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94.5 PST off the air today...was it lightning?

N

nd2023

Banned
Today about 1:30 in the afternoon, I put on 94.5 and heard static and splatter from WJLK 94.3 and WFME 94.7, instead of the usual 94.5 PST. I live in PST's city grade contour, so it is easy to get. Does anyone know why PST was off the air today?

I also learned never to call the station to ask why it's off the air, since the person answering the phone got angry at me.<P ID="signature">______________
17-year-old radio geek
Location: Princeton Junction, NJ
AIM: KewlDude471
WWPH 107.9 FM: http://wwph1079fm.no-ip.org</P>
 
> Today about 1:30 in the afternoon, I put on 94.5 and heard
> static and splatter from WJLK 94.3 and WFME 94.7, instead of
> the usual 94.5 PST. I live in PST's city grade contour, so
> it is easy to get. Does anyone know why PST was off the air
> today?

It was pretty neat to get WDAC from Lancaster while driving home on the Parkway.

I was also getting something playing Classical music in and out.
 
Radio stations can go off the air for many, many reasons.
It's not that big a deal, things happen !

I'm speaking in general here, not about WPST.
It could be a power outage, blown circuit breaker
due to a power surge (which will keep the generator
from powering things if they have one) it could be
a problem with the transmitter, a problem with the
antenna, vandalism, lightning, someone pushing the
wrong button, cheap antenna catching on fire, etc.

Sometimes it's even planned - some critical work
may need to be done, and it can't wait until late
night.

So how many minutes was it off ?


> Today about 1:30 in the afternoon, I put on 94.5 and heard
> static and splatter from WJLK 94.3 and WFME 94.7, instead of
> the usual 94.5 PST. I live in PST's city grade contour, so
> it is easy to get. Does anyone know why PST was off the air
> today?
>
> I also learned never to call the station to ask why it's off
> the air, since the person answering the phone got angry at
> me.
>
 
> I also learned never to call the station to ask why it's off
> the air, since the person answering the phone got angry at
> me.

This reminds me of the time a few months ago when our STL went down, a switch hung up at the TX site and it wouldn't switch to the microwave back up. Our enginner had to drive out to the tower on a Sunday morning to restore the audio.

Meanwhile I was answering the phones and very nicely telling people why they couldn't get the signal. After the first dozen calls, I found "the transmitter's not working, but we have an engineer fixing things" was much simpler than trying to explain the concept of a studio-transmitter link, a T1 line, a microwave backup, and the idea that the studio and transmitter were not in the same town.

But my best call was from a lady who told me that we must've turned our antenna, and could we please put it back where it was yesterday because it was pointing at her house and she could get the signal fine yesterday. I got two mental pictures. One was of a guy climbing a 400 foot tower and moving all the antenna bays (I think we have 9) to face this lady's house. The other was the engineer in the transmitter shack with one of those rotors turning the antenna around.

Frank
 
> Radio stations can go off the air for many, many reasons.
> It's not that big a deal, things happen !
>
> I'm speaking in general here, not about WPST.
> It could be a power outage, blown circuit breaker
> due to a power surge (which will keep the generator
> from powering things if they have one) it could be
> a problem with the transmitter, a problem with the
> antenna, vandalism, lightning, someone pushing the
> wrong button, cheap antenna catching on fire, etc.


Or it could be the DJ dialed the wrong code in when taking his readings.
Not that I ever did that...
 
Oy it is a Harris Tube transmitter.. Roy is the New CE...greg is his asst.
I know the Tube was changed a year ago.. I was there. But not sure whats been done in that Years time..
There is a backup transmitter at that site. so maybe it was Either a Power Failure. Or they were doing Tower ?antenna work today


> Today about 1:30 in the afternoon, I put on 94.5 and heard
> static and splatter from WJLK 94.3 and WFME 94.7, instead of
> the usual 94.5 PST. I live in PST's city grade contour, so
> it is easy to get. Does anyone know why PST was off the air
> today?
>
> I also learned never to call the station to ask why it's off
> the air, since the person answering the phone got angry at
> me.
>
 
> > Radio stations can go off the air for many, many reasons.
> > It's not that big a deal, things happen !
> >
>
> Or it could be the DJ dialed the wrong code in when taking
> his readings.
> Not that I ever did that...
>
Or these days it could be one of the engineers pushing the wrong button on his/her cell phone while negotiating NJ traffic, lol.
 
> Radio stations can go off the air for many, many reasons.
> It's not that big a deal, things happen !
>
> I'm speaking in general here, not about WPST.
> It could be a power outage, blown circuit breaker
> due to a power surge (which will keep the generator
> from powering things if they have one) it could be
> a problem with the transmitter, a problem with the
> antenna, vandalism, lightning, someone pushing the
> wrong button, cheap antenna catching on fire, etc.

Or, something could've become <blink>intermittent</blink>...
 
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