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1550 WZUM

A lot of you in broadcasting understand there are 25 hours of programming today. I just created two 2AMs to deal with the clock change from EDT to EST. This is my first time I have needed to do this. In prior years, most programming was network fed so the problem was someone else's to worry about. Even if the system screwed up, no one was listening to notice. I plan to babysit the automation system to make sure everything works.

I checked the clock on the home made transmitter controller and it is ready for the time to change. We installed an old 233MHz FreeBSD UNIX system at the transmitter building in 2004. It had a 56K modem and connected to a POTs line. We sent a MP3 stream to it which is how we got audio to the transmitter from our studios in the very early days. It took a few weeks for the telephone company to install a T1 (1.54M bps) line. The format at that time was talk so a 32K MP3 stream was enough. The serial port on the UNIX system connects to a couple of Broadcast Tools boxes we use to control the transmitter and read status from the tower light monitor and the transmitter. We have a newer web based system to read tower current and other items. It can do everything if we want it to do so. I guess it is time to move off of the old system.

The downside to our low power set back is for the rest of November and December it is at 5PM. Oh well, it is what it is.
 
sparks said:
Even if the system screwed up, no one was listening to notice.
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Back in the days when 660 was WPYT and 1550 was WLFP, I noticed a few mornings when both stations would be running dead carrier. Since the two stations shared the same tower (still do) and back then had studios in the same building, I always figured it was due to a power failure at the studios. I was quite convinced on those mornings that I was the only person listening.

I also recall that when 660 signed on the air in 2004 (as WCIX), the first day the station was left on the air all night (whether by accident or design, I cannot say) and it battled with the 50,000-watt signal of WFAN until morning.

C.
 
cingram said:
Back in the days when 660 was WPYT and 1550 was WLFP, I noticed a few mornings when both stations would be running dead carrier. Since the two stations shared the same tower (still do) and back then had studios in the same building, I always figured it was due to a power failure at the studios. I was quite convinced on those mornings that I was the only person listening.
C.
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All of the studio and control room equipment is on an UPS with a backup generator. The automation system needed to be replaced in 2007 when Business TalkRadio Network purchased the system. It was old when we installed it in 2004. The system would stop running at times. It would lock up with the audio muted. It would lock up and not play IDs. It was a piece of junk. The owners just didn't care. I have a number of e-mails reporting problems with the system but no one cared. No big surprise there were no listeners.

As for WPYT, they dropped their satellite feed and streamed programming over the Internet. It sounded great and worked well until it didn't. I called one day to report the loss of their programming. I was told both their Pittsburgh station and their Philadelphia station went down when their Internet went down in Boston.

The other problem was water would get into the Verizon cable causing the T1 to quit. There are no more working pairs in the cable. This is something we are going to have to deal with next spring.
 
sparks said:
The automation system needed to be replaced in 2007 when Business TalkRadio Network purchased the system. It was old when we installed it in 2004. The system would stop running at times. It would lock up with the audio muted. It would lock up and not play IDs. It was a piece of junk.
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When I started at KHB/KFB in early 2004, right after 770 went on the air, both stations were using an automation system that I will leave nameless. Not only did it lock up frequently, it had the wonderful attribute of not being able to handle very short audio files. It absolutely WOULD NOT play a jingle properly; you'd hear the jingle followed by four or five seconds of dead air. Every. Single. Time. Fortunately, we replaced it with Scott Studios not long after, but that drove me crazy for months.

C.
 
For you trivia fans, what was the call letter AM Guys LLC had planned to use before taking WZUM?

WEXW and WIXZ were both in the running. WIXZ fifteen fifty was one choice. Phil Lenz was early with that suggestion. We knew we wanted to do a music format but the more we listened around town, the rock oldies format would not work for us. We made a very unbusinesslike like decision and elected to not use those call letters for emotional reason because 1360 was still around. With WZUM, 1590 was gone so no emotional connection existed to the old frequency.

Both Stephen and I belong to the North Hills Amateur Radio Club. The Club call is W3EXW. One night after sundown, we plan to shutdown 1550 and connect the tower to a Ham radio and try to work 160 meters. The sign off was going to be something like: "WEXW now signs off 1550 and will sign back on as W3EXW on 1850". While our geek ham friends would find this interesting, the general public would not get it. Clarke saved us when he suggested the format and WZUM.
 
Renda should have changed 1360 back to WIXZ. That was the station's one truly successful incarnation. Heck, Bishop Loran Mann should pick up the call letters, unless he really wants to stick with WMNY.

C.
 
Bob Dickey went to his grave believing that some people still thought KQV was a contemporary music station. He said they thought of changing the call letters but decided they want to keep the heritage of a three-letter call sign.
 
Boss Radio said:
Bob Dickey went to his grave believing that some people still thought KQV was a contemporary music station. He said they thought of changing the call letters but decided they want to keep the heritage of a three-letter call sign.
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Bob Dickey was right. There are some people for whom KQV will always be about the glory years of Chuck Brinkman, Jim Quinn, et. al. I have always believed that the station's illustrious Top 40 history has partially stood in the way of it achieving unqualified success as an all-news station.

But I wouldn't change the call letters, even though they might be, simultaneously, a blessing and a curse.

C.
 
Bob Dickey didn't believe that people associated KQV with its Top 40 past. He believed people thought it was still a music station -- in 1995.

KQV hasn't had unqualified success as a news station because so many people rely on KDKA for news. KDKA has a bigger news staff than KQV does.
 
Boss Radio said:
Bob Dickey didn't believe that people associated KQV with its Top 40 past. He believed people thought it was still a music station -- in 1995.

KQV hasn't had unqualified success as a news station because so many people rely on KDKA for news. KDKA has a bigger news staff than KQV does.
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There probably are some people who think KQV still plays music. I know there are people who still think 96KX is on the air, and it's been gone for 30 years now.

You are right that KDKA stands in KQV's way. Obviously, signal is also an issue. My point was that KQV "means something" and for many people, it always will mean Top 40.

C.
 
For those of you who have been waiting for the return of McKeesport's other radio station, 1360 is back on the air, simulcasting WGBN-1150 in New Kensington, as expected. I first noticed it around 5:30 a.m. today.

C.
 
I received e-mail from Streema informing me WZUM was added to their directory service. I don't remember asking them to do this. If I sent e-mail to them, it would have been last July. I was sending a lot of e-mails at that time so maybe I forgot. Regardless of how they found WZUM, I am grateful for the addition of our station to their website. If you search for WZUM, it will bring you to a web page with our graphic and a player to listen to the station's stream.

http://streema.com/radios/WZUM?utm_...ctional&utm_campaign=radio-from-request-email
 
I was in the 11th grade of high school when I started working part-time at WNUF (100.7 New Ken). I worked there for four years and throughout that time I kept hearing how owning a radio was a license to print money. I would love to meet the person who started that saying. In my short experience of owning a radio station, I find it a license to print checks.
 
sparks said:
I received e-mail from Streema informing me WZUM was added to their directory service. I don't remember asking them to do this. If I sent e-mail to them, it would have been last July. I was sending a lot of e-mails at that time so maybe I forgot. Regardless of how they found WZUM, I am grateful for the addition of our station to their website. If you search for WZUM, it will bring you to a web page with our graphic and a player to listen to the station's stream.

http://streema.com/radios/WZUM?utm_...ctional&utm_campaign=radio-from-request-email
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For some reason, Streema sounds to me like a dessert topping. At any rate, I'm glad we're listed. (They also list the old WZUM at 1590 as a Catholic station. If THAT stream ever works, alert the media.)

C.
 
The Woodland Hills High School Football season is over. It was a break in the music but it was nice to have a local live show. It was also a good use of our 4 watt night signal as it covered the school district.
 
I started this thread by reporting the automation system was up. I log in each night around 11:45PM to watch the automation system load the next day's log file and to make sure all is well. Tonight, the log file did not load correctly. 15 minutes later, my terminal session closed and the audio stream quit. We had dead air from 12:15AM to 1AM. I drove to the station to reboot the system. We use BSI's Simian automation software on Microsoft Windows XP. It was XP that crashed. I restarted the automation application during the afternoon due to display errors. I had hoped that solved the problem but it did not. A full reboot solved the problem.

The Heart and Soul of Pittsburgh is back on the air!
 
sparks said:
I started this thread by reporting the automation system was up. I log in each night around 11:45PM to watch the automation system load the next day's log file and to make sure all is well. Tonight, the log file did not load correctly. 15 minutes later, my terminal session closed and the audio stream quit. We had dead air from 12:15AM to 1AM. I drove to the station to reboot the system. We use BSI's Simian automation software on Microsoft Windows XP. It was XP that crashed. I restarted the automation application during the afternoon due to display errors. I had hoped that solved the problem but it did not. A full reboot solved the problem.

The Heart and Soul of Pittsburgh is back on the air!
Click to expand...

What a relief.
 
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