Radio News Coverage: Skylab 1 Part 2

This upload covers the launch of the first skylab crew, the rendezvous and docking, an unsuccessful Standup Eva (SEVA) with the Apollo flying alongside the crippled station to unjam a solar wing, and finally, on Day 2, the successful deployment of a sun shade to cover the area where the missing heat shield/micrometeoroid shield was supposed to be, in order to cool the living quarters down from 130-degree heat. I still was not fully versed on (or trustful of) what south and central Texas radio stations would be available for live coverage, but I held out fairly late, hoping to find one before realizing I had better get with the program with only about six (6) minutes before launch of the manned flight. I went with CBS TV and the always-good (and classic) team of Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra. Somewhat annoyingly, CBS broke right in the middle of the powered boost phase for station identification (it was a long break that allowed for a full-scale local commercial----in this case a rather cute animated IHOP commercial featuring some kid kangaroos named "Peepers and Snipper"). This hiatus prompted me to try one more time to find if anyone at all was giving coverage on the radio, and I found by almost shear chance KTBC in Austin----a CBS affiliate. Having become quite partial to radio coverage coming off my experiences with AFN/AFRTS, I immediately switched to this coverage instead, and thus began a long listening and recording "relationship" with KTBC (soon to be renamed KLBJ in honor of owner Lady Bird Johnson's husband), and Reid Collins of CBS. My parents let me take the day off from school back on May 14 and the 1st half of the day on the 15th under the guise of having "an appointment"---not specifying that it wasn't necesarily a doctor's appointment (the schools weren't as rigorous back then about requiring an actual "note from the doctor"), but on this day, things were a little more problematic, given that it was the last day of school (7th Grade for me). The launch was at 8 AM CDT, classes weren't set to start until 8:45 AM, but I would definitely not be able to catch the bus on time (at least in Heidelberg if we missed the bus you could catch a shuttle bus from PHV and eventually get there; out in the boonies where we were outside San Antonio, there was no such "luxury," and at this particular point we still only had the one car we had brought with us from Heidelberg). My mom was planning on this day (May 25) to submit some job applications at the Texas Employment Commission for some jobs as an EEG/EKG technologist in order to resume her career in the medical field after not being able to get any such jobs with the 130th Station Hospital while we were in Heidelberg, and my dad was planning to take off from the USAISR at Fort Sam and take her downtown, thus allowing him to drop me off in Kirby on the way. I would be running about 15 minutes late, but at least I made it, although I did feel kind of silly being late on the last day of school. Sometime around the middle of the 7-1/2 hour rendezvous chase, my mom was able to get back and record a newscast, and then, because it was the last day of school, we were let out an hour early. This permitted me to get back to the house in just enough time to follow the live TV coverage of the rendezvous with the crippled workshop. I still wasn't sure if KTBC was the "real thing" or not, so I chose ABC TV and the under-rated team of Frank Reynolds and Jules Bergman. Once I was able to break away from being mesmerized by the sight of the station and the damage, I scanned the radio airwaves and once again found KTBC in Austin----giving live CBS Radio coverage. Once I saw KTBC was covering more than just the launch with their network, I knew I had a "keeper." A little later I was able to get the tail end of Reid Collins' live report on the unsuccessful standup EVA (SEVA) to free the stuck solar wing. I missed the early reports of the problems with re-docking because I went with my family to eat at McDonalds, one of the conditions for going was also having to tag along to a Woolcos (that's enough to date me right there), and it was there that I saw a brief bulletin (by ABC News) about the problem on one of the shop display TV's. The next day saw the deployment of the parasol sunshade. This time I somewhat belatedly found that KTRH in Houston was doing a good job of covering things, and I got the tail end of coverage of the final analysis by Houston that the thing was deployed properly and sufficiently. I also once more got a report from CBS Radio and Reid Collins on KTBC. Once more I now knew that KTBC and KTRH would be my stations of choice for much of the actual live coverage.