Short story by Rick Kennett…
““Dead Air”: While working at public radio station 3LTD, Ernie and radical feminist Polly
Styrene encounter an evil magician intent on bringing beings of the Cthulhu Mythos through a
portal in the space occupied by the station. Published inEsoteric Order of Dagon#6, 1992.”
"The Windows": During the graveyard shift at public radio station 3LTD, a DJ watches through
the studio window as a wannabe magician performs strange rites with oversized records labeled
in Latin. But the more he watches, the more he sense all is not going well with the magic.
Published in Ghosts & Scholars #13, 1991, EOD #9, 1994, Redsine #4, 2001, and 13 (Jacobyte
Books), 2001.
“Radio Daze”: An article concerning my years hosting an SF/F/H program on Melbourne’s public
radio station 3PBS, improbably titled "Pilots into the Unknown." Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight
Magazine #21, January 2006; second printing, Tabula Rasa (web site), 2006.
Rick Kennett: “It was 1985 and Glen Matthews, whom I'd met the year before at an SF writers'
workshop, had this bee in his bonnet about bringing out a science fiction fanzine. I was
unenthusiastic. Never daunted he said, "All right then, how about a radio show?"
“Almost before I could say Wot? We were down at the offices of public radio station 3PBS FM,
situated at 171 Fitzroy Street in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St. Kilda. We pitched them the
idea of doing a spoken word program of science fiction, fantasy and horror.
“Our show needed a name. I was all for Unknown, in honour of the short-lived, much-loved
fantasy magazine of the early forties. Glen, with a more artistic bent, wanted to call us Pilots into
the Purple Twilight. We compromised and called it Pilots into the Unknown.
“At that time radio drama on 3PBS consisted solely of a two-hour program Sunday at 10 p.m.
called Wireless Playhouse, featuring talks on the entertainment scene, interviews and movie
reviews. Airing of actual radio drama was a rarity. Its presenters were Greg, a big, bluff,
bewhiskered fellow who doubled as a technician about the station, and Debby, a young media
student and almost stereotypical radical Marxist feminist. As it turned out, Greg and Debby
welcomed the idea of alternating with Pilots into the Unknown every other week, thus giving
themselves a break. Within this alternation Glen and I would alternate presenting Pilots for that
particular fortnight, which usually worked out as one show each per month.
“On 3rd August 1986, Pilots broadcast my Lovecraftian novelette, "Dead Air", set within the
confines of fictional radio station 3LTD. (If nothing else, eighteen months at 3PBS had provided
grist for the writing mill.) Glen read the story in two long spurts, which took up the entire two
hours of the program. The music I selected to go with it was "The Piltdown Man" section of
Tubular Bells and "Peter Gunn" by Art of Noise with its repeated dom-dom-dom motif.
“A group interested in producing radio drama adapted my Lovecraftian story "Dead Air" into a
radio play. I heard some of what they'd recorded and was fascinated by the experience of hearing
my words being spoken aloud in dramatic form. It's one thing to see words in cold print, quite
another to hear them acted out. One night on the show I interviewed the organiser of the group,
Jenny Fyfer. We talked about how they had produced "Dead Air" and about radio production in
general. Noises were made about "Dead Air" being broadcast before too long on 3PBS, either as
part of Pilots or in a special time slot of its own. Then, suddenly ... nothing happened. The project
disappeared, despite being all but finished. To this day I have no idea why.”
PILOTS INTO THE UNKNOWN (3PBS, ST. KILDA)
August 3, 1986“Dead Air”
Rick Kennett.
Glen Matthews (reader).