Carl Sampieri has always loved radio. He started as a HAM radio enthusiast as a teen and still carries the call sign ‘N4NRE’. He’s been a contract engineer since the 1980s and built most of the radio stations in the Tennessee Valley. Sampieri earned his 1st Class Radiotelephone License at age 18 (they don’t issue those any more). He then joined the Air Force as an airborne radio repairman and got the commendation for working with the Armed Forces Radio Thailand Network.

His first broadcasting jobs were at WRSA and WSLV in 1967. After the Air Force, he moved back to Huntsville to work for WAAY TV as an engineer. He also worked at WZYP for 19 years, and was known as ‘Carl The Engineer’ on the morning show. He recently retired as the engineer at Huntsville’s iHeart Radio cluster after 26 years, and has worked for nearly 20 years as Chief Engineer at WLRH Public Radio. Huey Lewis’ “Heart of Rock and Roll” is the first song played across every new transmitter Sampieri has turned on. The Walker County native’s future plans include finishing renovations to his 100 year old house in Madison, which features two 60-ft Ham radio towers in his backyard. He also has a cat named Buster Pollard, named after the former owner of WBHP.