San Diego engineer Lee McGowan passes away 11/11/2013

[GeorgeJ.]

KYXY Chief Engineer Lee McGowan had been at a rehab facility in La Mesa for almost the past 6 months, complications from cancer. Luckily, I was able to see him a few weeks ago when I stopped in San Diego overnight. He didn't look good at all but I still didn't expect him to go so quickly.

Before KYXY, Lee worked for KCBQ AM/FM for many years. He was the guy who built the complete studio in the ballroom at the Mission Valley Marriott back in 1990 for the KCBQ DJ Reunion. Most of his friends don't know it, but Lee was a jock back in the 70's at KDES Palm Springs. That tuned into his first engineering job. Lee was one of the best engineers I ever worked with.

I do have a small amount of Lee McGowan airchecks from 1974 & 1975 from KDES. I put a 4 minute segment up on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR27Wu12XRU As you'll hear, if Lee didn't have enough intro time to get in a punchline, he just plowed right through.

RIP Lee.

 

[Bob Hudson]

I spent a lot of time talking shop with him when I was at 103.7 about 15 years ago: heck of a nice guy with the messiest engineering room I've ever seen - it looked like my garage, so perhaps there was a kinship of messy tinkerers. When The Planet let me broadcast from my home in Oceanside, Les went out of his way to engineer a great solution for the home studio and the two-way link to the studios in Kearny Mesa (it was technically superior to just having an ISDN setup).

RIP....

 

[rhysmorganbsee]

Lee Remembered

I have been a friend of Lee's since 1974. From KcKC to KMEN then KDES and he finally found a "happy" and stable , sane place with CBS in San Diego.
Lee was one of the most smart people I ever know. Not the University smart like some young kid just out of Cal Poly with a EE degree, but really self taught. Lee's generosity to help another broadcast engineer when there was a Tranny down, and you needed a spare Eimac- If Lee had one, he would loan it to you. There were times when he pulled me out of the cannibal cook tub- in the middle of a book- went up to Box Springs to give me a spare final, and I simply had our rebuild just drop shipped to him when it came back from Econco.
Knowledge was also another aspect that Lee would share without any reservations. When he was having problems with his Phased Array at KDES, he and I worked together to build a Tower Pattern Fail Safe alarm system on breadboard and parts from radio shack. He taught me a lot more about how AM phasors worked, and the "art" of getting a AM DA-N dialed in. Never learned that on my first phone exam. There was one time I was a little to quick to get the grounding hook into a Xmtr and Lee tried to stop this dumb 20 year old kid from putting the hook right on the AC Mains instead of the rectifier stack. Took about an inch off the neutralizing hook, taught me a lot, but after it was over Lee was patient with me and said that was my only trial visit "to see God" and if I would every go into a hot XMTR again he said, "you just might to get you ticket punched.

An Odd, but dry humor Lee had, but the second most messy CE I ever knew, but HE knew where everything was.

I visited him several times both in the Hospital and at the rehabilitation facility. He was always glad to have friends wish him well.
One of his final comments he made to me was "funny thing about time, I know it's linear, but looking back now, it seems to go by logarithmic when your my age. On one visit I saw a red band on his arm with the letters DNR.

I had wet eyes for half the trip back to OC.
Rest In Peace, Lee
You will be Sorely Missed

 

[GeorgeJ.]

I have been a friend of Lee's since 1974. From KcKC to KMEN then KDES and he finally found a "happy" and stable , sane place with CBS in San Diego.
Lee was one of the most smart people I ever know. Not the University smart like some young kid just out of Cal Poly with a EE degree, but really self taught. Lee's generosity to help another broadcast engineer when there was a Tranny down, and you needed a spare Eimac- If Lee had one, he would loan it to you. There were times when he pulled me out of the cannibal cook tub- in the middle of a book- went up to Box Springs to give me a spare final, and I simply had our rebuild just drop shipped to him when it came back from Econco.
Knowledge was also another aspect that Lee would share without any reservations. When he was having problems with his Phased Array at KDES, he and I worked together to build a Tower Pattern Fail Safe alarm system on breadboard and parts from radio shack. He taught me a lot more about how AM phasors worked, and the "art" of getting a AM DA-N dialed in. Never learned that on my first phone exam. There was one time I was a little to quick to get the grounding hook into a Xmtr and Lee tried to stop this dumb 20 year old kid from putting the hook right on the AC Mains instead of the rectifier stack. Took about an inch off the neutralizing hook, taught me a lot, but after it was over Lee was patient with me and said that was my only trial visit "to see God" and if I would every go into a hot XMTR again he said, "you just might to get you ticket punched.

An Odd, but dry humor Lee had, but the second most messy CE I ever knew, but HE knew where everything was.

I visited him several times both in the Hospital and at the rehabilitation facility. He was always glad to have friends wish him well.
One of his final comments he made to me was "funny thing about time, I know it's linear, but looking back now, it seems to go by logarithmic when your my age. On one visit I saw a red band on his arm with the letters DNR.

I had wet eyes for half the trip back to OC.
Rest In Peace, Lee
You will be Sorely Missed

Back in the KDES days, I think Lee was self-taught on engineering. The engineer before Lee sucked and wasn't there all that long. The story I heard was that Joe Tourtelot (GM and part-owner of KDES) caught the previous engineer smoking weed in the can and he was gone after that. Lee was thrown into the Chief Engineer job while still keeping an airshift. He quickly had the station sounding better than it had in the previous couple of years.