As it happens, I was there when one of these events occurred, and can describe what happened. The truth is a lot less interesting than the urban legend.

     It was in the fall of 1963, October or November, and it was, I think, a week day. I worked 4-12 those days, so it would have happened between 4 and 630 PM. That was Dave Scott's scheduled show time, but I seem to recall that Dave was off that day, and I do not remember for sure who was on.

     I was in the engineering room, the middle section of the showcase studios. Bill Gilmore, the chief engineer was there too, and some others were also in the same room, discussing some production work that was going on in studio B. It was an unusually busy moment. The monitor was on, so we could hear the show, but it was almost drowned out by the conversations going on. The KQV format at the time allowed the use of the time tone once between any two records, and also used the time tone at the top of the hour. (Earlier formats allowed time tone only on the hour. I preferred having the time tone on the hour because I thought it cheapened the tone to use it frequently.)

     At the moment the incident occurred, the jock pressed the time tone button on his console. The button stuck in the pressed position, and the time tone box began emitting a stream of time tones. Bill and I noticed the event at the same time, and both of us leapt toward the rack-mounted time tone generator, as Bill shouted "Kill it", My hand reached the switch first, and I batted the switch to the off position. The incident was over. Altogether, the time tone sounded maybe for two or three seconds, tops.

     At the first opportunity, I took a small oil can into the studio, opened the console, and oiled the actuator. The button that had stuck was a Western Electric heavy duty operator's button with a wood actuator, and had been known to have stuck in the past.

     The time tone generator was a vacuum tube device that looked home-made. It had an electro-mechanical timer that made the time tone uniformly long, regardless of how briefly the jock hit the button. That was pretty sophisticated for 1963, but it should have had another timer to restrict the output to one tone per button-press. Surely we would build it that way today.

     Sorry to rain on anyone's parade, but the time tone incident was equipment failure, plain and simple.

In 1963, KQV had been a Top Forty format station for five years, but significant portions of the day were still devoted to legacy programs. The station's owner, American Broadcasting, required some programs to be carried, like John Cameron Swayze and Edward P. Morgan and Paul Harvey. These programs did not fit the Top 40 format at all, and chased listeners away in droves. Worse yet, the programs did not pull in significant new audience during their period. They were in short an albatross around the figurative neck of the station. KQV scheduled these programs to run between 6:30 and 7:15 pm each day, and called the period News Scope. Just before the network portion of News Scope started, KQV also carried a local legacy program, The Pie Traynor sports report. Pie had been reporting sports on KQV for years before ABC bought the station, and his was the only local program that ABC retained as they reshaped the format.

Pie was a sweet old guy. A pleasure to work with, never cross, never demanding, and he knew the sports beat without a doubt. He had been a Pittsburgh Pirate player in the 1920's and 1930's, and was often called the finest third baseman ever to play for the Pirates. He had one failing though, which was his delivery. He had a raspy voice that was hard to listen to, and aggravated the voice with very frequent umm's, aah's and other hems and haws. It seemed that every tenth syllable was extra baggage.

I  had been a listener to KQV for years, and always had turned off the radio when Pie Traynor came on because I found him so hard to listen to. Besides, I had no sense of history, and though I knew some of his past accomplishments, I wasn't very impressed. In short, I didn't care to listen to his broadcast. Late in 1963, I had a temporary job engineering at the studio and, as chance would have it, my shift sometimes overlapped Pie's, so I was the engineer who was charged with making him sound good. One December night, I got my chance to help. Pie came in early and recorded his program so he could make a conflicting date at an awards dinner. Presently, there I was, staring at a reel of tape holding a broadcast that would not be needed for an hour, and in my hand was a sharp razor and a roll of splicing tape. It was like living a dream.

Without even making a safety dub, I attacked the program tape with my splicing gear, and in half an hour had excised every hem and every haw, making Pie Traynor sound like the legendary DJ, Speedy Clip. Well, maybe not Speedy Clip, but he sounded 100 percent better to my ear.

I cued the tape, and when 5:25 came around, I rolled it. Keeve Berman was doing the announcing for News Scope that night, and he listened to Pie without comment, then introduced the next program, probably Paul Harvey, but I don't remember for sure. I had expected a comment from Keeve about the unusual glibness in Pie's report, but none came, so I asked Keeve what he thought of the program. I don't remember exactly what words were exchanged, but I sure remember the gist of it:

me: Didn't Pie sound good tonight? 
Keeve: Uh, yeah.
me: I cut all the umms and aahs out of his broadcast. I thought he sounded wonderful!
Keeve: You WHAT?
me: I edited the pauses and stumbles out of his broadcast.
Keeve: Never, never, do that! The pauses and stumbles are his trademark. Don't do that!

He was right, of course. Pie never said anything about the show. I doubt that he knew. But I never again felt tempted to clean up a Pie Traynor broadcast, or interfere with any on air personality.  My job was to make sure the equipment ran right, and the artistry belonged to the artists.  Most engineers, myself included, don't know schtick.