Article: 43055 of ba.broadcast Reply-To: "David Eduardo" From: "David Eduardo" Newsgroups: ba.broadcast References: <8m7ibf$ijc$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8m8308$uc4$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <8m8476$4o23a$3@rn.area.com> Subject: Re: Channel 104.9 Foul-up Lines: 67 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 23:47:50 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.193.79.10 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: news.pacbell.net 965198863 63.193.79.10 (Tue, 01 Aug 2000 23:47:43 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 23:47:43 PDT Organization: SBC Internet Services Path: b4.mv.meer.net!nntp1.ba.best.com!news1.best.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gblx.net!news-out.nibble.net!news-in.nibble.net!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!206.13.28.144!news.pacbell.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: b4.mv.meer.net ba.broadcast:43055 "David Kaye" wrote in message news:8m8476$4o23a$3@rn.area.com... > gjs286@my-deja.com wrote the quoted material below: > > " If I wanted to criticize a station for playing two songs on top of > " each other, I'd start with a certain Salinas station that seems to do > " it on an almost weekly basis. > > Still, the FCC used to require that someone be able to listen to air at > all time the station was on the air. That's been modified to "monitor", > so that if someone sees lights flashing, that seems to fulfill the > requirment. It's even gotten worse: That monitoring can be automatic, > whereby a computer dials someone on the telephone to tell them something > is wrong. > > That computer isn't going to hear two events on the air at once. > Aw, come on. Radio was not all that better 40 years ago. The weekend guy would whack the tone arm and leave the station off the air because he was paying more attention to the studio visitor. The transmitter would go off the air in hot weather because there was something in the transmitter that was heat sensitive the engineer could not find because part of it was transistorized. Or the ampliphase went out of tune late of an evening, and by morning drive was covering half the band with splatter. Back at the studios, the PD is trying to reconcile the Cash Box hit list full of r&b tunes with the owner's wife's list which does not include "race music." The only woman who actually works at the station is the receptionist, and the morning guy makes fun of her hairdo and she is crying in the rest room at the moment. Sure, there are minorities on staff. One of them cuts the grass at the transmitter site in the Summer... and snags the lawn more on the condoms the night screamer throws out of the back door of the station. Time for the news. Oh, the mechanical teletype is 1) out of ribbons and AP hasn't sent a new box, 2) out of paper and AP hasn't sent new boxes or, 3) is jammed with worn ribbons and misfed paper. The network feed, which is relayed by phone line form Detroit, is unintelligible today but it usually clears up by itself anyway. Then there was the time the switch to 1240 or 640 for CONELRAD went fine. Only the transmitter would not go back on their authorized broadcast frequency unless the power was 20 watts. Oh, and the snow blocked access to the site, and the darned transmitter won't go on in the cold after a power failure. The engineer finally gets there, but the $1.15 an hour guy on the board knows there is no need to feed audio, as the station is off the air. And the phone line is down. Who cares, though, because the night is auroral and the 50 kw Caribbean stations are wiping out the station 18 miles from the site, and the site is 30 miles from town. Of course, the signal is even worse, because the First Class operator trained as a professional engineer in 6 weeks by REI in Sarasota has decided to recalibrate the phase monitor with a screwdriver and has helped the chief by tuning the DA system. Fortunately, he did not know how to actually open the transmitter, or he would have retuned that, too. Last week, he decided to make the station audio better and increased the drive to the Volumax as well as the output and delivered such nice square waves to the rig that the modulator tubes went soft in about 10 hours. Meanwhile, the record the on-air guy dragged the tone arm and needle across is going thuck-thuck-thuck 45 times a minute and the listener calls have caused the area phone switch to overload and leave most of the south side of town without service. Yes, radio was better back then.