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A day in the life of a lamptimer

And the winner of the Board Operator of the Month goes to........

KOOL KSLX/KAZG Listener Laurren


Without years of training at the Buckeye Media Hut, how would anyone know when Radio Khushi was over and roll the legal ID jingle? Watch and learn from a real pro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feXdsHmzFyw
 
Last night (Mon 08/29) we had the "new" usual dimming of the wattage at 7:01:11 PM
and the carrier dump at 7:12:12, both courtesy of the "minus 14" lamptimer.

Tonight however, there was no--at least not a detectable--power drop just after 7:00,
and the carrier dump was moved forward to 7:14:55.

Closed circuit for catfish (with a "c")...what happened?
 
The Nurse and I don't know this for a fact, but we suspect Mrs Gumpdusky drives an Olds 98. How else do you explain why Lumberyard 14~Forty plays "Goin' Out Of My Head" by Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 instead of Little Anthony & the Imperials? She probably has the 8 track of the album in her sofa on four wheels!
 
Kookie lent us his comb again at 7:55 this morning. Does Mrs. Lumberyard
also schedule the Kookster's songs, as she does with Frank's? ;)
 
After sign-off tonight (09/18/11), I thought perhaps the Lumberyard was playing some post sunset oldies when I heard Three Dog Night faintly singing some "Celebrate." Turned out not to be the Lumberyard, but a station carrying a classic hits format having an "All 70's weekend!" Hmm, sound familiar? Turned out to be a fairly strong signal coming from our friends up north in Colorado via KRDZ in Wray. Now the station is suppose to be 212 watts at night, but they were coming in pretty strong for a measly 212 watts. Must be another station pulling a KFNN!

This leads me to another question for those that happen to stumble upon 1440 at night: Any idea where that classical music station is coming from? The last couple months, I've noticed a station playing classical music overpower the 1440 frequency at times with no station ID or anything. Just a constant stream of Mozart, Bach and all those long-haired favorites, very similar to KMZT, 1260 AM out of Beverly Hills, CA. A casual search of a 1440 AM station airing classical music pulls up nothing in the United States. Unless it's some unidentified station from Mexico (which I find hard to believe with a classical music format), this is a true mystery.

Of course, I wouldn't have to ask these questions about the 1440 dial if our friends over at Sandusky would allow our beloved Lumberyard to run at night with their mighty 52 watts! ;D
 
asugeorge1 said:
After sign-off tonight (09/18/11), I thought perhaps the Lumberyard was playing some post sunset oldies when I heard Three Dog Night faintly singing some "Celebrate." Turned out not to be the Lumberyard, but a station carrying a classic hits format having an "All 70's weekend!" Hmm, sound familiar? Turned out to be a fairly strong signal coming from our friends up north in Colorado via KRDZ in Wray. Now the station is suppose to be 212 watts at night, but they were coming in pretty strong for a measly 212 watts. Must be another station pulling a KFNN!
Click to expand...

Lamptimers do drfit, so it's entirely illogical that KRDZ was running with 5kw of Pow-Pow-Power when you heard them after Lumberyard 14~Forty took a carrier dump. Colorado is still on MST and the fall skywave brings all kinds of interesting things to the Ancient Modulation band. (Nurse Jeff brings up an interesting fact - KRDZ's xmttr is close to the Wray sewage treatment plant. We got the Lumberyard, they got the Crapperyard)

This leads me to another question for those that happen to stumble upon 1440 at night: Any idea where that classical music station is coming from? ... Unless it's some unidentified station from Mexico (which I find hard to believe with a classical music format), this is a true mystery.
Click to expand...

...as in Chopin, Tschaikovsky & el Mozarto? Well, roll over that Gremlin cause a border blaster is playin' Beethoven. YIKES!

Of course, I wouldn't have to ask these questions about the 1440 dial if our friends over at Sandusky would allow our beloved Lumberyard to run at night with their mighty 52 watts! ;D
Click to expand...

That would require a new xmttr and a third shift of Goldminers :eek:
 
Speaking of yesterday (Sun 09/18) at the Lumberyard...

They didn't come on with the PSRA at 6:00 AM, but waited until the monthly
6:15 and popped on with five gallons (and no ID, of course)--with a Sunday
morning PA show already in progress (likely a half hour).

It was all about city of Phoenix recycling (blue can et al), and was from June.
So I guess you can rerun your PA shows, too.
 
Dr. Akbar said:
KRDZ's xmttr is close to the Wray sewage treatment plant. We got the Lumberyard, they got the Crapperyard)
Click to expand...

That has to be it, all that Wray wastewater is helping enhance their night-time signal!

Of course, KRDZ could be using their PSSA (just like KAZG could be using their PSSA), but this is doubtful because KRDZ's PSSA is lower than their allotted night-time power of 212 watts. For September, KRDZ has 191 watts of PSSA between the hours of 7:00 P.M. and 7:30 P.M., and then 101 watts from 7:30 P.M. to 8:00 P.M., Colorado time. I can just see the reaction of KRDZ when they got their PSSA back in 2007, "Wow, thanks FCC for allowing us to use less power with our PSSA then we can already use with our night-time authorization!"

boiseengineer said:
1440 Clasical might be KPTO Pocatello. Haven't listened long enuf to find out.
350 watts at night with some of that going south.
Click to expand...

This could very well be possible, but everything I've seen for KPTO lists the station as either: (1) silent, (2) format unknown, or (3) talk format. To start, Wikipedia lists the station as silent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPTO. As we all know, though, Wikipedia is not the authority on accurate, up-to-date information. According to the FCC, KPTO resumed operations on December 21st, 2009. See here: https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101350609&formid=910&fac_num=129638. Unfortunately, the format isn't listed on the FCC site.

According to the AM Log Book, http://www.amlogbook.com/freq/freq.htm#1440, KPTO is carrying an unknown format. Finally, TuneIn lists KPTO as airing a talk format with the moniker, "The Talk of Pocatello." Unfortunately, there's no live stream available to verify this. Thus, I have no way to deduce what format KPTO is airing. It could be classical, it could be talk, it could be anything. Either way, if that is KPTO airing classical music or, as the lovable Doc puts it, a "border blaster!", I'm impressed to hear an AM station attempt to air a 24 hour classical music station. According to Radio Locator, there are only four other stations in all of North America broadcasting a classical music format on AM: KMZT 1260 AM in Beverly Hills, CA; KUDL 1660 AM out of Kansas City, KS; WCCC 1290 AM in West Hartford, CT; and, finally, CJRB 1220 AM from the Great White North. See here: http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?call=&band=AM&freq=&freq_exact=Yes&city=&state=&country=&format=cls&owner_search=starts&owner=&scope=&count=20&is_lic=Y&is_cp=Y&is_unl=Y&is_ful=Y&is_lp=Y&sort=Call&sr=1&sid=.

Applause mysterious 1440 station for airing all Mozart, all the time! :)

Dr. Akbar said:
asugeorge1 said:
Of course, I wouldn't have to ask these questions about the 1440 dial if our friends over at Sandusky would allow our beloved Lumberyard to run at night with their mighty 52 watts! ;D
Click to expand...

That would require a new xmttr and a third shift of Goldminers :eek:
Click to expand...

I'd work at the Lumberyard for free one a night a week if it meant we could get us some Goldmine oldies 24/7. Any other volunteers? All we'd have to do is make sure the Gates thing-a-ma-jig doesn't explode trying to go down to 52 watts or whatever the Lumberyard uses when it does decide to broadcast at night once in every blue moon! ;D
 
While I didn't catch the sign-on, I have to say amazing! that Lumberyard 1440
actually signed off on-time on the first day of October. Juuust before 6 PM.
It didn't take them a day to "catch up" as had been the norm.

OTOH, I also heard KayFuNN 1510's power drop today (Sun 10/02), and it didn't
happen until several minutes after 6.
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
While I didn't catch the sign-on, I have to say amazing! that Lumberyard 1440
actually signed off on-time on the first day of October. Juuust before 6 PM.
It didn't take them a day to "catch up" as had been the norm.
Click to expand...

This should prove interesting, though, with the newly improved reverse-drift Lamptimer. Before the new month, the reverse Lamptimer had the effect of cutting the KAZG signal five minutes early from monthly sign-off. September sign-off was 6:30 P.M., but the Lamptimer was kicking in pretty early toward the end of the month around 6:25 P.M. Now, as we all know, Radio Khushi is on air from 4:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. With the new month, sign-off / power-down is scheduled at 6:00 P.M., but the reverse Lamptimer will begin to drift into Radio Khushi time, that is if KAZG engineers allow it to happen. What we will probably see is a manual shut-down of the carrier instead of our trusty Lamptimer.

All this does raise an interesting issue regarding KAZG's sign-off the next few months. Beginning next month, sign-off is at 5:30 P.M. and in December it's 5:15 P.M. This leads us to this intriguing question: What is the ol' Lumberyard going to do with Radio Khushi and the new monthly sign-off times this winter? I see there being three options: (1) Radio Khushi gets moved up an hour to 3:00 P.M. and airs from 3 to 5 (which is possible since they simulcast the second hour of the show in Seattle and come November, daylight savings time goes bye-bye and Radio Khushi would either air an hour earlier in Seattle already or the entire Radio Khushi Phoenix schedule would have to somehow adjust); (2) Sandusky decides to use their PSSA (which has yet to be done in the entire history of KAZG); or (3) Sandusky decides to keep the 5,000 watts rolling until 6:00 P.M., ala KFNN (which the Lumberyard has done before in order to air high-school sports or ASU women's basketball).

Out of all three options, I think Radio Khushi adjusting their broadcast schedule is the most likely to occur since I remember the Bandwagon having to do the same thing when they were on KAZG a couple winters ago. If that doesn't happen, we might just see a variant of the PSSA used on KAZG. :eek:

I guess we'll have to keep our ears glued to the transistor in order to hear what happens with the ol' Lumberyard!
 
asugeorge1 said:
Out of all three options, I think Radio Khushi adjusting their broadcast schedule is the most likely to occur since I remember the Bandwagon having to do the same thing when they were on KAZG a couple winters ago. If that doesn't happen, we might just see a variant of the PSSA used on KAZG. :eek:
Click to expand...

The Buckeye Boyz agree with your assessment. We'll have to see if the Radio Khushi affiliate in Seattle (another Gumpdusky station) will time shift it earlier to compensate for the one hour difference in Daylight Saving Time. Moving Radio Khushi to 3-5pm will give us at least 15 minutes (subject to lamptimer drift) of worn out oldies before Lumberyard 14~Forty takes a carrier dump at 5:15p in December.

...out of curiosity, Nurse Jeff wants to know what the Goldminers do during the 2 hour break for Radio Khushi ???
 
Please forgive me if this has already been covered in this VERY long topic... but are we dealing with

a

DIGITAL lamp timer

or

an ANALOG lamp timer

(the one with the little push pins)

maybe that's the problem?

:eek:
 
Bill Drake said:
Please forgive me if this has already been covered in this VERY long topic... but are we dealing with

a

DIGITAL lamp timer

or

an ANALOG lamp timer

(the one with the little push pins)

maybe that's the problem?

:eek:
Click to expand...
Used to be a Dobie Grey Drift Away Mechanical Lamptimer from K*Mart.
Now its a 1960's Amana Computer controlling the Sign on and Sign off.
 
LibertyNT said:
Used to be a Dobie Grey Drift Away Mechanical Lamptimer from K*Mart.
Now its a 1960's Amana Computer controlling the Sign on and Sign off.
Click to expand...

Must be the same Barbara Hale timer they use in an Amana Radarange. Dependable as the secretary to Perry Mason!
 
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