Seven stations off the air this morning

[Rob Piotrowski]

Ah, unless I am mistaken and it was someone else, I thought you posted an ad for air talent for the cluster. No clue who you are and don't really care. And to answer your intimation, yes, I am laughing. It stung for a bit, but handing my keys and resignation letter to a certain station manager and director of engineering and walking out was the best career move I made in years, and hearing about all the struggles they've had engineering-wise since then just puts a smile on my face. Normally I'm not a vindictive person, but I made an exception in this case. Certain people deserve every headache they deal with and then some. I hadn't really even thought about the station much in a few years, but I stumbled on this forum by accident about a month ago while looking for something unrelated, so it's amusing to put my two cents in. And that's about what it's worth: Two cents. I don't take it seriously. This is my morning amusement. Beats listening to the radio

Sounds to me like you did the right thing - for both you and Entercom.

 

[kellim]

I did. Obtained from the national website AllAccess. Anyone can do it from anywhere. The fact that I did means nothing.

OK, that's great. I made a wrong assumption based on that and I stand corrected. Doesn't negate anything I said, that one post aside. Have a nice day.

 

[kellim]

Sounds to me like you did the right thing - for both you and Entercom.

Oh, it was certainly right for me, and probably for them as well, considering the amount of care they lack-- uh, have for the engineering department. But this is typical in radio now. No one cares about how good the music sounds when the ship is sinking.

 

[TheBigA]

But this is typical in radio now.

If it's so "typical," why doesn't it happen at more places? Because it doesn't.

 

[kellim]

If it's so "typical," why doesn't it happen at more places? Because it doesn't.

So Entercom is unique in not giving a crap about engineering practices? Good to know, and thanks for clearing that up. XD

 

[TheBigA]

So Entercom is unique in not giving a crap about engineering practices? Good to know, and thanks for clearing that up. XD

Did I say that? No. You made a generalization about radio. I questioned your generalization.

I know radio companies that are loaded with high priced engineers who spend a lot of time overcomplicating a simple function for their own job security. Then "laugh" when the over-complication backfires. Sound familiar? How many people who read this board have had the experience of dealing with an over-zealous IT technician, who laughs at the employee behind his back? It happens in lots of industries. It's not unlike terrorism.

 

[kellim]

Did I say that? No. You made a generalization about radio. I questioned your generalization.

A generalization that is remarkably accurate and has been for quite a long time. Ask any decent engineer who is no longer in radio why they got out. There are plenty of us around. Either budgets were slashed or they got tired of dealing with BS, or both.

I know radio companies that are loaded with high priced engineers who spend a lot of time overcomplicating a simple function for their own job security. Then "laugh" when the over-complication backfires. Sound familiar? How many people who read this board have had the experience of dealing with an over-zealous IT technician, who laughs at the employee behind his back? It happens in lots of industries. It's not unlike terrorism.

Yes, it sounds familiar. I've dealt with many people like this in the last 20 years. That said, I'm not one of them, if that's what you're insinuating. As someone who is self-taught, learned everything from experience and simply using my brain and hands to get the job done, I have never purposely over-complicated anything and I certainly have never been overpaid. But I cared. About more than just me. And I still do. Want to talk about over-complication? Let's start with management's insistence on installing HD, which is the biggest over-complicated, useless mess ever created in radio. I was the engineer who was happy keeping the 60 year old transmitters in good shape and working with old audio processors, as long as the tools and replacement parts were available and there was a budget to do so. So again, if you're talking about me personally, try again. In my opinion, management (I'm speaking about more than just Entercom here) got what they asked for: They let the old-timers go because they were too expensive and hired a bunch of people who don't know squat and solve every problem by replacing perfectly good equipment with something that resembles the iPhone they're familiar with.

 

[TheBigA]

They let the old-timers go because they were too expensive and hired a bunch of people who don't know squat and solve every problem by replacing perfectly good equipment with something that resembles the iPhone they're familiar with.

As I said, none of this sounds like someone who is "laughing." And none of it sounds unique to radio.

I had an engineer who once told me "If you didn't use the equipment, it wouldn't break." To which I replied, "If it didn't break you wouldn't have a job." Thus the social environment of working with other people, something engineers don't like. Any company in any industry requires being able to deal with BS. The programmers resent the sales people, the sales people resent the on-air people, and the engineers resent everyone. Somehow, stations stay on the air. But the social environment requires patience and tolerance, neither of which are virtues to engineers, as we see from your posts.

 

[frankberry]

As I said, none of this sounds like someone who is "laughing." And none of it sounds unique to radio.

I had an engineer who once told me "If you didn't use the equipment, it wouldn't break." To which I replied, "If it didn't break you wouldn't have a job." Thus the social environment of working with other people, something engineers don't like. Any company in any industry requires being able to deal with BS. The programmers resent the sales people, the sales people resent the on-air people, and the engineers resent everyone. Somehow, stations stay on the air. But the social environment requires patience and tolerance, neither of which are virtues to engineers, as we see from your posts.

That's quite a generalization. An incorrect one too. I am a retired Engineer.

 

[davideduardo]

The programmers resent the sales people, the sales people resent the on-air people, and the engineers resent everyone. Somehow, stations stay on the air. But the social environment requires patience and tolerance, neither of which are virtues to engineers, as we see from your posts.

That has never been my experience.

While competence is an issue in any position, warfare and resentment between departments is rare and generally found at the individual level, not among whole departments.

The issue of technical competence among engineers as we moved and continue to move into computer based systems is real. Today's broadcast engineer has to know RF as well as IP technology, and needs to have an ear for processing as well as the ability to do building management, deal with public utilities and ISPs and lots of other things.

But I find that most engineers put up well with the general lack of technical knowledge of management, the lack of understanding by some of the staff and the relatively low pay at most stations and groups.

This current thread shows there are exceptions. But I would never agree that engineers in general are resentful or uncooperative.

 

[TheBigA]

That's quite a generalization. An incorrect one too. I am a retired Engineer.

I know. I was waiting for you to chime in. You can't disagree with the fact that a workplace typically is made up of a lot of different personalities, and managing those personalities can be a full time job.

While competence is an issue in any position, warfare and resentment between departments is rare and generally found at the individual level, not among whole departments.

I agree. I didn't mean to make it sound like entire departments, although that's an extreme situation.

 

[kellim]

As I said, none of this sounds like someone who is "laughing." And none of it sounds unique to radio.

I had an engineer who once told me "If you didn't use the equipment, it wouldn't break." To which I replied, "If it didn't break you wouldn't have a job." Thus the social environment of working with other people, something engineers don't like. Any company in any industry requires being able to deal with BS. The programmers resent the sales people, the sales people resent the on-air people, and the engineers resent everyone. Somehow, stations stay on the air. But the social environment requires patience and tolerance, neither of which are virtues to engineers, as we see from your posts.

Hahahahahaha! Spoken like someone who is still in the industry, for certain. I didn't leave for any reason other than there was a personal vendetta against me after I came out. I am friends with a guy I worked with who experienced the same thing and left before I did. Until that time, I received good raises raises and everyone was happy. When I came out, it all changed. If you want to talk about people who have no social skills and are intolerant, talk to the people who make your life a living hell because you don't sleep with who they think you should or don't fit "normal" gender roles.

 

[Rusty Bridges]

Seven stations off the air in morning drive is no laughing matter. Imagine the lost revenue, probably in six figures... at least on four of the seven stations. Traffic must have had a thrilling time scheduling make goods.

 

[frankberry]

I can't, for the life of me, understand how this could possibly happen. SEVEN stations off the air?
If the problem is with a router, is there no way to "patch" (or hard-wire) around the problem?
In my opinion, this seems to be a totally preventable outage.
Does anyone have any accurate information about this?

 

[TheBigA]

I'm surprised the Buffalo News hasn't even mentioned it. You'd think they'd want to gloat a bit. Maybe someone there needs a wake-up call.

 

[kellim]

I can't, for the life of me, understand how this could possibly happen. SEVEN stations off the air?
If the problem is with a router, is there no way to "patch" (or hard-wire) around the problem?
In my opinion, this seems to be a totally preventable outage.
Does anyone have any accurate information about this?

If it's wired the same way it was 6 years ago, no there isn't. There was a patch bay with limited I/O, mostly just to patch around audio processing. But the main router had no backup and no way to patch most things. Totally preventable? Yes. Wasn't my design. That router was there before I got there and it wasn't going away. Totally preventable, like the aforementioned time they went off the air from a preventable generator failure and A/C failure, among other outages. They never learn. They never learn *anything*.

 

[SirRoxalot]

"kellim", let me introduce you to "TheBigA". He doesn't like talent. He doesn't like engineers. He doesn't like most sales people. He does like iHeart, and thinks their management is filled with geniuses.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I still don't see why they couldn't send an alternate stream to the transmitters via the Internet. If they can stream the stations, they can link up a VPN at the transmitter site. Any number of boxes can even provide fail-over for such a set-up, and allow a receiver to feed audio to the transmitter. Will they lose some quality? Then again, audio quality ain't exactly like it used to be - especially on AM.

"kellim" indicates that the management of Entercom Buffalo simply isn't allocating enough resources to engineering. Must be that expenses dig into their bonus structure. Short-term gain is more important that the long-term cost of poor or non-existent maintenance if you don't plan to be here in the long term. Maybe somebody at corporate needs to look into that. Entercom certainly can afford it these days.

 

[TheBigA]

"kellim", let me introduce you to "TheBigA". He doesn't like talent. He doesn't like engineers. He doesn't like most sales people. He does like iHeart, and thinks their management is filled with geniuses.

Funny. Absolutely untrue. I love talent when it's real talent. I love engineers when they're actual engineers, not featherbedders. Heck, I was even in NABET for some time. So maybe I hate myself. I don't care about iHeart one bit.

If you ask anyone who has ever left a job, they'll tell you their former employer didn't allocate enough resources for their particular department. Nothing unusual there.

Bottom line: You live in Buffalo, claim to know local people in radio, and yet you really haven't said anything more than the OP about this particular situation. No one in this thread, other than the OP, was actually listening at the time. No one has spoken with anyone at the station. No one can verify if this was a signal problem or a transmitter problem. And we've gone 4 pages with 37 posts. A whole lot of nothing.

 

[kellim]

Funny. Absolutely untrue. I love talent when it's real talent. I love engineers when they're actual engineers, not featherbedders. Heck, I was even in NABET for some time. So maybe I hate myself. I don't care about iHeart one bit.

If you ask anyone who has ever left a job, they'll tell you their former employer didn't allocate enough resources for their particular department. Nothing unusual there.

Bottom line: You live in Buffalo, claim to know local people in radio, and yet you really haven't said anything more than the OP about this particular situation. No one in this thread, other than the OP, was actually listening at the time. No one has spoken with anyone at the station. No one can verify if this was a signal problem or a transmitter problem. And we've gone 4 pages with 37 posts. A whole lot of nothing.

Very basic troubleshooting skills and knowledge of how the place is put together is all it takes to know what the most likely cause was. Troubleshooting skills... You know, those things an actual broadcast engineer should have. But hey, what do I know. I'm just a "feather bedder" according to you. Hahahahahaha!

 

[TheBigA]

I'm just a "feather bedder" according to you. Hahahahahaha!

Did I say YOU were? No. Boy talk about a guilty conscience. Carly Simon wrote a song about you.