Further to Jock Proofing below...

[Les]

Kind of a shift from the original purpose of the post that turned to "Jock Proofing", so this is a feeble effort at expanding the new and improved topic.

Suggestion for stations with some liberal talkers and some conservative talkers:

A headphone selector box with a two position switch labeled "Liberal" and
"Conservative". One position to select LEFT channel audio to both ears. Other to select RIGHT channel audio to both ears. Even better, a third position in between the two which blends left and right audio into mono; label it "moderate".
And, oh yeah, put a 20-dB pad in series with the 'phones when in the center position.


Then one I had (mercifully) forgotten:

A station in Providence that, long ago, put a "dateline" in front of every local story, at which time the reader pushed a button to reverb hell outta that dateline. When management decreed that was "dated" a couple of newsies rebelled and whined a lot. Solution: Keep the reverb box but ONLY in the wiring form the 'phones. The readers got to hear what they wanted to hear and management got what IT wanted to hear.<P ID="signature">______________
"environmentalism is collectivism in drag."
--George Will (or won't)</P>

 

[SamBuca]

Got the idea from the engineer where I worked a few years ago. Very effective.<P ID="signature">______________
</P>

 

[Les]

> Got the idea from the engineer where I worked a few years
> ago. Very effective.

Even more when a bit of foil on the front is wired up to a 12-volt battery
and a Model T spark coil. Flyback outta an old TV works good, too, but
too easy to overdo.
<P ID="signature">______________
"environmentalism is collectivism in drag."
--George Will (or won't)</P>

 

[SamBuca]

> Even more when a bit of foil on the front is wired up to a
> 12-volt battery
> and a Model T spark coil. Flyback outta an old TV works
> good, too, but
> too easy to overdo.

No, that's on my desk using parts from an old Collins FM rig. Protecting my freaking pens and sharpies was worth the time wiring it up.<P ID="signature">______________
</P>

 

[TXengineer]

A friend of mine passed this one along;

"In an old control room, we bought a brand new thermostat, mounted it to the wall near where the old one used to be. Mind you it had NO electrical function at all, as it was not connected to anything, BUT, it made everyone think they were controlling the temp, when in fact it was being controlled automatically".

 

[Fake_User_Name]

OK, some may find this somewhat edgy, but a looong time ago, when we were still playing records, the Rusco Studio Pro turntables were remote started, so the switches on the tables themselves were disabled. We labled one side of the switch 'white music' and the other 'black music' and instructed new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the appropriate position depending on the song they were playing.

Great stories. I'm old now, so I'll try and remember some more of the s*** we used to pull and pass them along.

 

[Les]

another nearly forgotten....

Very remote station that provided a dormitory for interns...

There was a complex hot water heating system with a zone valve and thermostat in every room. Problem: The end-switch on each zone valve also drove the circulator pump on. Yeah, only the room calling for heat got much but the furnace ran continually.

Solution: All the room zone valves were rewired so as to feed a "master" thermostat in the manager's (locked when not in use) office. Then THAT
thermostat was connected to the circulator pump controller so that any
room calling for heat could actually do something only if the manager's office had cooled down. Exception: Someone wanting a COOLER room could turn their "own" thermostat down and prevent their room from heating.

Only problem, after 5-years the zone valves started to wear and were a maintenance nightmare. The building ultimately collapsed after everyone
had been moved out for other reasons.
<P ID="signature">______________
"environmentalism is collectivism in drag."
--George Will (or won't)</P>

 

[radiosaur]

> OK, some may find this somewhat edgy, but a looong time ago,
> when we were still playing records, the Rusco Studio Pro
> turntables were remote started, so the switches on the
> tables themselves were disabled. We labled one side of the
> switch 'white music' and the other 'black music' and
> instructed new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the
> appropriate position depending on the song they were
> playing.
>
> Great stories. I'm old now, so I'll try and remember some
> more of the s*** we used to pull and pass them along.
>

We put a few fake knobs in the control room of one of my stations way back when, and the tech staff over dinner one night came up with some technical sounding names for them. I think one was "Post-transmitter gain". As a real joke, one of the knobs was labelled "ratings". The air staff all caught on except the night guy, so the afternoon jock would always adjust 'ratings' somewhere in the middle of its range. Sure enough, the night guy would come in every night and jack that knob wide open.

<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>

 

[oldiesfan]

> We labled one side of the switch 'white music'
> and the other 'black music' and instructed
> new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the
> appropriate position depending on the song
> they were playing.

Must have put them in a real quandry when
they wanted to play "Time Is Tight" by
Booker T & The MGs!

 

[boiseengineer]

The "Reset" button on the quasi-automation for SuperRadio. 6 cart machines and a BE MixTrak 90 console. Jock on another station would have to feed the cart machines with each breaks spots. They were instructed to hit the "Reset" button to "fix" it. In tearing out the studio I found the button was never hooked up. The engineer must have gotten tired of calls for problems that would fix themselves by the next break.

Ever write a transmitter operations manual and ever get it "right"???
A revision every time a jock would screw things up. I like Autopilot.

 

[SamBuca]

> Ever write a transmitter operations manual and ever get it
> "right"???
> A revision every time a jock would screw things up. I like
> Autopilot.

I'm curious as to why some coworkers feel it necessary to push the # and * buttons when they don't even appear on the sheet.<P ID="signature">______________
</P>

 

[BoardmanDJ]

> > We labled one side of the switch 'white music'
> > and the other 'black music' and instructed
> > new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the
> > appropriate position depending on the song
> > they were playing.
>
> Must have put them in a real quandry when
> they wanted to play "Time Is Tight" by
> Booker T & The MGs!


"that was Ebony and Ivory...and boy is my arm tired!"

A genius engineer at an AM news/ FM CHR station, back in the talknet days would build his own equipment. He had custom stuff that would switch from NBC to ABC and insert local news over night in the process. If somebody was at the front door, we knew it. Homemade silence senors were in the hall, etc. Quality stuff that made our jobs easier.

One day a little panel with black switches and red LED's appeared in the hall racks. Each button had the name of a jock or daypart (i.e."overnights").
I know for a fact there was nothing hooked to it, but apparently it was there to "adjust processing".
I watched another engineer on the phone with our PD. "how's that...does this sound better...etc". The PD was out driving around in the station vehicle and didn't like the sound. The engineer was on the phone making adjustments from his office (as opposed to standing by the processing, actually making adjustments).

 

[webcastboy]

> > OK, some may find this somewhat edgy, but a looong time
> ago,
> > when we were still playing records, the Rusco Studio Pro
> > turntables were remote started, so the switches on the
> > tables themselves were disabled. We labled one side of
> the
> > switch 'white music' and the other 'black music' and
> > instructed new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the
> > appropriate position depending on the song they were
> > playing.
> >
> > Great stories. I'm old now, so I'll try and remember some
>
> > more of the s*** we used to pull and pass them along.
> >
>

This isn't an "amusing" story, but a lot of the gear at WMFO is hand-built and still works (reasonably) well, esp. considering most of it was installed in 1984-85 or so. Including studio switchers, a PA system with phone ringer & doorbell alerts.

The guy who built it all posted a 36MB PDF of all the schematics and whatnot (along with some cool pics). I'm told it's proven very handy over the years as stuff starts to fail and some enterprising engineering student is called in to try and fix it.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/WMFO.html

 

[taylorengineer]

> > > OK, some may find this somewhat edgy, but a looong time
> > ago,
> > > when we were still playing records, the Rusco Studio Pro
>
> > > turntables were remote started, so the switches on the
> > > tables themselves were disabled. We labled one side of
> > the
> > > switch 'white music' and the other 'black music' and
> > > instructed new jocks they MUST be sure and choose the
> > > appropriate position depending on the song they were
> > > playing.
> > >
> > > Great stories. I'm old now, so I'll try and remember
> some
> >
> > > more of the s*** we used to pull and pass them along.
> > >
> >
>
> This isn't an "amusing" story, but a lot of the gear at WMFO
> is hand-built and still works (reasonably) well, esp.
> considering most of it was installed in 1984-85 or so.
> Including studio switchers, a PA system with phone ringer &
> doorbell alerts.
>
> The guy who built it all posted a 36MB PDF of all the
> schematics and whatnot (along with some cool pics). I'm
> told it's proven very handy over the years as stuff starts
> to fail and some enterprising engineering student is called
> in to try and fix it.
>
> http://web.media.mit.edu/~joep/WMFO.html
>
I downloaded the pdf and spent a facinating hour or so looking at all the home brew!
I engineer a college station and I shudder to think of some of my guys holding a hot soldering iron! It is simply amazing that a bunch of college kids built a radio station......
Was there no engineer involved? Have student volunteers repaired and nurtured all this stuff, including the transmitter, all theses years?
And,if there is no engineer, who takes down the Christmas tree and waxes the GM's car?

 

[BrokeEngineer]

Shame shame...

You can bet the back of that rack didn't look like that when he was done with it. Someone who doesn't care has let that wiring go...cool pic's tho.

 

[grayhairdog]

> I have a story that is not really "jock proofing," but it got the job done. Years ago I had a PD who liked to mess with the settings in an Orban 8100A. I took the key away, but he figured out how to take the front cover off.
So, I fixed him good. While working in the equipment rack I mounted a pot in a blank rack panel. It was not connected to anything. Just to make it look good I soldered some wires on it.
I told him that instead of adjusting the 8100A settings, he could adjust this instead. I told him to be very careful! As this control was very powerful and very sensitive!
For DAYS he was in the control room carefully adjusting this pot while carefully listening on his headphones until he got it "just right."
He eventually was fired for other reasons. Stupid is as stupid does.


Kind of a shift from the original purpose of the post that
> turned to "Jock Proofing", so this is a feeble effort at
> expanding the new and improved topic.
>
> Suggestion for stations with some liberal talkers and some
> conservative talkers:
>
> A headphone selector box with a two position switch labeled
> "Liberal" and
> "Conservative". One position to select LEFT channel audio
> to both ears. Other to select RIGHT channel audio to both
> ears. Even better, a third position in between the two
> which blends left and right audio into mono; label it
> "moderate".
> And, oh yeah, put a 20-dB pad in series with the 'phones
> when in the center position.
>
>
> Then one I had (mercifully) forgotten:
>
> A station in Providence that, long ago, put a "dateline" in
> front of every local story, at which time the reader pushed
> a button to reverb hell outta that dateline. When
> management decreed that was "dated" a couple of newsies
> rebelled and whined a lot. Solution: Keep the reverb box
> but ONLY in the wiring form the 'phones. The readers got to
> hear what they wanted to hear and management got what IT
> wanted to hear.
>