If you’re looking to honor those who’ve served the United States this Memorial Day, here’s an idea with a broadcasting bent: contribute to the preservation of the American Forces Radio & Television Service archives.
Radio World has previously chronicled the origins and importance of the AFRTS, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2017. We’ve also profiled Thom Whetston’s efforts to preserve and share much of the service’s historical programming; he’s been digitizing vinyl discs and adding them to a website for others to enjoy and blogging about AFRTS.
[Read: Is Your Future Engineer Wearing Cammies?]
Now Whetston, a veteran of the U.S. Army himself, is at it again and says he could use some help.
“I’m in the middle of the biggest AFRTS project I’ve ever attempted,” Whetston told Radio World in a recent email. “We’ve got over 800 pounds of 12-inch transcriptions in Los Angeles to get halfway across the country.”
[Read: AFRTS Radio Shows Now Online Thanks to Two Vets]
In the message, he explains, “If you could donate what you can it’d help a lot. Our history is important (these disks really were fished out of a dumpster).”
If you’d like to donate to defray shipping costs, Whetston is accepting donations via PayPal. He says he’s “very grateful” to those who have contributed so far.
[Subscribe to our newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox.]
