PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF R . J . HEIM AND NBC 10 . he strains of upbeat jazz and disco pump from a gray clapboard house on Providence ’ s East Side from morning until evening . R . J . Heim calls it his little palace .
When Heim moved into the dilapidated space three years ago , he did a floor-toceiling renovation , repurposing the original fir beams and converting one into a roughhewn mantle where he stashes his Emmy Awards for outstanding New England weathercaster .
Though the house maintains its original spirit , the Colonial-era residents wouldn ’ t recognize the speakers tucked into every room , including the bathroom . The dial on each wall , which can raise the sound to the level of a dance club , is also a novel addition .
As he swivels the volume down to sleep , music courses through Heim ’ s sound system via “ Music Through the Tunnel of Time ,” an online radio station he launched nine months ago in a mesh of computers , switches and speakers , crammed into his office across from the washer and dryer .
For twenty-eight years , Heim has been a local fixture , manning the green screen as weekend weather forecaster on Channel 10 . The other three days of his work week , he films stories as a one-man band feature reporter . Yet before all else , Heim calls himself a radio person . He pinpoints when music first blew his mind . He was four or five , in the back seat of his parents ’ 1959 Plymouth , listening to the Four Seasons and Frankie Valli ’ s unforgettable falsetto . The sound grabbed him , and from then he listened to the radio all the time , moving on to cassettes after his parents bought him a tape player . However , it was the top forty radio stations , the best of all genres across all eras , that most inspired him .
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT : Heim has been with NBC 10 for twenty-eight years . R . J . Heim the mobile deejay , in 1980 . Heim at FM 97 in Lancaster , Pennsylvania . Heim broadcasting his “ Music Through the Tunnel of Time ” from his East Side home .
Young R . J . — or Robert John , or Bobby as he was called then — was also obsessed with weather reporting .
“ Growing up in the Mid-Atlantic , we ’ d go down to the Jersey Shore ,” he says . “ There would be winter storms or hurricanes coming fast , thunder and lightning , and I was always fascinated by what can happen outside the doors .”
As a kid in the Philadelphia area , Heim was smack in the middle of the Philly and New York media markets , and knew exactly when each weather broadcast was on so he could tune in to both . The two strands of his love for media — weather and music radio — were knotted perfectly when Jim O ’ Brien came along . O ’ Brien was a disc jockey on WFIL radio in Philadelphia who later also became the weekend weatherman on WFIL TV .
“ I knew right then and there — I ’ m like , ‘ I want to be him ,’ ” Heim says of his third-grade self .
After paying his way through college at Temple University with his own deejay business , Heim auditioned for his first job in TV at Channel 51 in Reading , Pennsylvania . He ’ d never been in front of a green screen before but , he remembers , “ they fired up the studio lights and I did my best Jim O ’ Brien impersonation in front of the maps .” The performance got him hired , working as a weatherman and reporter two hours a day at minimum wage .
Heim ’ s first twenty years in broadcasting were anything but stable . TV stations cut budgets and new owners bought them out , firing young broadcasters like him . He took jobs at four stations , first in Pennsylvania , then two in South Florida , then one back in Pennsylvania .
Heim , who ’ s gay , thinks that the lack of a strong gay community when he was younger helped cement his sense of independence and pushed him to be an overachiever throughout his career .
“ It ’ s me against the world , trying to prove that I ’ m worth it ,” he says . “ I ’ ve always felt compelled to create as part of who I am .”
That independent streak stuck with him . Radio was a way to make ends meet , and he deejayed at several radio stations over his TV career . A friend suggested his initials , R . J ., would be snappy enough to say on air .
Today , that ’ s how thousands of Rhode Islanders know him . He ’ s signed a contract for three more years at WJAR and isn ’ t ruling out keeping his foot in television on a part-time basis afterwards , but shaping his radio station is his priority , along with screenplay and teleplay production .
“ I always have to be working on something creatively for me to feel like I ’ m alive ,” he says . “ When I ’ m not creating , it ’ s like I ’ ve put a cap on a firehose .”
He spent around $ 15,000 on the equipment , licensing and other gear for his home-based radio station , | | CONTINUED ON PAGE 106
50 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2021