgot to turn the transmitter back on and broadcast to himself over an hour! Moral, always listen to the transmitter.

Let me get this straight: In the middle of a test that consisted of turning the transmitter on and off, he forgot to turn it back on again?

Correct.

How close is this to correct? off for 5 seconds, on for 5 seconds, off for 5 seconds and back on again. So in the middle of that, he forgot what he was doing?

the new switches labeled i/o can be confusing for an oldtimer.

Correct and you know Jim sounded just fab that hour. To bad it was just to himself.

Oh, I just remembered another memorable on-air moment. YEARS ago I went to work for a station with HORRIBLE on-air equipment, and the production room was even more archaic. While
struggling to produce a decent spot in this
stone-age production room, apparently I had pushed a button that put the production room on- the-air overriding the main studio. This was my first day at the station and nobody had told me about the switch! For (maybe) 20-minutes, listeners were treated to commerical production 101 and a VERY frustrated me trying to make this room work. I hope our listeners were entertained.

Embarrassing moment #1: Summer fill in on a highbrow classical music station in Market #22. My second gig. Learned the board at my first one, thought all boards were the same. Screwed up the introduction to some sonata: instead of saying "here's Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra," I said: "Here's Philadelphia Ormandy and the Eugene Orchestra." Corrected myself, started the music, reached over and killed the mic, and said, referring to my mistake, "haw haw HAW HAW what a stupid dope." Except it wasn't the mic I killed...it was the music. The pots were transposed from my first station.

Embarrassing moment #2: first night doing a talk show on a huge station in that same market. First call. I answer. Listener drops the f-bomb. It takes me 8 seconds to find the 7 second delay. Like Mysterydj, I hope our listeners were entertained.

Ah yes. The unforgettable and sometimes regrettable first or second night at a new station.

I always manage to say the correct call letters
when at a new station, but it's usually a month or two later, once I've let my guard down, that
those old call letters or frequency make an unexpected comeback.

Yes!!! That is exactly my pattern. No problem with the calls at a new station for the first couple weeks, then all of a sudden, when you feel comfortable, your last station comes blurting out. Best recovery: "a station I USED work at!"

My first (and only) stint in radio was in the early 80's at KEAR in San Francisco. I was the new board operator working the 6p-12a shift. Everything was on reel-to-reel (or cassette) tape back then. I was transitioning out of a taped newscast to the network tape at midnight, but for some reason the network tape program was not playing (turns out I had not set the correct switch). Within about 20 seconds a loud buzzer goes off in the studio (and bells outside the studio). I panicked and called my boss (production director) and woke him out of a sound sleep (it was just past midnight) as I thought the bells and buzzing were going out over the air. He said check the switch or something and bring up the pot which I did. The buzzing and bells stopped and the program began. Turns out there was dead air and the buzzing and bells are a warning sign there is dead air. It would have been nice to have been told this ahead of time...

Mysterydj & Paul: It happened to me last night! I think I set myself up for this an hour earlier. We usually do slogan, then frequency. I felt that a song I was going into needed a little different twist, so I said frequency first, then slogan. By doing this I opened up my past. The last station I was on did frequency first.

An hour later after concentrating on what I would say after our standard line, I started with the frequency and it wasn't ours! Stopped and said the only thing that came into my head. "Where did that come from?" I was so stunned & mortified I couldn't even remember what our slogan/frequency was before the post!

I worked at two different stations with different nom-de-aeros for a short time back in the 70s. After getting two of the four call letters out on the wrong station, I immediately reached for an index card, wrote down the call letters and my name on that station in BIG black marker, and placed it on the mike boom!

And ditto on Mysterydj's and Paul's observation on keeping your station straight. When you let your guard down...BOOM! It happened to me as much as six months later once!

Worked at KC-YX and KC-NR at the same time. Need I say more.

I had been working at KEX for about a year when Jim Howe had me go up in a hot air balloon to do a story on the Rose Festival Balloon races. I had a small portable marti that from the altitude we were at would hit the repeater in the west hills so I could do live shots during morning drive. I had done several without incident...then the call-letter/frequency time warp hit and I locked out my live report with "1420-KITI news" (my last station). Jim paused for a moment and then calmly asked me "Bill...who do you work for???". I didn't know what he was talking about. I hadn't even realized I made the mistake.

Actually the one I have heard that is almost as funny is people who work more than one station, and use a different name at each...forgetting "who" they are inspite of getting the calls correct.....!

Listeners can understand you getting the station wrong if you are newer.....but forgetting your "name...".... !!

In the late 80's, I worked utility at KPLZ (Top40) and KVI (50's/60's oldies), and had a shift on both every Saturday. Culture Club and Bon Jovi on one, Elvis and Frankie Avalon on the other. I can't tell you how fried I was after my day ended on Saturday!

NAMES.... Having the opportunity to use the Air name David hopperfield while working for a FROGGY STATION. At least I wasn't doing news. One of news guys was "Bobby Bullfrog with Frognet news".....

Seems like a credibility issue to me...

As for embarrassment..... Nothing like giving Nascar updates during your shift, and in the race Dale Earnhart was killed saying "Dale Earnhart hit the wall on the last lap at the Daytona 500... Wow that had to hurt, Here's (artist) on Froggy 104....... I may still have that tape.... It was one of my last..........................

nothing like going out in style!

you or Earnhart?

Careerwise, we're both dead! :') <--- deviated septum.......