WZNG    WKIS     WHOO-AM     WBJW     WOMX     WOCL     WLOQ     WHTQ    WFLF
To paraphrase Ted Baxter, “It all began at a 1000-watt radio station in Winter Haven, Florida.”  Dave and Diane Buerger at 1360 AM WZNG (“Zing Radio!”) were nice enough to hire an 18-year-old kid just a few months out of high school to do weekends on their oldies station. A year later, I was on the air in my hometown of Orlando. That was at WKIS (740 AM), where I was hired to join the news department after an interview with the legendary Gene Burns, in which he inquired if I had any lawn-mowing jobs would interfere with me working there.  I assured him I did not; although, at times during my radio career, I probably could have used some lawn-mowing experience to fall back on.  My next stop was Orlando’s country station, WHOO (990 AM), where I became news director.  I eventually segued into that same position at CHR-formatted BJ105/Orlando (WBJW-FM 105.1) and, after a few years, went from news to full-time personality, co-hosting the “Breakfast Bunch” morning show and working with the very talented Bill Cross and Carren Sheldon, plus Darrell Hammond, who later joined the cast of Saturday Night Live.  I stayed there for a total of almost 10 years, through the transition of BJ105 to Mix 105.1. I then rejoined Bill Cross to co-host mornings in North Florida at Y103/Jacksonville, before returning to Orlando and the market’s original oldies station, COOL 105.9 (WOCL-FM 105.9).  I was again co-hosting mornings, first with Bill Gable and then with Scott “Scooter” Sherwood.  "Scooter & Company" was an amazing team, also featuring Jack Dyer, aka Elvis Gorbachev; the late, great newsman Frank Lasko and traffic reporter Andrea Lively.  One of my favorite promotions we did was “Pound the Pacers” as the NBA’s Orlando Magic took on Indiana in the playoffs and we had listeners take sledge hammers to an old AMC Pacer.  The show and the station were still performing well when, in April 1999, the air staff was summoned to a remote location and informed that “due to a format change, your contracts will be terminated as of noon today.”  It was a cruel way to treat a group of very talented personalities, some of whom had been at COOL for more than a decade.  But, what goes around comes around:  the new format, “Jammin' Oldies,” was an unmitigated disaster and another Orlando station picked up the abandoned COOL format and logo and enjoyed several more years of Good Time Oldies success. While at COOL, I had begun my own daily comedy prep service, Alan Spector’s Comedy News Network, and was writing for the likes of  Charlie Van Dyke and the late Robert W. Morgan in Los Angeles, Dick Purtan in Detroit, Jeff & Jer in San Diego and Jack Diamond in Washington, DC. I spent the rest of 1999 mellowing out as a part-time jock playing Smooth Jazz on 103.1 WLOQ (WLOQ-FM 103.1) in Orlando. In 2000, Clear Channel paired up Scott Sherwood and myself again to host the morning show at 95.7 WRIT, their oldies station in Milwaukee.   I worked with some great people there, but a record December snowfall of 50 inches helped convince me it was time to return to Orlando. Within a few weeks, I joined Classic Rock 96.5 WHTQ (WHTQ-FM 96.5)  as local producer and newscaster for the syndicated John Boy & Billy Big Show, plus the voice of Get the Led Out weekday evenings.  That continued until January 2007, when Cox Radio decided listeners wanted a “live and local” morning show and brought in Richard Dixon and J. Willoughby from Birmingham and kept me on as executive producer.  I thought the show had great potential, especially after we garnered international publicity by convincing a listener to name his unborn son “Dixon & Willoughby with Radio's Alan Spector.”  But after less than two years, Cox decided listeners did not want live and local after all and replaced us with The Bubba the Love Sponge Show, syndicated out of Tampa.  It might not have been the best move on their part; shortly thereafter, Bubba, classic rock and the call letters WHTQ all disappeared from Orlando radio. I am currently back to my roots in radio news, working for a company called Virtual News Center and, from my home studio, anchoring local newscasts for stations in eight different markets around the country. I am also working with Erica Lee, a former colleague at Mix 105.1/Orlando and current morning-show host at 102.5 WLOQ (WLOQ-FM 102.5), in developing Aircheck, a podcasting website.  Radio personalities from all over the country and even overseas are contributing shows to www.aircheck.us.  Erica and I can be heard there on our own podcast, “Alan & Erica: Live from Alan’s House,” and, from time to time, I can be heard again on the Orlando airwaves as Erica’s guest co-host on WLOQ.