This is a story covering 37 years in television broadcasting including 29 years at the ABC Television Network. It’s a story about the broadcast of major events ranging from The Super Bowl and The Olympics to the accident at Three Mile Island. It’s about the efforts to get the broadcast back on the air at The 1989 World Series after The San Francisco Earthquake hit disrupting the coverage. It tells what was involved in getting those unforgettable images of Captain John Testrake being interviewed on the tarmac of Beirut Airport while a terrorist waved his pistol behind the Captain’s head during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847. Learn what went on behind the scenes to bring those events to your home. Learn about the obstacles that had to be overcome; the hard work, the zany antics and the triumphs of the people who worked behind the cameras and microphones to get those broadcasts on the air and bring those images to America and the world. Brought to You By ... A Memoir By Dan Rapak AuthorHouse Copyright © 2012 Dan Rapak All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4772-9052-1 Contents Preface..................................................................iiiIntroduction.............................................................1Growing Up...............................................................5College Studies and The First Paid Job in Television.....................17Licensed to Be a Broadcaster.............................................25Cable Television.........................................................31A Beginning in Broadcast Television......................................47Three Mile Island........................................................83Moving to ABC............................................................109Early Days at ABC........................................................119Golf Coverage............................................................141Cape Kennedy.............................................................155Mini-Cam.................................................................181Shenanigans..............................................................193Mini-Mobile..............................................................211The New York Marathon....................................................223TWA Flight 847...........................................................245Hurricane Gloria.........................................................267The XV Winter Olympic Games and The Birth of Phase 2.....................283Political News Coverage and a Railroad Crossing Gate.....................301The Indianapolis 500.....................................................327The 1989 World Series....................................................355Football.................................................................363The End of The Road......................................................375Glossary.................................................................385 Chapter One Growing Up It's hard to say exactly when I became interested in broadcasting. I know that even as a kid I was fascinated by electricity and electronics. AM radio was in its heyday when I was a youngster. There were three local AM radio stations in my home town of Reading, Pennsylvania. There was also an FM radio station, but in those days FM had very few listeners. Most radio sets couldn't even tune FM stations and the music they played was what we called "wallpaper music" - the stuff you'd hear coming out the wall in the waiting room at the doctor's office. One of the local AM radio stations, WEEU, had its studios on Penn Street in Reading between 4th and 5th Streets. The studio was in a store front window and you could walk right up and watch the announcer at work. I remember my dad, Louis and I stopping there when I was very small. I was fascinated to see the announcer through the glass while hearing his voice and the music coming out of the loudspeaker on the sidewalk. Perhaps that was when my interest in broadcasting began. There were also several radio stations that could be received from Philadelphia, about 55 miles away and at night the signals of powerful AM stations in far away cities would skip in from halfway across the country. Big-gun, clear channel stations like WLS and WCFL in Chicago, CKLW near Detroit, WKBW in Buffalo and WABC in New York could all be clearly heard. As I listened to the radio, I was amazed at how it all worked. A disk jockey would speak into a microphone in a studio in Chicago and his voice would come out of the speaker of the radio at my house in Pennsylvania a thousand miles away! Most people take these things for granted. To me that was way cool and I had to learn how it all worked. I even had dreams that someday I might sit behind a microphone and spin my favorite records. A milestone of sorts occurred on my 10th birthday. My parents bought me a gift I'll never forget. It was made by the Remco Toy Co