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DEAD AIR!!!

P

pobryan

Saturday night, March 1st, is the third time I've heard dead air on Y-101 in Jackson. I'm not talking about a few minutes but 1 1/2 hours!!! I know they went dead just before 8 PM and didn't start programming up again until somewhere between 9:30-9:45. I've heard this twice before on Saturday night although I didn't catch exactly how long it was. Somebody is messin' up progamming the computer! That's BAD for a CHR in Jackson (really anywhere) to be dead air on SATURDAY NIGHT!!! Call me old fashion if you want but give me a live jock and a couple of triple stacks anytime!! That would have NEVER happened in my day (70's & 80's). At least somebody should put a silence sensor in line and have it call someone when this happens. Come on, would you old timers ever think you might hear 62-JDX, 13-WRBC or W-ONE with 1 1/2 hours of dead air on Saturday night? Ok, I'll get off my soap box now. calm down...calm down... WHERE HAS RADIO GONE???
 
A w-1 jock was on the phone and had about 30 seconds dead air in afternoon drive...was warned not to let it reoccur. Few weeks later it happened again and
guess who was out of a job? No need to be calm...looks like somebody else should be looking! Come see us...JBI
 
What's worse is the fact that there very well may be stations on Saturday night with dead air,and nobody notices!
 
Unfortunately, I have heard this happen at many stations in different markets around the country. There is no excuse for it happening anywhere! As you mentioned, what happened to silence sensors? As bad as this is to happen at an unmanned station, which is also something there is no excuse for, it's even worse when it happens in a station where there is at least one person right down the hall on one of the other stations, yet they choose to ignore it. That has been the case at a live FM with a satellite AM I sometimes listen to. When I called to tell the FM jock, the response was that nobody listens to the AM anyway. Well, yes, nobody listens to hours of dead air on any band! If they really feel nobody is listening to the AM, maybe they should just press the OFF switch on the transmitter, or better yet, mail the license back to the FCC.
 
Seems like this happens all the time on nearly every robo-jock radio station. Z 106 does it all the time and it goes on for quite a while. Sometimes it goes to dead air during John boy and Billy or when the show ends. One day they went to dead air and you could hear another classic rock station station called "The Fox" bleeding in in the background. It continued even after Peter Christian came on, and went for several hours. Its alot worse on weekends especially Sunday morning. I've seen multiple stations dead at the same time a few times This hardly ever happened when real people played music. WZZQ would occasionally have a stuck record and the old WRKN in Brandon was notorious for playing records that skipped or got stuck but you used to never hear this stuff on the "big" stations. Oh the wonders of digital technology.
 
WZZQ would occasionally have a stuck record and the old WRKN in Brandon was notorious for playing records that skipped or got stuck but you used to never hear this stuff on the "big" stations. Oh the wonders of digital technology.
[/quote]
Or the train would block Perez on the way back from a Kentucky Fried Chicken run while the side of an LP got ever so close to running out. Bet he was listening on the way,though.....
 
...or Perez would just not show up for a shift and the JDX weekend news kid -- who was just hanging out in FM -- would have to fill in.

It's how I got on Q. Probably would have been better to have dead air versus me on the air, but I had fun :)
 
Had to run across the hall and do an occasional segue myself back in the day. Remember Perez getting stuck by the train on the way from Krystal (Perez ate his Krystals with ketchup only; special order, so it took longer.)
 
Triple decker?

I recall one night at an unnamed station, when the cart deck died and so did one of two turntables... and I still kept on going. That was great fun... The board cranked open and I was having to run things while the CE worked feverishly to find out why it was all dead except mike, one TT, and (thank goodness) the net (CBS)...
 
These are all neat stories but people were on top of the situation. No silence sensor, nobody at the station etc... It's an accident waiting to happen. On a liter side, I remember one night at B-97 FM in New Orleans. I was stretched out in those plush studios in the New Orleans Hyatt Regency behind a Pacific Recorders console when the wind screen falls off and lands directly on top of the stop button for the cart on the air. I had never heard silence in that control room and freaked out! Anyway, we were only off a few seconds. What are the chances that the wind screen would fall directly on the button on air? I also remember Preez had a flat tire one night and was late. When he got to the station, he played some long 40 minute classical movement by Bach or something while he fixed his flat. When he came on he said that he made everyone sit through that because nobody would stop and help him fix the flat. CLASSIC!!
 
Thats the thing I loved about ZZQ. In the early days before they were overly commerialized you never knew exactly what they were going to play next. I remember staying up late and hearing some very strange and freaky stuff in the middle of the night. I always wondered what they were smoking. Especially Perez, when he would start laughing about something and we couldn't tell what was so funny. I've noticed that sometimes he plays bumper music on Supertalk they played on ZZQ back in the day. like "Manic Mechanic" by ZZ Top. Not too many people play that record anymore.
 
flytrap said:
Thats the thing I loved about ZZQ. In the early days before they were overly commerialized you never knew exactly what they were going to play next. I remember staying up late and hearing some very strange and freaky stuff in the middle of the night. I always wondered what they were smoking. Especially Perez, when he would start laughing about something and we couldn't tell what was so funny. I've noticed that sometimes he plays bumper music on Supertalk they played on ZZQ back in the day. like "Manic Mechanic" by ZZ Top. Not too many people play that record anymore.
Click to expand...


I thought Perez was still at Z106. Guess I have been away awile ;D
 
Not only do they have dead air during the Open House Party, but sometimes during Rick Dee's Countdown, they'll have their regular feed overlapping...

I have a feeling their weekend staff doesn't pay much attention...
 
It does't even sound like they have a weekend staff. Most of the stations around jackson sound like they are on auto-pilot nights and weekends. Its even getting like that in the middle of the day now. I'm also sick of the horrible loud distorted audio some of these stations like Y-101 have. Sometimes its almost unlistenable on certain songs. I've gotten where I enjoy the bluegrass on WTWZ AM since he got new equipment. The audio sounds really clean and clear. If it were in stereo it would sound as good or better than some of these over compressed FM stations
 
Perez used to come over to JDX and ask me to put ZZQ in cue so he could A) Go to Krystal or B) Cook a steak. Most of the time he'd track "Dark Side Of the Moon".
I can remember only once that we actually lost power. The emergency generator would kick on and the only way we could tell was that both turntables would start, but one night the generator didn't kick on (out of fuel) and Perez said, "Man it's dark in here...I'm really scared!".
 
I feel asleep on the overnight at WKGN in Knoxville...1964. Woke up when the Fire Department broke down the door and came in in full fire battle gear.
I then worked at WIVK (The AM daytimer Top 40) at 850. (Way before the County FM) But, Claude Tomlinson was the PD and morning guy...and a good friend.
I finally went back to WKGN ... middays,
 
Speaking of napping on the air, I used to bring my alarm clock and nap for 30 minute intervals during the sunday morning programming on WKOR in Starkville. We ran "Power Line" with Brother John Rivers and "The Wolfman Jack Show". I set the alarm and as it went off Wolfman said "Byyeee". I jumped up and ran over to the control board just in time to read a 5 minute newscast. If you'd ever heard my newscasts when I was awake much less half asleep, you have to know how bad that sounded.
 
chas3r said:
Not only do they have dead air during the Open House Party, but sometimes during Rick Dee's Countdown, they'll have their regular feed overlapping...

I have a feeling their weekend staff doesn't pay much attention...
Click to expand...

I tuned in to Y sometime after 9pm on Saturday night and OHP wasn't on. I thought they may've dumped it or had transmission issues. But after the show the last several Saturday nights/Sunday mornings, I would hear two songs playing at the same time and would go on for a long time.
 
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