They Stole The Radio Station !!!

[GeorgeJ.]

WHIO was off the air for 3 hours and nobody at the station noticed?

Overnights and AM drive are both voicetracked?

 

[nmoore6676]

Lets hear what the Cox Engineering Dept. has to say about this before we jump to conclusions.

Interesting that the story I read online from The Dayton Daily News was attributed to WHIO-TV news all of which is owned by Cox. So either the transmitter was stolen or the reporters reported incorrectly. Not making their news department all that credible if they were wrong.

However if the station was off the air and not just dead carrier they must have taken more than just computers and processing gear.

As to frying themselves thieves often try to steal wiring out of live transformer vaults and do just that so these guys were a little higher up the intellectual scale.

 

[gabigley1]

Is this the story you are referring to? http://newstalkradiowhio.com/localnews/2011/01/two-men-arrested-after-k991-fm.html

The story said the thieves took off with the K99 remote control, but not the transmitter itself. Note the thread header: "They Stole The Radio Station !!!" The header makes me think the thieves walked off with the K99 transmitter.
The header title is obviously an overstatement.

 

[nmoore6676]

Is this the story you are referring to? http://newstalkradiowhio.com/localnews/2011/01/two-men-arrested-after-k991-fm.html

The story said the thieves took off with the K99 remote control, but not the transmitter itself. Note the thread header: "They Stole The Radio Station !!!" The header makes me think the thieves walked off with the K99 transmitter.
The header title is obviously an overstatement.

No I am referring to this link: http://www.daytondailynews.com/news...n-theft-of-k99-1-radio-equipment-1057114.html

That was at the very first of this thread and the byline reads "By WHIO TV". It would of course not be the first time that a story was misreported by a TV station but when their own facilities are at the center of the story I would expect more accuracy.

 

[KR4BD]

I started this thread and wrote the Subject Line.... all based on the original report in the Dayton Daily News which reported that the transmitter had been stolen and turned in for scrap. Please read the first three or four posts on page one for clarification. I am smart enough to know they most likely could not steal the actual transmitter, even though that's how it was originally reported in the Dayton Daily Planet. For those outside the Dayton area, you should be aware that Cox owns WHIO, WHKO AND the Dayton Daily Planet. I would have thought they could have gotten the story right....

To those who don't like the headline, I apolgize for the humor.

 

[tcsnrayp]

Hey KR4DB... the subject line was compelling. It's the only reason I opened the thread. You've still got it! ;-)

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

It appears that only WHIO's radio side got this story right, in regards to what was stolen.

I'm not surprised.

There seems to be a law that both newspapers and TV stations make factual errors when it comes to reporting on radio stations...and it applies even, apparently, when all of the outlets are owned by the same company!

 

[nmoore6676]

I started this thread and wrote the Subject Line.... all based on the original report in the Dayton Daily News which reported that the transmitter had been stolen and turned in for scrap. Please read the first three or four posts on page one for clarification. I am smart enough to know they most likely could not steal the actual transmitter, even though that's how it was originally reported in the Dayton Daily Planet. For those outside the Dayton area, you should be aware that Cox owns WHIO, WHKO AND the Dayton Daily Planet. I would have thought they could have gotten the story right....

To those who don't like the headline, I apolgize for the humor.

I get the humor but what is interesting is the fact that a newspaper owned by a media conglomerate would put a story in originating from their sister TV station on an event that involved their co-owned radio station and apparently not get it right.

I see examples of this style of sloppy reporting in all news media and it is disturbing. When our very existence depends on an informed society and that society is being misinformed the matter is more serious than joking about the theft of a radio station. When a newspaper errs they usually print a correction but never on the front page. When a TV news report is wrong it is hardly ever corrected because the fleeting nature of TV news has already moved way past that time.

 

[greg.hahn]

It appears that only WHIO's radio side got this story right, in regards to what was stolen.

I'm not surprised.

There seems to be a law that both newspapers and TV stations make factual errors when it comes to reporting on radio stations...and it applies even, apparently, when all of the outlets are owned by the same company!

No, none of them got it right, and I'm pretty sure that the error was the result of the mistake of one reporter. Cox Media Group is no longer 3 entities, it is one, and the story from the one reporter (who likely used to work exclusively for newspaper) was promulgated across all three mediums, and eventually to the trades nationwide.

The stories on all sites- Dayton Daily News, WHIO AM and WHIO TV initially said that the transmitter was stolen. One early report on the DDN said, "the very transmitter they were broadcasting from." But some or all of these links have been updated since then, so what you read the link say today is not necessarily what the same URL said earlier in the week.

So now the story suggests that the thieves stole "the controller to the transmitter that keeps K99 on the air." But that's not correct either.

That would have to be the remote control, but removal of that remote control would NOT make the transmitter dump. I should know, I installed it.

It was the processor, and it was only unplugged. Once the processor was plugged back in, the station was back on the air.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Thank you for the clarification, Greg!

Have you considered letting your colleagues in the newsroom know this, or is it just water under the bridge at this point?

 

[gabigley1]

Greg,

It would have been a big help if you would have identified yourself as Cox Engineering staff member early on in this thread. At least one could have
googled you name and found that out: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/greg-hahn/4/758/7b6 Your posting here has helped separate fact from
fiction. After all, they really didn't steal the radio station, which the initial news reports would have lead most people to believe.

 

[greg.hahn]

Greg,

It would have been a big help if you would have identified yourself as Cox Engineering staff member early on in this thread. At least one could have
googled you name and found that out: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/greg-hahn/4/758/7b6 Your posting here has helped separate fact from
fiction. After all, they really didn't steal the radio station, which the initial news reports would have lead most people to believe.

That was pointed out in post 17 and 19, GA. I figured you would have seen it.

Also, early on in the thread it made no difference that I was an engineer for Cox, because at that point I didn't know what happened, but only that the news accounts did not add up according to my knowledge of the site.

Also considering I knew the transmitter model, size, and weight....... 8)

 

[Josh_Cols]

WOW, K99 has a HPX-30 transmitter! Nice rig. I've always known that K99 and the rest of COX Dayton always has been a well engineered radio shop; K99 being one of the clearest, richest, signals I have heard (besides some of the monster 100kw Class C stations like KYGO, KBCO in Denver) but I didn't know they invested in such fine equipment in Dayton. I'd like to see their (K99's) new studio setup!

 

[nmoore6676]

But the important thing. to me, is that the news reports were wrong and they didn't have to be since a call to their own engineers could have made them accurate. True they went back and corrected the info but why was it wrong to begin with?

Too much of what I see and hear on news is not verified. One newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles that serves the San Fernando and other northern areas put in reports of local news that looked as though they had been transcribed directly off the police scanner. Reports on local government and issues appeared very much like reprints of the customary press releases which are routinely sent out from local politicians and businesses.

I am horrified by the laziness of local (and to some degree national) news reporting. What good are 24 hour news channels and all news radio stations if they are being filled with misinformation?

 

[greg.hahn]

But the important thing. to me, is that the news reports were wrong and they didn't have to be since a call to their own engineers could have made them accurate. True they went back and corrected the info but why was it wrong to begin with?

Too much of what I see and hear on news is not verified. One newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles that serves the San Fernando and other northern areas put in reports of local news that looked as though they had been transcribed directly off the police scanner. Reports on local government and issues appeared very much like reprints of the customary press releases which are routinely sent out from local politicians and businesses.

I am horrified by the laziness of local (and to some degree national) news reporting. What good are 24 hour news channels and all news radio stations if they are being filled with misinformation?

Here's the bad part. the reporter DID interview WHKO chief engineer Benny Spitler. But apparently to him, a transmitter, a toaster, a battery pack...they're all the same. He had no idea what a transmitter was, or how big it was. The story made sense to him, and apparently he didn't ask enough critical questions.

It is my understanding that Benny went back to the guy and told him he got the story wrong, which likely led to the corrections.

But as I said before... the story still isn't accurate.

 

[KR4BD]

But the important thing. to me, is that the news reports were wrong and they didn't have to be since a call to their own engineers could have made them accurate. True they went back and corrected the info but why was it wrong to begin with?

Too much of what I see and hear on news is not verified. One newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles that serves the San Fernando and other northern areas put in reports of local news that looked as though they had been transcribed directly off the police scanner. Reports on local government and issues appeared very much like reprints of the customary press releases which are routinely sent out from local politicians and businesses.

I am horrified by the laziness of local (and to some degree national) news reporting. What good are 24 hour news channels and all news radio stations if they are being filled with misinformation?

I started this thread and posted the info on the Subject Line and KNEW it was inaccurate but thought it was humorous they way it was misreported. Many obviously did not like the humor of this. If you look at the very original posts, you should have been able to understand this.

 

[nmoore6676]

But the important thing. to me, is that the news reports were wrong and they didn't have to be since a call to their own engineers could have made them accurate. True they went back and corrected the info but why was it wrong to begin with?

Too much of what I see and hear on news is not verified. One newspaper when I lived in Los Angeles that serves the San Fernando and other northern areas put in reports of local news that looked as though they had been transcribed directly off the police scanner. Reports on local government and issues appeared very much like reprints of the customary press releases which are routinely sent out from local politicians and businesses.

I am horrified by the laziness of local (and to some degree national) news reporting. What good are 24 hour news channels and all news radio stations if they are being filled with misinformation?

I started this thread and posted the info on the Subject Line and KNEW it was inaccurate but thought it was humorous they way it was misreported. Many obviously did not like the humor of this. If you look at the very original posts, you should have been able to understand this.

I think everyone has got that you meant it as humorous and often some of the misrepresentation in the news does come off as humorous or perhaps just ludicrous. The others who have commented and myself especially are less interested in the humor and more in the deplorable state of what passes for local news. The quote below pretty much sums it up.

Here's the bad part. the reporter DID interview WHKO chief engineer Benny Spitler. But apparently to him, a transmitter, a toaster, a battery pack...they're all the same. He had no idea what a transmitter was, or how big it was. The story made sense to him, and apparently he didn't ask enough critical questions.

It is my understanding that Benny went back to the guy and told him he got the story wrong, which likely led to the corrections.

But as I said before... the story still isn't accurate.

How much other "news" is similarly accuracy challenged and we just don't catch it. That could be why local newspapers are having such a time and can TV news be far behind in becoming an endangered species. In many markets there is no radio news anymore, at least the local kind.

 

[KFodor]

WOW, K99 has a HPX-30 transmitter! Nice rig. I've always known that K99 and the rest of COX Dayton always has been a well engineered radio shop; K99 being one of the clearest, richest, signals I have heard (besides some of the monster 100kw Class C stations like KYGO, KBCO in Denver) but I didn't know they invested in such fine equipment in Dayton. I'd like to see their (K99's) new studio setup!

Well, Josh...the new studios are truly a show place. It's, basically, just about brand new everything...with new Harris digital consoles (of varying configurations) in every studio, multiple rooms are designed to serve multiple functions, so rarely is anyone waiting more than a minute or two to get to a studio for production. New Vox Pro digital recorders where needed, and where they aren't, phone calls can be recorded to Adobe Audition and saved. New phone hybrids all around. Wider-screen Cable TV monitors in every studio, so you can see the radar, Fox News, ESPN, whatever you need from that perspective...some studios even have 2 (or in the case of the news prep area, 3 monitors.

Oh yeah...having sunshine in the studio is also a big change...and the view's not bad, either.

What did survive from Wilmington? For starters, the old heavy oak studio doors. The company sent them out and had them completely refurbished (they look brand new), and some of the old 40's-50's vintage on air lights were also brought over.

I thought the new studios at WCOL were nice when Nationwide took us to plaza two. This, though is just as nice...times twenty...but, nice doesn't even come close to describing it. It's a multi media (digital, newspaper and broadcast) megacenter for the 21st century. We're still working a few of the bugs out, but it's getting there slowly but surely. Clearly the nicest place in which I've ever worked...hope you can see it before too long...