No Storm News

[cranched]

The afternoon of April 2, I tuned into WLAC and heard "a tornado warning for Summer County".

 

[romer979fm]

The afternoon of April 2, I tuned into WLAC and heard "a tornado warning for Summer County".

actually that was for SW Sumner County...which lasted a bit longer (due to the geography) than
the tornado warning for eastern Davidson County, which was also covered

 

[oldies5161]

wsm was not on air through storm and no tornado warning thursday are they still eas primary station or another station now/ or no one there at that time.


I suspect WSM's tower was hit by lightening.

 

[radio30]

From what I understand, WSM has undergone a large "pair down" over the last while but do they still have a full time engineer? What about a back-up transmitter? I realize that things can happen but it seems a bit odd that a "heritage" station such as 650 would stay down for any length of time, even during bad weather. Heck, I've worked as lesser stations that would "bust butt" to see that didn't happen!

I have heard that the station now has no full-time news department now and they are now voice-tracking some day parts, the class-act Keith Bilbrey being the latest casualty.

I suppose if these things are true, then it is really true what Ralph Emery once said. I believe it was Ralph anyway who said of WSM, "the once great Air Castle Of The South has became The Little House on The Prairie".

Amazing. And there are some who still have to wonder why radio listenership isn't as great as it once was. If we wanted robotic jukeboxes, there are ipods.

 

[gHz]

Back up transmitters are not always the savior in a severe weather situation. Lightning can damage the transmission path itself, especially in AM. A back up transmitter does you no good when your antenna matching network has been blown up by a bolt of lightning. The other problem with back up transmitters is that the personnel on duty need to be competent and able to operate the remote control system, switch transmitters via remote and make it work. That is not a procedure they practice frequently....Even if the stars line up and you do have all of that in place, lightning can render a remote control system inoperable in a nanosecond which means someone has to drive to the transmitter site in a storm in order to control anything. When I was CE at WTN and the others over there, we frequently had problems with lightning rendering both the remote control and the back up ISDN program link useless. The guys at 650 have an outstanding operation. I would guess that in order to take them off the air, multiple systems had to be damaged by the storm.

gz
Cleveland

 

[LouP]

The local tornado coverage today impressed me.

-The storm appears to have damaged the transmitter of WWTN (Supertalk 99.7) based on what I could pull in here in Smyrna, and at one point they were simulcasting on 106.7 the Fan (WNFN). That has ended, but 99.7 still seems to be having signal issues.

-Clear Channel is simulcasting its 1510 WLAC signal on 105.9 the Rock, 107.5 the River, and 101.1 the Beat. The only Clear Channel station not simulcasting was country 98 WSIX.

-Murfreesboro radio station WGNS (on AM at 1450 and FM at 100.5 and 101.9) is covering the story quite well on-air at this hour, as well as using the website to keep people up-to-date:

http://www.wgnsradio.com/

WGNS is doing a great job covering the storm and its impact. Two people are reported dead from the storm as of the time of this post.

Also, great work by TV with coverage I've seen from 2, 4, 5, and 17. 5 has video of a caved-in house on the air as I type this.

 

[oldies5161]

The local tornado coverage today impressed me.

-The storm appears to have damaged the transmitter of WWTN (Supertalk 99.7) based on what I could pull in here in Smyrna, and at one point they were simulcasting on 106.7 the Fan (WNFN). That has ended, but 99.7 still seems to be having signal issues.

-Clear Channel is simulcasting its 1510 WLAC signal on 105.9 the Rock, 107.5 the River, and 101.1 the Beat. The only Clear Channel station not simulcasting was country 98 WSIX.

-Murfreesboro radio station WGNS (on AM at 1450 and FM at 100.5 and 101.9) is covering the story quite well on-air at this hour, as well as using the website to keep people up-to-date:

http://www.wgnsradio.com/

WGNS is doing a great job covering the storm and its impact. Two people are reported dead from the storm as of the time of this post.

Also, great work by TV with coverage I've seen from 2, 4, 5, and 17. 5 has video of a caved-in house on the air as I type this.

WWTN's transmitter and tower are just west of Murfreesboro, off of Highway 96.