Cal was my first engineer to work with in radio in my "green years" in the early 70's. I loved his old radio stories and have many of my own since I worked with him till his retirement in the early 80's...one was when he was working on our old Gates BC-1T during a problem one night he was needing to solder a joint on a PC board and his eyesight was getting poor so he asked me to do the job...an honor to work with him. Have many other stories but I know many of you have had your own experiences...please pipe in!

Now that I am on the right string..I had the honor of working with Cal at both KGAY and KROW, with his big red station wagon, and Gussie (his wife) by his side..he could tell wonderful stories of early radio and movies in LA..We had a Freeze audio pil. and he wouldn't leave it alone, said that the "rock music" made it fall out of phase!...great memories of a great man.

Wow! KGAY!? My, how times have changed. I bet those call letters simply meant happy at the time. Although, it might be a fitting set of call letters for Movin' 107-5!

I met Cal when he was at KSLM as their contract CE. The guy smoked like a chimney, Camel straights if I remember correctly.

While giving the impression of a "grumpy old man," he was very patient in explaining to a wide eyed 11-year old, how stuff worked.

One particularly stormy afternoon, a problem developed in the tuning apparatus in the dog house, at the base of the tower. He glowered out the window at the rain, which was being blown sideways as can happen here in late fall. Clearly not at all happy about the coming slog out to the tower he declared that, while this was no day for "friggin' in the riggin'," might as well go out and take a look. I don't remember what was broken, but had the distinct impression it had to do with lightning. I remember him working the base current ammeter shunt back and forth several times and cussin' about the leaky dog house roof. This was in about 1968 or 69.

When KSLM went into the AM/FM combo business, they hired a guy by the name of James Campbell as their fulltime CE, but Cal remained on call for a few more years.

Cal also did some work for Salem Memorial Hospital, but I don't remember on what equipment.

cal applegate will be greatly missed by everyone in the business. rip cal