"OK. Let's do that again. Remember to pause more."

Radio veteran Eric Garcia is guiding Faviano Lopez, a student doing voice drills during a recent session of a radio class at KANW-FM (89.1).

Lopez adjusts his headphones, steps back to the microphone and takes another shot at the promo for KANW's afternoon programming.

"Perfect," Garcia says afterward. "That's what I'm looking for."

What is it that draws people to radio? And what is it that compels them to work long hours for low pay - or in some instances for free? And that's not just student interns. It's also folks in middle age who lug chunks of their music collections down to the community radio station to do a four-hour shift that ends just as the sun is coming up.

The consensus seems to be: It's fun.

Radio is a thriving business, weathering the invasion of corporate monoliths without the hand-wringing that members of the other media do. Despite consolidation and automation, there still are plenty of jobs and eager applicants.

In the face of commercial-free satellite stations, "terrestrial" radio is often cited as the most popular information medium on a given afternoon. According to the most common reference sources, about 12 million people subscribe to satellite radio, while the old-fashioned AM/FM audience is about 260 million. (In other words, just about everyone listens to the radio.) Ad revenues are growing in Albuquerque.

Milt McConnell has been in the business 30 years. He is market manager for Citadel Broadcasting's eight stations in Albuquerque, including talk giant KKOB-AM (770), pop music KOB-FM (93.3) and country music KRST-FM (92.3).

McConnell started out doing news at a college radio station at Indiana University in the mid-Õ70s. He said it was fun then, and it's fun now.

He said there's never a problem recruiting young people to set up speakers or do other tasks at live remotes. And mingle with rock stars and celebrities.

"There's a payoff for them, because they're in the know now," McConnell said. Or maybe it's a gig as a gofer at the balloon fiesta. "That's not really work for them," he said. "That's them getting paid to have fun. There's still an entertainment value to radio."

Outside of the two shifts weekday afternoons, most of KANW's shows are hosted by community volunteers who play traditional New Mexico music, most of it sung in Spanish. They answer the phones and read listener dedications. Some hosts are graduates of the radio class.

The class has been offered since the Õ80s. This is Garcia's eighth year teaching it with Kevin Otero, KANW's program director and afternoon voice.

Garcia and Otero teamed up at KOB-FM in 1999-2000. They teach the six-week radio class twice a year. Otero lectures; Garcia runs the technical end and voice drills.

"The hardest thing to teach them is how to showcase their personality," Garcia said. "We work to teach them personality and to loosen up and have fun with it."

Mike Chalan steps up to the mike, as Garcia observes and gets ready to record him. Grey-haired and 48, Chalan is easily the oldest student on KANW's roster this fall.

He seems worried about mispronouncing the name of the traffic reporter in the promo he has to read, because he repeats it several times, playing with the inflection: "Lucille Nicasio. Lucille Nicasio. Lucille Nicasio. `Drive home with Lucille Nicasio.' "

He nails the pronunciation during his first run-through, but Garcia tells him the microphone position wasn't quite right, so they do a second take. It's right on.

Chalan retired from the Air Force five years ago. He indulged his love of radio back in southeast Oklahoma before moving to Albuquerque after his retirement. He figured the KANW class can get him back in the game.

"I'd like to do some part-time work, and I'm rusty," he said. "Plus, the technology has changed."

Breanna Cox is 22. She is finishing her last full semester in broadcast journalism at UNM. For 18 months, she has worked part time as a reporter at KKOB-AM. Before that she interned at KOB-Channel 4.

She said she pestered McConnell for two weeks before earning an interview and snagging a 17-hour-a-week gig.

"She begged for the job," said KKOB's afternoon news anchor, Laura MacCallum, who is mentoring Cox. "That's what you've got to do."

Cox said the pay's OK ("I try not to focus on the money part"), she gets class credit and she has learned volumes about voice technique and writing news.

"It's an adrenaline rush every single day," she said. "I hope what people here see is that I have a passion for it."

Travis Parkin's radio days go back to high school in the 1960s, when, he says, he had the first Beatle haircut in Albany, N.Y. He's an avid student of a wide range of music genres.

He is an unpaid afternoon personality at KUNM-FM (89.9), doing Thursday afternoons.

Parkin shows up at the studios in UNM's O¤ate Hall 15 minutes before his show starts. He and his assistant, Nia Salgado, quietly enter the studio while Mark Weber hits the homestretch of his daily noontime jazz show.

Parkin plugs in his laptop, Salgado picks out the "carts" (minidiscs of promotional spots that will be scattered throughout the 1:30-4 p.m. shift) and Parkin sneaks in behind Weber to unpack CDs and scripts. The three people weave in and out of each other's path. Weber recruits Salgado as a foil for a corny joke to end his show. He plays Tony Bennett's "Stranger in Paradise" and yields the chair to Parkin.

More bustling during the overlap - the laptop doesn't want to talk to the sound board at first. Parkin cues up and samples his opening theme music. Salgado makes sure the laptop is at the ready to launch a song with a double-click.

"Stand by," Parkin tells us, and he pops on the microphone button.

The theme music comes up. "Good afternoon and welcome to the October Fifth 20-oh-6 episode of `Music Generalists on Ritalin,' " he announces, "or as our program guide calls it, `Afternoon Freeform.' " He wraps up his intro with a joke about disgraced Congressman Mark Foley and launches into a smooth jazz version of the "Gilligan's Island" theme.

The listeners don't see the scrambling before the show or the juggling when a CD player misfires or an East Coast listener calls in with a request or the program director changes the promo schedule on the fly, requiring a recalculation of the show's ending.

The listeners also don't see Parkin working the rest of the week in his Southeast Heights loft, monitoring other progressive radio stations via the Internet and scouring digital music services and online archives for just the right song to fit the themes that are the hallmark of his show. (In honor of Mental Illness Awareness Week earlier this month he played "Willie the Bipolar Polar Bear" by Ray Naylor. It also happens to be National Fire Prevention Week, and he spun Robin Williams doing the voice of Elmer Fudd singing Bruce Springsteen's "Fire" - "I'm dwiving in my caw . . ." He also played the George Strait hit "The Fireman," but he played the version by Mack Vickery, who co-wrote the song.)

"I have a separate computer just for music," Parkin said. He has seven or eight favorite DJs at stations like WFMU out of New York and KCRW out of Southern California. "I bookmark their shows and listen to them religiously and never miss them."

Parkin figures he spends 12 hours on show prep in addition to the four hours he spends in the studio. Again, he's an unpaid volunteer. In other words, he's spending about half a typical workweek and doesn't get paid a dime. In fact, he pays his assistant, Salgado, so he's in the red when it comes to radio.

Lopez, the KANW student, spins music at clubs and parties under the name DJ Master Flakay.

"One of the main things I learned in this course was voice technique," Lopez, 20, said. "That was one of the things I wasn't very good at."

Chalan enjoyed his part-time work at KRKZ in Oklahoma. "It was the most fun job I've ever had," he said.

More fun than being an analyst for a software company, which he has been doing since he moved to Albuquerque.

"We all wait for that perfect job where you jump out of bed and run out the front door and run off to work," Chalan said.

Chalan looks around the tiny Southeast Heights studio and says, "This is the happy place."

That's exactly what Brian McMath gets out of radio. Why else would he work for $7 an hour doing fill-in weekend shifts at hard-rock KTEG-FM (104.7)?

"People say, `I want a job that I love and look forward to going to every day," McMath says. "This is that job.

"Sure, loving your job doesn't pay the gas bill. But it's an incredible feeling to be part of this. And that goes a long way."

Parkin is 57. He pays his bills with the graphic-arts business he runs out of his loft and with DJ gigs at parties on the side. His radio intentions, though, aren't entirely charitable.

His goal by January is to syndicate a version of his weekly show nationally to NPR stations - free at first but eventually for a fee. And he talks about expanding to Internet radio or to the extra digital version of public radio stations that are poised to pop up and will be hungry for programming. That'll be his opening.

Garcia presents a tough challenge to his KANW radio class. It's a multifaceted "stop set." Students will come out of a song, ID the station, read a public-service announcement about blood donations, segue into a recorded promo, come out of that reading the weather and, finally, play the next song.

It sounds effortless when you hear DJs do it on the radio. But it's daunting to a newcomer who has to multitask the mechanics - turn the microphone on and off, hit F1 on the computer keyboard to start the promo and then find the right button among dozens on the board to start the song at just the right time - all while reading and speaking with the other half of the brain, trying to sound articulate.

Chalan freezes at the start of his first try, but he hits his marks the second time, and that's a take.

Lopez steps up next, and his classmates, six of them, lean in to watch. He IDs the station, reads the blood-donation announcement, runs the promo, but then he blows it during the weather. The second time, he nails it.

"Nice job, man," Garcia tells him. "Very good break."

After everyone has a turn, Garcia gives them a pep talk before dismissing them for the evening, urging them to listen closely to the radio and to practice their pace and intonation at home.

"Some of you are just blasting right through it," he says. But then he cautions them: "You don't want to go too slow, either, because then you get monotone."

And then he assures them that they've made more progress than previous classes.

"By the end of the class we'll have you sounding real smooth."

McMath, 23, got hooked on radio four years ago when he did a student internship on T.J. Trout's morning show at KZRR-FM (94.1). He didn't get paid, but he got credit toward his advertising degree at UNM.

His early days as an errand boy and whipping boy sound like the punch line to the old joke about the guy at the circus who follows the elephants around with a shovel: "What, and leave show business?!"

McMath was the kid the producer sent out to be the target at a paintball contest or to deliver batteries and sex toys as gag gifts to lonely hearts on Valentine's Day - dressed like a geisha and reciting haiku poetry, of course. ("You can't really have any shame.") Or he'd run out to get food for the crew.

He also put in 12-, 14-hour days. He would stick around after the morning show and learn production. (He says the production director greeted his initial inquiry with "So, you want to have a blast and be poor?") When an overnight shift soon came open at the Clear Channel sister station at 104.7, he was in the right place at the right time.

"You have to really prove that you want to be there," McMath said. "Because if you don't, there are many more people waiting in line who do."

Tired of the graveyard shift after two years, he went to Farmington to be a production director, creating ads and promos, which is what he specialized in at school. Farmington wasn't his cup of tea, so he returned to UNM to finish his degree.

When he talked earlier this month, he was preparing for a busy weekend at "The Edge": the 6 a.m.-to-noon shift on Saturday and Sunday and then the 6 p.m.-to-midnight shift later Sunday.

Again, the shift pays about $7 an hour. (He had a weekday job working as a manager in a sporting goods store.) It's just the nature of the business.

"Full-time guys do OK," McMath says. "You'll notice a lot of radio people have additional income streams, whether it's another job or producing commercials for other people, or they wear many hats at the station.

"You can make a living at it, but you have to put in some serious time."

Parkin's love of music goes back to his teen years. He said he would either hitchhike or take the bus from Albany to Manhattan, perhaps not the only one thinking he might run into Bob Dylan at a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. He soaked up the music scene there and in Spanish Harlem.

"More often than not I'd sell a pint of blood to raise the money to get a bus ticket back," he said.

He was 15 at the time.

In the early '90s, Parkin hosted one of the nation's first alternative-country radio programs, "Radio Ranch" on KAFR out of Angel Fire. He has run two nightclubs, one in San Francisco, the other Ramona's in Taos.

Toward the end of his recent Thursday afternoon shift he spun "Spanish Harlem Incident." Not the Dylan original, but a Chris Whitley version he tracked down.

MacCallum, the KKOB-AM news anchor, says she gets a kick out of taking an eager young reporter under her wing.

"There were plenty of people who taught me early on," she said, "and, to me, that's how it should work."

She traces her radio roots to Cheyenne, Wyo., in the mid-Õ70s. She got her first radio job just like Cox did, by being persistent: "I said, `Just let me do it for 90 days. If I don't cut it, I'll go away. But I know I can do it.' "

She has worked in radio, TV and newspapers ever since.

Paul Ingles, who was production director at KUNM in the 1990s and now is a freelance producer, doesn't see the business as rosily as Milt McConnell does. He laments the consolidation of ownership, which has severely cut back the number of news operations at radio stations all over.

"The job pool has shrunk dramatically since I got out of college in 1978," Ingles said. "I don't tell (students) that story to paint a completely hopeless picture, but it's one thing people should understand when they start looking for jobs."

His first job was wearing several hats at WFDD-FM in Winston Salem, N.C. Automation hadn't yet wiped out jobs and entire departments.

Still, Ingles is optimistic and encouraging.

"I think anybody who wants to be in radio can figure out a path," he said. "It just depends on how fast and easy they expect that path to be."

McMath has advice for those who earn that KANW certificate and get a foot in the door at a radio station.

"Learn anything you can learn, and learn it as fast as you can," he said.

Cox adds: "Work hard. Work your butt off, and it'll pay off in the end."

And, from Ingles: "You have to be a little more extraordinary. You have to be a little more patient. And you have to live on less, because the dream salaries are few and far between."

The benefits?

"It's the most fun I've ever had while getting paid," McMath said.

A week after sitting down for his interview with The Tribune, McMath sent an e-mail.

"I was actually going to e-mail you tomorrow to let you know that I was offered a full-time position with the sales staff at Clear Channel, which I have accepted," he wrote. "Unfortunately, because of company policy, the sales position will mean the end of my weekend air shifts, but it will be worth it to be a part of the stations again."

Editor's note: Montalbano volunteers one radio shift a week at KANW-FM (89.1) and is a graduate of the station's fall 2005 radio class.