Before we start, I've been practicing my announcer voice. We're trying to get professional. So ready, here we go. Good morning.
Good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to the modus... what's the show called? No one's going to be a script RP.
Where's the modus talk radio show? Is it? We're on the all talk carport. There you go.
It's not an all-time motion. Someone should give me a script next time. And that's the voice of not me. That's Benjamin Stark.
Mate, we're co-host with Heli Olmestar for Enrost Galenas. Hello. Look, I love cars. Mate.
We're in the mate. We're in the mate. We're in the mate. We're in the mate.
We're just all smiles at the beginning to talk. This is going to be the best sounding show until the out we set up. Ben's going to help us set up our little studio. But we're inside Ben's bus.
Mate, we're in a mobile studio. Mate, fire away. Tell us about it. It is amazing.
Oh, look. To be simple, as a little kid, I worked in radio. I loved radio as a little kid, but I used to watch John Law's work on radio. And as a kid, I'd go down to Burwood Westfield.
And I used to sit there and watch him for hours from the forecourt. And then years and years later, it just is ironic. I ended up working in Capital City radio stations and became a producer and a radio announcer. And then I got into all the other things that I love, which is the technical side.
And I always wanted to make something that was unique for radio to be able to broadcast from. And so this sort of hairbrained idea started for a little bit of research and then my accountant at the time said, yeah, that's a great idea. Go ahead. And then we did it.
And then it's like everything. It was built too good for the industry. So basically, just because it's a podcast that I can see what we're doing. We're inside a Mercedes-Spren event.
And it's like, is this a standard size from the factory? No, this is the longest. This is the 7.4 meter springtime. I can stand up.
You can stand up. Well, it's based on a bus frame. So when it arrived, I mean, literally Mercedes ring you and they say, congratulations, your truck is now in production. You can watch it all go through the machines and get dipped in stuff.
But when it arrived here, it was just basically a shell. Literally. The backstuffs are on the front stage back. Yeah, it was a shell.
And then I started designing the interior of it long before that. And I had interior designers and people working with me because I didn't think I was good enough to do it. And then in the end, it's like everything. You end up getting rid of the interior designer because you start working within the confines of what it is.
And then I decided to make it into a bespoke broadcast studio. So everything had to be fine detail, including the soundproofing, the electronics, how much weight went on board. I mean, to be honest, in hindsight, we should have ordered it with the next chassis up to carry more weight. But literally to measure how much weight we had to pile all the equipment onto pallets and lift it with a forklift and weigh it in the factory.
And then we went back to the truck and thought, hang on a minute, we're overloaded here. So when you said Nick Chazzy up, when you're with a van, it says what weight? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So sometimes you'll see that the bigger trucks with bigger fatter wheels at the back, we should have maybe got a little bit heavier in terms of what we could take on board.
Volkswagen do it as well, so they do a got their T25, T30, T30. And that's based on the weight. Yeah, and then the ambulance has actually run a T40, I think, and it's only built for them. That's right.
And these are the things that you do when you first build something. I had no clue about that. I just thought I would whatever. It's clippable.
It's clippable. Together. And so the thing exploded one afternoon and we have to put all the new suspension back into it. Okay.
So now the thing about this truck is when it arrived, the first thing you have to get in your mind is, from this moment, there is no warranty. Because what we're about to do to it will not be covered under a warranty, which means things are ceilings, Chazzy are great. Also underneath it, there's about seven lithium batteries because the truck needed to carry the weight of extra power. So if we lost mains power, we had backup power on board.
And then on top of it, you've got a factor in the fact that, okay, if that starts to go down, that's what happens after 50%, what happens then? Well, then the engine was retrofitted, so it would automatically fire up and become the generator for the truck. So the engine there running, you probably don't hear that in the background. And that's acting like a generator now.
Well, yeah. It's actually just doing a top up, we call it. We just run it like because we're not plugged into mains. We're running off battery, but it's actually just trickle power going into it.
Yeah. So you run lithium batteries? Oh, yeah. And they just almost like using the motor as a generator to talk about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're always at a certain level. They're always at a certain level. They have to be.
Yeah. They run it. They run it. Ross is sitting in the back and it's like someone's telling you my dirty story.
Yeah, this is for me. He's eyeball. This is for me. Buying a brand new vehicle and then cutting it up.
That's just the ultimate for me. Modifications. Well, you know what? At the time I was having a full-time teacher at TAFE, so I was teaching full-time radio students and I had all these projects running, but I didn't understand what was happening in my own head.
And basically at the time I was starting to battle depression. And the thing that got me through was building this truck. I mean, as much as people say how much did it cost. All these irrelevant.
Well, it was irrelevant when it came to my health. But I sat there and someone else was paying. That always helps when you don't have your name on the final document either. But the reality was I got so engrossed that I started to think, well, you know, this has to be better than anything that's been created.
This is not a caravan. This is a Mercedes truck. It's carrying the name of the Marconi brand, which I, you know, who invented it to radio years and years ago. Princess Marconi gave me the emblem in crest, so it's got to carry Marconi's crest.
It then had to live up to even bigger expectations because, you know, if it was to be used by Alan Jones, that was always my benchmark. I built it to that standard that when he walked in, he would be so blown away with it that he'd want to use it all the time. And also be comfortable to be able to walk us from this time. Yeah, yeah, and look, you know, that opportunity came because I can tell you for a fact that the truck did sit in a warehouse for 18 months.
I mean, I had to put it in there as my health got worse and worse. And people would say you're going to sell it and I had it on trickle power next to, you know, a million dollar boats. And I used to say to people, I don't care what happens to it. It's not going.
It's going to stay because it's the only thing that I've got. And the interesting thing was my opportunity came. And one afternoon, 2GB called me and my first broadcast that I did with them, the first test broadcast, took place on the Gold Coast at the radio conference. It had never been tested before.
So we drove all the way up there to the Gold Coast and I'm standing there with my radio technician. And I just said, look, I'm going to go over here and get drunk because I'm telling you, if this thing doesn't fire up, we're going to look like fools. And it came up to the 4-1-4 news and then Fordham was getting ready to go to air. And down the line from Sydney, we managed to get everything working, was, standby, this is 2GB and Sydney network stations, you know, crossing over to OV1.
Then we can hear you can do a final test. And then all of a sudden, the news finished and all the red lights came on on the microphones, the pilot lights. And that was been remoted out of Sydney and I thought, well, that's the first test, the red lights are on. And the lights started flashing and I thought, right, we're now linked.
And the next minute, Ben opened his mouth and I'm sitting there listening through the app of 2GB. And I still, it still blows me away how two little telephone lines from the Gold Coast carried the signal all the way back to 2GB and then up to the satellites and broadcast across Australia. But ironically, we had the studio virtual sitting here and had never been done before. So we were controlling the automation in Sydney when he'd fire off a commercial break.
The news would come up, the phone callers, and when you go line one, you hit line one and basically it was talking to the machines. And this is how it all started. And then I thought from that, you know, it's going to get used a lot. No, for the next 18 months, it was more or less boy-cotted.
Why is that? Well, you know, in my industry, you can do things too good. And people are threatened. I mean, let's be honest, I'm a guy that wears red glasses, teaches at TAFE, worked on 2CH.
And now I'm building broadcast trucks for big, presenters. It's a cool truck. But technicians are very threatened by the fact that I'm not a technician. But let me go back a step.
I just want to describe the design. So we're inside now before we get into how it works. So we've got sort of a bench on one side on the length of the driver's side of the van. So who's sitting here?
Well, you normally sit as where Alan Jones would sit. I'm sitting with you. You're sitting in the Royalty. I'll give you $50.
The last time someone went to where you're sitting, they broadcasted at 200 stations across Australia. That's a couple less than us. It's a couple less than us. But what's interesting about it is, he did walk in and sat down there.
And I had flowers and it was done up with vases. I even had a guy dressed up as a flight attendant standing at the back that did all his breakfast for him. Just because, no, he's not here now. We got rid of him.
He went with the last Moved second. But we couldn't keep him with Job Me Keeper. So basically, yeah, so we got, there's like consoles and a massive clock in front of me. And then there's like, who else right next to me with his mic?
And there's another sort of three chairs where you guys are down the back. And then all along on the roof, there's about eight screens. There's two V screens. So they're all in Duxsou.
Monitor all the TV stations. So basically when Fox tell us well. And when Alan Jones is broadcasting from where I'm sitting, learning the craft from me. He's got every channel going.
Well, he can monitor what's going to where and every channel. He's also got the radio station down the line from the studios talking to him. But where you're sitting down the back here is where his producer would sit. And then his panel operator sits here.
So the producer's job is to get all the information to Alan while he's on air. So there's printers down the back that are silenced. They've been put in the special cabinet. He's printing stories that are coming down the line.
And then it all gets basically passed down to Alan who's live on the air. And the producer would probably be talking to him through the headsets. No, not live. Well, when they go to commercial breaks, they all have their hands off.
And they're all talking. Yeah, there's a lot of sign language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We do have sign language.
And that's the way you think. If you see someone doing the spin, we call that the spin. That's to wind it up. Yep.
But you see why there's analog. My wife does that all. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can do that to me now. Yeah, wind it up. But analog clocks are still in because in radio, everything's to the second. So when they're crossing to live news, bulletins and updates, they have to monitor right on the second.
So that's linked up via satellite when we're out on location. So everything is as per studio. Can I ask a question about the roof? Yeah.
Couple episodes ago, I had an Ulti-Man like the roof off it. The roof is on the top of it. What have we got on top of it? You've got two twin air conditioners.
Extra-vading plants. That's what they're doing. And tennis, you've got a satellite receiver and a satellite uplink. So we can talk up to a satellite and back down to a satellite.
It's also got on board basically ISDN or Internet. So we use tie lines now. So we move right away from all the satelliteing stuff. But it's also a reception for all the satellite televisions.
So FoxTill. So you've got a FoxTill de- Two decoders. And then what about so for Internet do you just use like a 4G or a 4G? Oh, well, what you do, look, you can either use mains directly plug in or, as we've done in the past, and we've never said this, Ross Greenwood went to air one night and they were going, you know, 2GB.
Everything's connected and I said, yeah, yeah, I was tethering it off my phone. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, because we lost their connection. I'm not going to.
Yeah, we've got those little 4G dongles. So, you know, radio is pretty easy to work around. Yeah. And you just don't let the text know back at the studios that we're actually running on little dongles.
So how many vans? Going back to your story. So 2GB sort of had the van sitting 80 months idle. Is there any other broadcast vans like this?
No, you see, there's a lot of television vans. Yeah, I've seen there's nothing specific for radio. Okay. And that's the interesting thing.
Radio is going through a very sad point in history. I mean, you know, people will say to me, do you think you should sell it? I think even today I was offered to buy it. Someone to buy it wasn't my name.
No, no, no. But I then have this hesitation because I sometimes think, well, it's going to bounce back at some point. But it's changed so much. I mean, everybody is working remotely.
The days of going out and doing an outside broadcast are very different to what they used to be. And clients, you know, to get clients now to pay the big $70,000 tag that we did for say Alan Jones's broadcast, a few and far between. Yeah. Few and far between.
Do you think people are going to want to use it more? I mean, with everyone being mobile at home, and this studio can go to pretty much anywhere. We can go anywhere. I mean, where it's really coming to life is probably more in podcasting land now.
Yeah. And regional radio is very interesting in fact that AM and FM radio is still very big out there in the city here, you know, competing against everything. So on us downloadable apps, kids don't listen to radio. So, you know, that's the other thing.
Yeah, the one I think. My kids just keep getting the YouTube kids up and down. Yeah. Whatever they want to listen to.
They watch the video, click along with the music. Yeah. What that change, I can't say a little more. What that changes as you get all.
I mean, I never used to listen to the radio. I mean, I grew up listening to what was his name? Stan Zamanica. Oh, I sort of falling and selecting him, you know, really long on.
Yeah, but um. Wow. Really? I was talking about it.
Well, yeah, but you're in, how old are you now? Well, I look 35, but it makes me feel like 37. So, the thing about it, that was a good thing. Well, yeah, that's because, you know, I have probably acting on it.
But I was going to say, radio is changing for the fact, like 2GB going for a younger audience. Now, it's, it's, it's, a fan-ciful to think that a 24-year-old is going to turn on to Ben Fordham and be with him for the next 20 years, like, now, in Jones. So, the rusted listener has definitely died and gone. And, you know, radio is changing so quickly that what's killing say AM radio is the running cost of it.
It costs a lot of money to run. The transmission costs are huge. The environmental impact stuff is massive. And then you've got digital radio.
You see, cars are still very much behind in this country with the technology that they have on board. Other countries around the world have opted out of AM and FM broadcasting and just gone for DAB. But you're only seeing a little bit of that happening, like, Volkswagen. I don't think Carrie AM radio is anymore.
Some of their lines. So, you know, you're starting to see the change, but until it's regulated, it's not going to change. Well, I think my business, I don't think I've got AM and FM or I've got a DAB. Let's see, there you go.
I've never listened to AM in, you know, listening on DAB. Well, I do in the morning. Yeah. I've listened to AM in digital.
I'll be honest with you because I like the static of broadcast of AM. Well, there's something about that. Is there something? I've listened to it.
Is it not? Two, yeah. Two, yeah. And two, yeah, I'm not a sports player.
I'm not a sports player. I've listened to this full sports station. And I've flipped back the other day just to play music. And it's just music.
And it sounds terrible. Yeah, it sounds terrible. Well, that's because of the processing. That's because of also the fact that AM radio is finding it very difficult now to survive in cities where there's big tall buildings getting built everywhere.
And they've got to push more power out to get the same output. So where's the expense, Benjamin, in transmitting a program like a 2GB? The talent is massive cost. So the staff?
Staffing is massive. A newsroom can cost you over a million dollars a year just to run. People power. That's before any advertising is bought in.
So when a reporter goes out live or reports, do they just record it and upload it to some link and then someone back at the station? Well, these days we use all special apps and the newsroom would be working on stories. The reporters are sent out on particular jobs and they've got to file stories back to the studio. But yeah, they basically just basically record it on an iPhone and then they can basically hit send, save it to a certain quality that has to be broadcastable and then they just send it to the FTP site and it goes into what's called a cartwheel.
And then in the studio they'll edit that audio to suit what they're doing with the story. So there's a lot of work that goes into pulling it together for five minutes. But then on the other side of it, you've got teams of people on air. You know, Alan Jones had nine people working behind the scenes in a show like that.
But he's very successful, too. You know, you could see those nine people were worth every cent. That's right. Yeah, that's right.
But you see, they don't want oiled machines anymore. And this is the problem. They don't want bespoke or the best of. They're quite happy to go for...
Raw. Well, not raw. I'd actually say mediocre. Middle of the road.
I mean, average is fine. And the program's got to be what nationwide or stupid. Well, if you listen to 2GB, it's gone very soft on hardcore news. Oh, yes.
And that's deliberate because they don't want liability. But the sad thing is, the ratings will slip. I mean, as much as they keep saying the ratings are going to hold, that's not going to hold. What attracts people is the Jones as the fire power.
No one wants nice announcers. The Stans of Marnix were successful because it was a show and it was a great act behind the scenes. He was laughing his head off. But you can't get away with that sort of show anymore.
That's because everything's changed. It's political correctness. I remember Sunday nights, you used to listen to, what was it, Dr. Fieldgood?
I mean, those days it's gone. He used to talk about vibrators and tampons and penises. And he looked at 7 o'clock on a Sunday night. I watched when it first came out, The Howard Cernshaw.
Oh, yeah, well you go. And I said this before when Peter was pulled. You can't say that. It was like, one of the things I remembered was when they were doing the ratings and they thought they had him buy the balls and they were going to get rid of him.
And they said, we ask the people, why do you think visiting? I want to hear what he says next. Well, yeah. And then corporate guys get involved and solicitors and lawyers that are realised by the way.
They're realised behind all these radio stations, there's probably six lawyers that work full time just managing these guys. And when Alan Jones goes off his head and tells the audience what he thinks of to sit around doing it. I love it. Most of the audience agree with him, but unfortunately the do-gooder advertisers get hoisted by some 24-year-old that goes on social media.
We won't shop at Woolworths anymore because of what you said. And then another 24-year-old at Woolworths goes, oh my God, that's terrible. And then all of a sudden they're just going on here, say, it's all a nervous reaction. Because the reality is, the audience that listen to Jones probably spend all the money at Woolworths and calls anyway.
And you see, so what's happened with Jones is very interesting. He's left radio. But everyone's following him to Foxtell. And they're making a fortune because Foxtell, it's paper of use.
So people are signing up to Foxtell at the rate of knots. People will go where they want to go to get what they want to get. And Alan is not passed issues by date. If anything, what happened to him, he was more or less, I think pushed out.
When they all leave now, it's a nice thing that they put out on the website. Alan's resigned a lot of the time. They don't really tell you the truth. Alan's retiring.
He's never retiring. He didn't want to get up early in the morning either. He was texting. But to see him on air in here was amazing.
And that's when it all came to life for me. It was always like, oh, this hairbrained idea wasn't that hairbrained after all. I reckon that was probably worth it just to have that. Just to have that building the whole thing.
You couldn't, I mean, I just stood outside. And I was just watching this and I thought, I can't believe it. I finally got him in here. He's been broadcasting all the time.
What was his comment? What was his reaction? This is unbelievable. This has got a better sound than our studios.
He said, I can't believe it. He said, I mean, all of everything. You must have felt pretty good. He said, this is like going to first class on Quandas.
But it was a whole show. It was at the flower markets. And I had the whole thing with the awnings out on the side, with the flowers underneath it, with the guy standing there handing out flowers, you know, the guy inside. It's all a show.
I said to the guy, I don't care what you do. If he wants to, he likes tea. I said, just make him tea. But at the end of the day, did management really like it?
Probably not. Well, they didn't because I got hauled in and yelled out for it because you see, I took over. Well, I couldn't just stand there and watch their promotions team and I had to push them out of the way. You're not just the driver.
I mean, you're the landlord. You're the custodian. Well, you need to say thank you for paying the money. Oh, well, there was a whole idea of this.
I'll fight about that. I mean, it was agreed to. And then they'd reneged on what they wanted to pay. So I'll not get into the contractual side of things.
But the technicians know how to use the equipment here. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is, when you get all their teams going, oh my God, this is fabulous.
And the technical guys back at the station, in a way, I think, perceive it as they're rubbing it in our face. You know, and then I was called into a meeting and they wanted to, before the thing was broadcasting, wanted all the electrical plans for the truck. And I'm like, what? And then I turned to the guy and I said, Colonel Sanders doesn't give you the seven herbs and spices.
11. 11. And I said, let me tell you, you're not getting any of these. And ironically, I said, look, you know what, if you don't want to use it, that's cool.
I said, I'll just pull out right now. But it was too late. But, you know, it's, yeah, for me, it was great. But then, of course, he says on the air at the time, across Australia or someone on social media said, the quality on air today is fantastic.
Well, of course, that just gives them all offside. Of course it does. I'm happy to say the quality on air podcast is probably amazing today. Oh, it's from the roof.
You sound amazing. Just going back to the truck. I mean, you got the on air, single soap. On air lights.
So when you said earlier in the story, when you were in Queensland, when the on air light came on, is that driven from the studio? Yeah. Well, it's driven from here. But the fact that it actually fired up, we knew straightaway, OK, we're linked.
And then, you know, what gives us all this amazing sound is, I had to design this as an upside down studio. So normally the weight sits on the roof. OK. Right.
So what we had to do was because of such a tall truck, we had to reverse it. So literally the soundproofing's in the floor. Right. The 400 kilos of weight just in the flooring.
What do you use for soundproofing? Oh, everything. I mean, literally, look, I road tested five or six different styles of carpet in my own studios at home. And I had enough pile on walls.
This is the sound that I wanted to create. And then I thought, OK, when we put it down, we'll put down a wood floor, then we'll put a special layer of insulation, then we'll put another layer of carpet, then we'll insulate it again, and then we'll put the top layer on. But ironically, the floor is neither here nor there. Where the real work happens is in the wall paneling.
And this is all made out of PVC bottles, believe it or not. So as I said earlier, one size of table behind you, what's in that cabinet? Oh, there's two televisions that come out. So when they're on air, people can see, you know, who's in the radio.
And then I could live in here. You could live in here. I did at one point. I'm not going to ask you.
We had a toilet. We had a toaster over there. Yeah, there is a toaster. But in the roof, it's all special sound riving.
Light weight is what they put into boats. So, you know, when you're riding or driving a luxury boat to get rid of that wave sound effect hitting the hull, it's the same sort of styrofoam. So the thing is highly flammable, probably. But literally, then I thought, OK, how do we hide all these hideous air conditioning ducts?
So then we had to make this bespoke piece in the middle. So in the end, it started taking the form of light building an A380 aircraft. And then you did this all yourself. I did it with a team of people.
I mean, I go out and wire. I mean, there was over a kilometer of cabling that went into it. And then, you know, with the second retrofit, we have that. So the weight was really in the wiring.
The big power problems that we had initially wasn't all the equipment. Believe it or not, it was $2.99 bloody printers. They were stripping the power all the time. Oh, wow.
Yeah. So it was little things like that. Can I go back to the batteries? Did you start with lithium?
No, no, no. You started with a lead acid battery. We started with lead, and they were hopeless. They'd only give you about 10 seconds of charge.
And the weight was just horrendous. So we took them out, and then we upgraded it again. And we haven't had a problem since. And these batteries now are probably, well, they are obsolete.
So the next generation of that again is even lighter again and more efficient. So, you know, it's like everything. The first one's the hardest one to build. So that's how much it costs to build.
Oh, well, the truck is 90 grand. And I think the fit out was, I mean, I know the labor costs just to do the labor costs was 87,000. Wow. And the material costs probably out of another 50.
So did you get a specialist electrician team or a studio? I mean, they didn't sell. No, no, no, no. I did actually.
I went, well, to be honest, I took it to a special factory that built all the ambulances. So, yes, it was in its own bay. Oh, yeah, it was in its own bay. I mean, it was under cover.
It was quite fascinating to see how they take pride in all this stuff. And I had an engineering team that worked with me. Everything that I needed to put in had to be going past the electronics guys. And then we had to work out, can we put that on with this inverter?
If we can't upgrade it. So, yeah, it was a whole balance. It was the whole thing. I had to be.
Yeah. And from start to finish, time-wise, I mean, it's not nine months. And once you, I mean, you can hear us, the microphones are working. But what about the engineering and getting it on the road?
Did you get the pass? Oh, that was huge. I mean, to be honest, when they rolled it off the production line, it was like watching a 747 going off the production line. And the first thing that everyone was noticing was how much the back of it sitting down like the waist is very, very heavy.
Then it was, okay, we can get away with that. So they fixed it up and they did a few other tweaks to it and we raised it up a bit higher. And then it was, okay, now let's get it out on the road and just balancing the weight in the car and just seeing how the car sat on the road. And we worked out that we had to reverse some of the heavy amplifiers to the other side of the racks down the back there just to get the balance of its shift.
Then we decided to put hydraulics underneath it to balance it up if we were on a surface that wasn't flat. So we all think that everything's flat. The Rolls-Lise. It's pretty scary.
I mean, it's pretty, it's just insane. Do you want to build another one? This is like a global. I'd love to do another one.
Then I took it over the pits and then the RTA had to basically sign off on it because of how it was. Well, do you know what, surprisingly, because the company that I go through, you know, I have a reputation, it wasn't that bad, but they were pretty strict. I mean, you know, we had to get it under three-tonne. Oh, so there was weight limits for the type of registration?
On the road, yeah, yeah. I mean, just to give you an idea, it cost me six hours a year just to ensure it. That's not the interior. That's just the truck.
The truck, yeah. You know, so people think, oh, yeah, it's, you know, it's just a truck. Well, it is. It costs a lot of money.
How does it drive? I've driven to cans in it, nonstop. Wow. And I've driven right across Australia down into Broken Hill.
I mean, you know, I don't know what it's like to drive without having weight. How much fuel does it drink? The most efficient thing I've ever driven. I can get to tweet heads on one and a half tanks diesel.
So I get, oh, I'll probably leave here from Sydney. I would get to easily graft it on one tank. Then a quick top up, and I'm in Brisbane. How many litres does it take?
I think it's about 70. That's not bad. It's not bad. It's pretty good.
It's fully laden. I mean, you can fill the way. The big thing that you notice with this is because it's so high and the way it's designed and it's got, you know, awnings that come off the side of it, you've got to be careful around wind. You know, as the wind can hit it.
And it hits the top of the aircon. It's like a plane. You know, where they come into. Quick to see.
Yeah, a bit of turbulence. Hey, Alan, there's a bit of turbulence. Yeah, yeah. Stop recording.
But it's, look, you know, all in all, I mean, it's pretty efficient. So you've got to watch the hide on these things. One of the hosts that you've hosted this show has an issue with driving with their bicycles on the roof. So one of the roofs, you know, back like, I really know.
Like everything that I've really liked. Yeah, so you've got to be really, you don't go to Westfield. I build and do you in his notes. It's two, three, six meters high.
Was that you? Yeah. The pikes on the roof. Yeah.
I saw the photo. You were like, last week during my whole episode? Because you were on the episode. You were actually on the episode.
Oh, you were Google when you phoned. You were going to smoke about it. You were Googling the perfect monte. Guys, I did some, let's, can we just talk about the perfect monte from last week?
Yep, I've been obsessed with that car. So there was a car last week we were talking about, this, the twin-turbo, perfect monte. I've found every single photo on the builder that thing. I want to build that thing, that thing is unbelievable.
I know we're building a mobile studio and a hardware from the studio. What has Benny if we can take the van? Roll racing. No, you can do whatever you can do.
No, no, no. You can take this. No, I was just thinking about that. This actually got the broadcast from out there.
One of the things that I go, I go, I go, I go, I go, I go racing. I'm wrong. Really? One of the things that I always saw.
He drives the horse. He's a horse, he's huge. He has got the horse and it's a straighter. One of the things that I always wondered was that, especially Wednesday nights, which is all your street cars, you know, race and maid and stuff.
Yeah, what a life of comfort. There's no... You are lucky, easy to race. I don't know, there's no broadcast of the race.
I'm going to get my ass kicked up. Oh, OK, well, this is what this can do. There's a bit of gibbering that guys walk through the pits. It doesn't know he's asking me to.
It's got a coup in mind. So can we set this up, like a mobile studio? It's going to be a podcast to its own internet channel. But link it to the speakers, say.
They say, yeah, yeah. And it can go direct to its own iApp. So, you know, we can broadcast it directly to its own radio channel. And that's the great thing about all this stuff.
It's very, everything is mobile now. Now, where you're sitting, if you pull all those covers back, that's a virtual TV studio. So literally there, that broadcast, that's a mixing desk direct to air for television. Well, you can do everything from here.
It's very clever. Looking at the carpet, you can make certain movies. All movies want to do. All right.
L.E.L. You're on, mate. We're ready for roll racing. I'm only doing what?
In what? Oh, you want to borrow my car? No, no, no, no. Sydney Dragway's back open first and next to my new surface.
I'll borrow it. Do you want to take the X on? You can if you want. I'll be drag racing.
I'll have the other one. Put it into launch mode. Sorry. I can't put it into launch mode.
I don't know how to do it. Try the other day. We'll set it up. Have you had a tune yet?
No. No, no, no. If BMW is not listening, I got it back only a couple of days ago. We took the secondary cat off.
So what? And tuned it? Oh my goodness. Are we going racing?
We're going to have to go racing. What did you mean for tomorrow night? Well, sort of. I really want to see what this thing is going to do.
Is blisteringly fast. It's ridiculous. Hey, you're going to pick it up for a drive. That's all you're going to do...
You still have to shoot yourself? This is worse. You'll be able to not let him drown. I have to because it's really quick.
It is super fast. What happened was when i signed it up for... We did a live drive? We did a live drive.
We did a live drive. And Ross just picked up his new super fast and SUV. And he let pit driver. Which is still only on its limited power.
Yeah. So, Pete comes around this horseshoe bend. Anyway, I should not forget. And Ross is the one side.
The other way. Ross is pitrifying. It was not pitrifying. Fully under control.
I was crying. I was sitting in the backseat. I was trying to sit away from the window so the airbag doesn't touch me. There was no airbags.
There were no parked cars around. It wasn't Pete's in three. There was a lot of concrete. It's a bit of your background.
Did you stumble your way into broadcasting? You said earlier. I started when I was 13. So I got into radio when I was 13.
I worked in community radio. And then I got a job in capital city radio. And by 18, I finished all of my first job was producing Larry Emder on radio. I went into doing that for a couple of years and then I kept on wanting to follow the radio dream.
I became a radio announcer in the country. Did that for seven weeks and hated it. And then I came back and there's no luxuries out there. Why did everyone do the country?
Well, because you're not good enough in radio's eyes until you've worked in the country. Well, surprisingly a lot of people listen, but it's where you really learn the craft of being a really good radio announcer. But I went out there, but it just wasn't for me. And then a couple of years later I ended up getting a job on 2CH.
I pitched an idea to the boss at the time who was pretty high on drugs. And it was midnight. And I said, look, instead of paying me $14 to sit here and push buttons, why don't I just host the show and get paid the same amount of money? And he said, that's a fabulous idea.
And the next morning they issued me a contract. And that's how it all happened. And then I did that for five years. And the midnight to dawn was a very, very hard shift.
I was doing six shows a week. Was there any talk? No, no, no, no, no. It was the sleep patterns.
And because I was so reliable, I was never going to get onto a prime time shift. But you know, it was great because I had my own world there in my own audience. And overnight between 2GB and myself, which was owned by John Singleton, we were pulling the biggest audience in Sydney alone. I mean, I had a lot of people listening.
They're that whole, fascinated by that night time. Yeah, the witching hour. Yeah, you had regular listenism with calling. Yeah, it's like Lifeline.
I mean, if I don't hear from certain callers. Well, I didn't call them today. Well, I did hear. And let me tell you, when we did call Bob, he had checked out.
And a lot of that would happen. So, you know, I had a group of people that would call every night. And I could pinpoint it by the second. Now, if I didn't hear from them for that night, the next night I would ring them.
So I'd make a little note. But that's the sort of thing that happens on overnight radio. And by the way, when I was on overnight radio, I'm there by myself. So I'm in the building by myself.
There's no one there. Where was your producer? I don't have a producer. I did everything myself.
So overnight, you've got to be the announcer, the panel operator, everything. Did you pick the songs? Everything's pre-programmed. And you literally, all your employees do is welcome back Sydney's relaxing, easy classics.