Anybody know why KBCN has ben off the air for the last few days?
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KBCN
- Thread starter TVJunkie10
- Start date
A
aaaraydio
Guest
> Anybody know why KBCN has ben off the air for the last few
> days?
>
They had a major transmission line blow out...been off since Saturday...Engineer may be enroute today or tomorrow.
> days?
>
They had a major transmission line blow out...been off since Saturday...Engineer may be enroute today or tomorrow.
> > Anybody know why KBCN has ben off the air for the last few
>
> > days?
> >
> They had a major transmission line blow out...been off since
> Saturday...Engineer may be enroute today or tomorrow.
>
Since Staruday? Engineer ENROUTE? MAYBE tomorrow??
Jeez, has it gotten that bad?<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
>
> > days?
> >
> They had a major transmission line blow out...been off since
> Saturday...Engineer may be enroute today or tomorrow.
>
Since Staruday? Engineer ENROUTE? MAYBE tomorrow??
Jeez, has it gotten that bad?<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
No gas in the coax. Don't know of many stations anymore in small markets with full time engineers. Talked to the boys at KBCN the other day, should be up and running sometime next week. Take a while to order and run all that coax up the tower. "Blank" happens.
> No gas in the coax. Don't know of many stations anymore in
> small markets with full time engineers. Talked to the boys
> at KBCN the other day, should be up and running sometime
> next week. Take a while to order and run all that coax up
> the tower. "Blank" happens.
>
All due respect, but that repsonse time is BS. I could have had the station on the air by Monday or Tuesday at least, It may not have been pretty, but it would have worked. That's also a failure that never should have happened unless someone shot the coax and it lost pressure all at once. And even then the TX should have kicked off before there was any major damage. From what you're saying it sounds like the antenna or line has burned up.
<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
> small markets with full time engineers. Talked to the boys
> at KBCN the other day, should be up and running sometime
> next week. Take a while to order and run all that coax up
> the tower. "Blank" happens.
>
All due respect, but that repsonse time is BS. I could have had the station on the air by Monday or Tuesday at least, It may not have been pretty, but it would have worked. That's also a failure that never should have happened unless someone shot the coax and it lost pressure all at once. And even then the TX should have kicked off before there was any major damage. From what you're saying it sounds like the antenna or line has burned up.
<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
> All due respect, but that repsonse time is BS. I could have
> had the station on the air by Monday or Tuesday at least, It
> may not have been pretty, but it would have worked. That's
> also a failure that never should have happened unless
> someone shot the coax and it lost pressure all at once. And
> even then the TX should have kicked off before there was any
> major damage. From what you're saying it sounds like the
> antenna or line has burned up.
>
I have to agree with you there Radiosaur. It seems like gone are the days when you did whatever it took to get SOMETHING on the air. Even clip-leading an exciter (that is running off of an invertor in a van parked outside because the GM is too cheap to buy a generator even though you are one of the top rated and billing stations in a top 50 market) into the antenna to put at least a little signal on the air is something. As we watch broadcast radio descend ever farther toward irrelevance, owners, CEO's and GM's of both big companies and small stations will have no one to look at but themselves for running things on the cheap for years and not providing listeners with a consistent product. As far as the line losing pressure goes, there are alarms available to let someone know there is something wrong even if they don't have a full time engineer on staff. Also, who knows if the protection on the TX was working or not. Seems a little strange.
> had the station on the air by Monday or Tuesday at least, It
> may not have been pretty, but it would have worked. That's
> also a failure that never should have happened unless
> someone shot the coax and it lost pressure all at once. And
> even then the TX should have kicked off before there was any
> major damage. From what you're saying it sounds like the
> antenna or line has burned up.
>
I have to agree with you there Radiosaur. It seems like gone are the days when you did whatever it took to get SOMETHING on the air. Even clip-leading an exciter (that is running off of an invertor in a van parked outside because the GM is too cheap to buy a generator even though you are one of the top rated and billing stations in a top 50 market) into the antenna to put at least a little signal on the air is something. As we watch broadcast radio descend ever farther toward irrelevance, owners, CEO's and GM's of both big companies and small stations will have no one to look at but themselves for running things on the cheap for years and not providing listeners with a consistent product. As far as the line losing pressure goes, there are alarms available to let someone know there is something wrong even if they don't have a full time engineer on staff. Also, who knows if the protection on the TX was working or not. Seems a little strange.
Just know what I heard from the grape vine. Sounds like they should have called you though. Cheers
> I have to agree with you there Radiosaur. It seems like
> gone are the days when you did whatever it took to get
> SOMETHING on the air. Even clip-leading an exciter (that is
> running off of an invertor in a van parked outside because
> the GM is too cheap to buy a generator even though you are
> one of the top rated and billing stations in a top 50
> market) into the antenna to put at least a little signal on
> the air is something. As we watch broadcast radio descend
> ever farther toward irrelevance, owners, CEO's and GM's of
> both big companies and small stations will have no one to
> look at but themselves for running things on the cheap for
> years and not providing listeners with a consistent product.
> As far as the line losing pressure goes, there are alarms
> available to let someone know there is something wrong even
> if they don't have a full time engineer on staff. Also, who
> knows if the protection on the TX was working or not. Seems
> a little strange.
>
Yeah, well said.
And Bald, after almost 10 years retired from the biz, RF is about the only thing that hasn't changed beyond my abilty to work on it without a crash course in the new technology!
An exciter plus 50 feet of coax plus any reasonably matched antenna would equal enough signal to play spots through.
A related war story:
When KZOU put up the big antenna in 1987, we had to have a splice fitting halfway up the tower because flex coax didn't come in long enough reels. I had the tower crew refit that splice probably 8 times until it passed a pressure test with NO leaks. I finally climbed with them to watch it myself. They hated me...but from the time it went on the air and the time I left the market in December of 1989 the tank in the bulding was the original one and it wasn't close to empty.
I was always a "Spend enough now or too much later" type of Engineering manager...
<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
> gone are the days when you did whatever it took to get
> SOMETHING on the air. Even clip-leading an exciter (that is
> running off of an invertor in a van parked outside because
> the GM is too cheap to buy a generator even though you are
> one of the top rated and billing stations in a top 50
> market) into the antenna to put at least a little signal on
> the air is something. As we watch broadcast radio descend
> ever farther toward irrelevance, owners, CEO's and GM's of
> both big companies and small stations will have no one to
> look at but themselves for running things on the cheap for
> years and not providing listeners with a consistent product.
> As far as the line losing pressure goes, there are alarms
> available to let someone know there is something wrong even
> if they don't have a full time engineer on staff. Also, who
> knows if the protection on the TX was working or not. Seems
> a little strange.
>
Yeah, well said.
And Bald, after almost 10 years retired from the biz, RF is about the only thing that hasn't changed beyond my abilty to work on it without a crash course in the new technology!
An exciter plus 50 feet of coax plus any reasonably matched antenna would equal enough signal to play spots through.
A related war story:
When KZOU put up the big antenna in 1987, we had to have a splice fitting halfway up the tower because flex coax didn't come in long enough reels. I had the tower crew refit that splice probably 8 times until it passed a pressure test with NO leaks. I finally climbed with them to watch it myself. They hated me...but from the time it went on the air and the time I left the market in December of 1989 the tank in the bulding was the original one and it wasn't close to empty.
I was always a "Spend enough now or too much later" type of Engineering manager...
<P ID="signature">______________
Never hold a cat and a dustbuster at the same time.</P>
I agree with everything you say Saur. I too have broadcast from the exciter.
Sadly, engineering has not been spared from the insane corporate budget cuts that plague the industry.
Add to that, the current attitude of programmers and management that this is just how things go, or as stated earlier, "blank happens". It wasn't too long ago that this sort of attitude would be totally unacceptable.
Plus, the fact that a large number of talented, excellent engineers like my pre-historic friend Radiosaur here have left the business, only to be replaced by people who should not be allowed to plug headphones into an I-pod.
Here's one of my war stories: In 1998 the major company I worked for moved three big stations 20 miles up the freeway to new studios. On the first day from the new studios, I reported to the chief engineer (a guy whose title should have been Vice President Of Lunch) that material from the production studios sounded great on two of the stations, but sounded like crap on our Hot A/C. To make a long story short, after three months of my bitching, he discovered a wiring mistake that had only the left channel from the on-air studio feeding both sides of the processing chain. That's right, not even mono, just left channel in both sides...for three freakin' months! And the reason we discovered this was one day I heard a concert spot I produced that was supposed to have effected voice-overs bouncing between the channels, and half the voices were missing.
On day one, I should have been able to bring up the on-air signal in production and see this problem immediately on the scope, but thanks to a tight building budget, I had no scope in any of the 4 production studios, and the chief engineer saw no reason to wire an on-air feed from any of the stations into production. And this was not some small market like East Overshoe, Idaho. This was market #12. Oh, and what happened to the chief engineer who blew off this problem? Not a thing, in fact, he's still there, working on earning the new title Vice President of Coffee Breaks.
By the way, the Hot A/C Program Director's comment on all this..."nobody really pays attention to audio quality anyway...you're just too anal".
Oh, and one other note. While we had no budget for scopes or wiring feeds into the production studios, we did have some really expensive original artwork hanging in the lobby.
Is it just me, or is it sad to think that the level on engineering in this little studio here in the back of my house is probably far superior to what you'd find in any of the broadcast facilities here in this major market?
__________________________________
"Radio is a vast uncharted corporate wasteland. A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side." --Hunter S. Thompson
> Yeah, well said.
>
> And Bald, after almost 10 years retired from the biz, RF is
> about the only thing that hasn't changed beyond my abilty to
> work on it without a crash course in the new technology!
>
> An exciter plus 50 feet of coax plus any reasonably matched
> antenna would equal enough signal to play spots through.
>
> A related war story:
>
> When KZOU put up the big antenna in 1987, we had to have a
> splice fitting halfway up the tower because flex coax didn't
> come in long enough reels. I had the tower crew refit that
> splice probably 8 times until it passed a pressure test with
> NO leaks. I finally climbed with them to watch it myself.
> They hated me...but from the time it went on the air and the
> time I left the market in December of 1989 the tank in the
> bulding was the original one and it wasn't close to empty.
>
> I was always a "Spend enough now or too much later" type of
> Engineering manager...
>
Add to that, the current attitude of programmers and management that this is just how things go, or as stated earlier, "blank happens". It wasn't too long ago that this sort of attitude would be totally unacceptable.
Plus, the fact that a large number of talented, excellent engineers like my pre-historic friend Radiosaur here have left the business, only to be replaced by people who should not be allowed to plug headphones into an I-pod.
Here's one of my war stories: In 1998 the major company I worked for moved three big stations 20 miles up the freeway to new studios. On the first day from the new studios, I reported to the chief engineer (a guy whose title should have been Vice President Of Lunch) that material from the production studios sounded great on two of the stations, but sounded like crap on our Hot A/C. To make a long story short, after three months of my bitching, he discovered a wiring mistake that had only the left channel from the on-air studio feeding both sides of the processing chain. That's right, not even mono, just left channel in both sides...for three freakin' months! And the reason we discovered this was one day I heard a concert spot I produced that was supposed to have effected voice-overs bouncing between the channels, and half the voices were missing.
On day one, I should have been able to bring up the on-air signal in production and see this problem immediately on the scope, but thanks to a tight building budget, I had no scope in any of the 4 production studios, and the chief engineer saw no reason to wire an on-air feed from any of the stations into production. And this was not some small market like East Overshoe, Idaho. This was market #12. Oh, and what happened to the chief engineer who blew off this problem? Not a thing, in fact, he's still there, working on earning the new title Vice President of Coffee Breaks.
By the way, the Hot A/C Program Director's comment on all this..."nobody really pays attention to audio quality anyway...you're just too anal".
Oh, and one other note. While we had no budget for scopes or wiring feeds into the production studios, we did have some really expensive original artwork hanging in the lobby.
Is it just me, or is it sad to think that the level on engineering in this little studio here in the back of my house is probably far superior to what you'd find in any of the broadcast facilities here in this major market?
__________________________________
"Radio is a vast uncharted corporate wasteland. A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side." --Hunter S. Thompson
> Yeah, well said.
>
> And Bald, after almost 10 years retired from the biz, RF is
> about the only thing that hasn't changed beyond my abilty to
> work on it without a crash course in the new technology!
>
> An exciter plus 50 feet of coax plus any reasonably matched
> antenna would equal enough signal to play spots through.
>
> A related war story:
>
> When KZOU put up the big antenna in 1987, we had to have a
> splice fitting halfway up the tower because flex coax didn't
> come in long enough reels. I had the tower crew refit that
> splice probably 8 times until it passed a pressure test with
> NO leaks. I finally climbed with them to watch it myself.
> They hated me...but from the time it went on the air and the
> time I left the market in December of 1989 the tank in the
> bulding was the original one and it wasn't close to empty.
>
> I was always a "Spend enough now or too much later" type of
> Engineering manager...
>
> I agree with everything you say Saur. I too have broadcast
> from the exciter.
>
fed by a standard dial up phone line or a marti at that....
i've worked through some best effort work arounds during my time on the air...
while at WVIM one day a paper clip fell into the board I noticed a frying noise and headed directly there just in time for the board to go
in less than maybe 5-7 minutes I located some wire... tied in to the main out on our meager lil production board ran it to the optimod flip off the stereo pilot for the time being since i had 1 wired running from a mono production room.
the owner didnt even notice that it happend and didnt belive for a moment what i did and that we were on the air with only 5-7 mins of noise and dead air.
i then got nervious thinking we might be running from the production room forever.
I think a couple days later Harnack talked me through the the repair on the phone (how's that for cheap..lol ) I think I had to install a new power supply but its been to long to say for sure... That board was never right again though we lost the the monitor for one thing... That didnt both me too much since I always prefered monitoring via radio however the mic didnt turn that off
> from the exciter.
>
fed by a standard dial up phone line or a marti at that....
i've worked through some best effort work arounds during my time on the air...
while at WVIM one day a paper clip fell into the board I noticed a frying noise and headed directly there just in time for the board to go
in less than maybe 5-7 minutes I located some wire... tied in to the main out on our meager lil production board ran it to the optimod flip off the stereo pilot for the time being since i had 1 wired running from a mono production room.
the owner didnt even notice that it happend and didnt belive for a moment what i did and that we were on the air with only 5-7 mins of noise and dead air.
i then got nervious thinking we might be running from the production room forever.
I think a couple days later Harnack talked me through the the repair on the phone (how's that for cheap..lol ) I think I had to install a new power supply but its been to long to say for sure... That board was never right again though we lost the the monitor for one thing... That didnt both me too much since I always prefered monitoring via radio however the mic didnt turn that off
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