A day in the life of a lamptimer

[cingram]

As long as you don't start humming Timothy by The Bouys, we'll allow these mining musical melodies about Lumberyard 14~Forty!

Timothy was a #1 song here in Pittsburgh (the band was from the other side of the state), one of those regional hits that was huge in some markets and never played in others.

C.

 

[cingram]

Word has it that Gary found the old lamptimer at the transmitter site.. bidding war begins, do I hear.. how much? Donations for a new remote control computer?

The Old Lamptimer,
In old Scottsdale-town.

C.

 

[cingram]

I guess I need to go down to the KOPA vs. KSLX thread (a/k/a "Let's All Gather At The River") and post my recollections of the day that format change occurred.

C.

 

[DrAkbar]

Timothy was a #1 song here in Pittsburgh (the band was from the other side of the state), one of those regional hits that was huge in some markets and never played in others.

Gee, can't understand why more stations didn't want to play a song about cannibalism. Nurse Jeff tells me the song was written by the same guy who did the Carey Pina Colada song (Escape)....go figure!

Re: the recently found lamptimer - $37.50 is our bid...unless it was accidently dropped into the canal by one of the 14~Forty miners.

 

[Basnya]

Timothy shows up regularly on KCDX, in fact it just finished playing about 20 minutes ago.

 

[The Beave]

I would donate a 386 with windows 3.1 on it for the old lamp timer

 

[DrAkbar]

I would donate a 386 with windows 3.1 on it for the old lamp timer

Whoa, big fella! The Nurse and I'll give you our Pentium 4 with Vista on it for your old 386 with 3.1. That version of Windows never crashed as much as this one. But please don't say anything to Gumpdusky about the trade...you may not get the lamptimer!

 

[The Beave]

some how that was the PC that never got tossed out... occasionally I fire it up still works really well.
beats a commodore 64.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

The lamptimer is drifting its usual :11 per day (sometimes :10)--
tonight's carrier dump was at 7:18:01.

Curious as to what will happen to the 4-7 PM jock talk starting
Tuesday. So it gets to 6:30 PM LST (lamptimer standard time)
and you hear:

"...but I don't think Favre can do it again. I mean, he's...(static)"

Or do the jocks know they'll have to end it at 6:30? This would be
more interesting--to hear the talk show end, what the lamptimer
does, and what about a legal ID?


While we're again dumping on Gumpdusky, what in the wide, wide
world of sports (reference courtesy Akbar) is KDUS 1060 still doing
on daytime power/pattern* at 9:20 PM?

*: Based on Sangean 909 signal meter reading in the 'Tuke.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

And KDUS did finally drop power sometime between 10:00 and 11:37 PM.

 

[DrAkbar]

While we're again dumping on Gumpdusky, what in the wide, wide
world of sports (reference courtesy Akbar) is KDUS 1060 still doing
on daytime power/pattern* at 9:20 PM?

Perhaps Kay-Du-Fus reduces power at sundown Guam time?!

Gumpdusky seems to have a lock on errant lamptimers. Let's see what happens on 9/01 to both Cactus Radio (aka Lumberyard 14~Forty) and Tempe Radio (aka Sports Parkinglot 10~Sixty). Nurse Jeff and I sleep better at night knowing Oldiesfan is protecting us against illegal power grabs!

 

[pattiwacki]

We all do. oldiesfan is a true professional and patriot!

 

[asugeorge1]

Oldiesfan, I was listening last night to both the Lumberyard and 1060. As usual, the lamptimer on 1440 kicked in right in the middle of a song, this time it was Alley-Oop by the Hollywood Argyles. Right after that happened, I turned over to 1060 and was surprised to find static on that station as well. At first, I thought the lamptimer had claimed another victim, this time on 1060! It took Gumpdusky about 10 minutes to fix it, but Phoenix Mercury basketball came back on at the aforementioned day-time power. I didn't hear when KDUS switched to night-time power, but if it was after 10:00 P.M., that sounds like an FCC violation to me! Combine that with the Lumberyard's constant failure to issue a legal ID at sign-off and Gumpdusky could be paying for some long-standing violations!

Also, oldiesfan, if you recall, earlier this year the Lumberyard was more than willing to stay on past sunset for ASU women's basketball and Arizona High School sports basketball. In addition, last year, East Valley Radio was on in September and they were allowed to run until 7:00 P.M. at day-time power. Gumpdusky might just let the Bandwagon continue until 7:00 P.M. come Tuesday. Of course, this point would be moot if Cactus Radio would just let the Lumberyard run all night at their allotted night-time power!

 

[oldiesfan6479]

For the final day of August:

KDUS up at 5:44-something AM, down at 7:14:03 PM.
KAZG popped on at 5:48:17 AM, cut carrier at 7:18:23 PM.

Starting tomorrow the daytime period is 6:15 AM-6:30 PM.

Hey, is anyone on their way to the Lumberyard to observe the
monthly resetting of the lamptimer? I didn't think so. <grin>

 

[landtuna]

Hey, is anyone on their way to the Lumberyard to observe the
monthly resetting of the lamptimer? I didn't think so. <grin>

KLL has the Lumberyard watch tonight.

 

[DrAkbar]

For the final day of August:

Starting tomorrow the daytime period is 6:15 AM-6:30 PM.

Wonder if Gumpdusky is going to use the Lumberyard's pre-sunrise authority to come on at 6am beginning 9/01?

Hey, is anyone on their way to the Lumberyard to observe the
monthly resetting of the lamptimer? I didn't think so. <grin>

Completey spaced it out ... Nurse Jeff was on the phone with that outfit Gaydos pitches that recycles your electricty to save money. We're trying to recycle some of the methane gas from the dairy farms around the Buckeye Media Hut! Talk about your carbon footprints!

 

[oldiesfan6479]

Wonder if Gumpdusky is going to use the Lumberyard's pre-sunrise authority to come on at 6am beginning 9/01?

Akbar, you must be psycho psychic. <grin>

Lumberyard 1440 was already on at 6:15 AM with reduced power--either the
52-watt lowtorch or whatever they have in their PSRA. I'm guessing 52 watts.

I don't know when KAZG came on, but I'll side with the Doc and go with 6:00.

The lamptimer, although reset for the September times, continued being 3:00+
late and bumped up to 5 kw at 6:18:29.

It was a weird power up--no several seconds of dead air, no abrupt boost, but
rather a "fade up" in signal strength.

This evening, jock talk ended at 6:30:10 followed by an immediate segue to music
JIP, and the carrier was dumped at 6:33:34. Still :11 later than the day before,
with the monthly sign-off time adjustment. Need I say no legal ID?

BTW, power drop for some of our other players: KDUS 6:28:59, KFNN 6:29:25,
and the Big 1480 at 6:29:40.

A footnote on the afternoon KAZG jock talk: one of the hosts said they're now on
from 3:30-6:30 PM...for this week. Starting next Tuesday September 8 (assuming
no airing on Labor Day) the show is moving to Gumpdusky brother KDUS 1060 and
will be on 7-10 AM.

 

[catfish]

Gary is still looking for a donation to replace the old DOS computer.. yes Sandusky's billing is down but they are not laying people off.. well only two so far and hopefully no more.. times are tough for radio.. wish you all had a PPM for both 1060 and 1440 but we cannot control that. KDUS uses a Broadcast Tools Programmable Scheduler to do the pattern change and it gains 3 minutes a month.. KXEG uses one for the satellite controller at the transmitter site and it has kept almost perfect time for almost a year.. go figure.. 1440 has not and does not run at the low power level.. Gates 5 is not type accepted to do so. hey it's the only gold in the market run buy actually nice people, please support the advertisers. oh and Gary rocks!!!

 

[oldiesfan6479]

KDUS uses a Broadcast Tools Programmable Scheduler to do the pattern change and it gains 3 minutes a month.

How difficult is it to reset its time from an atomic clock source once a week?

And last Saturday when the power/pattern change didn't happen until after
10 PM--was that a failure of the computer program? Didn't the board op
notice 5 kw was still being pumped out for several hours after the monthly
power drop time? Maybe put a big sign on the control room wall with each
each month's power up/power down times as a reminder.

1440 has not and does not run at the low power level.. Gates 5 is not type accepted to do so.

This morning KAZG definitely was on lower power at 6:15.

 

[catfish]

Most seem to forget that almost every engineer in this market and every other market takes care of several stations and if a pattern change does not happen to the second it is not a priority, when it's out 10 minutes or more now that's a problem. Not everytime when a station does not change on time there are other issues besides a timer, like multiple towers with RF switches that screw up and when your trying to find which micro switch is acting up refuses to screw up when your trying to fix it or find the problem. It used to be that more attention was given to changing to the second but with so few broadcast engineers taking care of more stations ... may the force be with us and with no more layoffs!!! Almost every station in this market has had to layoff staff and that's sad but a reality of today, as each of us listens to our favorite radio station it's important to support the advertisors and the stations themselves.