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WICC 600 off for "routine maintenance"

R

RadioMan203

WICC 600 AM in Bridgeport left the air today after 1pm to perform what they can "routine maintenance" to their station. As of 3:15pm they hadn't returned to the air.

As an engineer I have to wonder why they would perform maintenance in the middle of the day. This doesn't bode well for people who listen ... unless they figure nobody listens to Clark Howard.
 
They returned to the air just after 4pm. I didn't note any change from their previous signal or audio quality.

The on-air announcer stated the reason they were off the air was that the needed to "adjust their power and modulation for the Presidential visit" and stated that was why they couldn't announce it over the air.

Sure, and I have a box of $3 bills for you, too.
 
Bill DeFelice said:
The on-air announcer stated the reason they were off the air was that the needed to "adjust their power and modulation for the Presidential visit" and stated that was why they couldn't announce it over the air.
Click to expand...

Do you happen to know if WSTC and/or WCTZ had to do anything? Their tower is about 1/2 mile or less from where the president's helicopter landed. If any station had to tinker with their signals for that reason it would be those two.
 
I didn't hear anything. I honestly can't imagine any valid reason from a AM broadcast station to shut down for a Presidential visit. I personally think that the host was just trying to fluff off the situation.

In all the years I engineered stations I have never shut a station down during the middle of a day on a weekday for routine maintenance. The worst situation I had was where the tie downs for my STL transmission lines broke and the swinging lines would change the antenna system to the point where the solid state AM transmitter would shut itself off. I went on the tube backup for a day until the tower climber came on a weekend. Even then, they had me turn the power down while they were up on the tower and we didn't have any down time.

Routine maintenance should have been scheduled for the weekend or evening hours as few would miss the majority of their brokered time programming.
 
Bill DeFelice said:
I didn't hear anything. I honestly can't imagine any valid reason from a AM broadcast station to shut down for a Presidential visit. I personally think that the host was just trying to fluff off the situation.

In all the years I engineered stations I have never shut a station down during the middle of a day on a weekday for routine maintenance.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. The only time I've had to shut down during the day was when the tower was being painted.
 
They were down all last night..1:00 AM onward, etc.

An opportunity to listen to 600.


All I heard was a strong Spanish station presumed Cuba. It seems that station gets stronger and stronger. I hear it under WICC when it's on.


Location: Fairfield,Ct.
 
When you don't treat your employees well expect them to walk. I'm glad Ed was able to jump ship and hopefully get paid what his talents are worth.

FWIW from doing some digging it appears that the local power utility was doing work on both occasions which led to the station going off the air. You would think they would invest the funds needed to finally rehab their dirt old generator. I know I was lucky that I never had to use the generator at my stations but once but that shouldn't get station management to neglect its maintenance. If they don't invest in their own infrastructure It's bound to bite them on the back side sooner or later.
 
They were off this morning from at least when I got in the car at 4:45am until at least 6am (I don't have a radio where I am). Nothing mentioned on their stream about the station being off the air. I don't know if this is related to the evening storm moving through or as afternoon host Jimmy B proclaimed, the prez came to town!

I attempted to get their stream on a smartphone and it seems like Microsoft Silverlight was a poor choice for a streaming platform as far as mobile phones go - I couldn't get it to work successfully on a Blackberry. Never had a problem with other station's streaming audio.

I can't believe it. Ed leaves and the place falls apart. I'm surprised they've been able to pull off the bunch of remote broadcasts since losing their engineer.
 
It was off from about 2300 last night (when the lightning-heavy front rolled through) until at least now (0846).

I guess not treating Ed better was a.... "BAD DECISION!, BAD DECISION!".
(you have to force yourself to listen to their morning show to get that one) ;D
 
And from the lack of local outcry, it would seem that not too many people care other than those who frequent this board.
What a shame.
 
luperm said:
And from the lack of local outcry, it would seem that not too many people care other than those who frequent this board.
What a shame.
Click to expand...

I bet you the few local advertisers will be upset with losing their spot plays.

I haven't checked but at 3:10pm still off the air.
 
Just an update for those who may be curious, from what I can tell they returned to the air sometimes past 8pm as at 10:30pm they were broadcasting a Yankees game.

I wonder how many "make good" spots they're in for now?
 
Just just announced this morning that they will be off the air this coming Sunday morning. It makes we wonder if they are just finally putting money into the place and repairing all the things that Corporate neglected over the years or what? I think in the last handful of months they've been off the air more than they ever were when they were owned by Connecticut Broadcasting Company or Tribune Corporation.

The one thing that will kill that station will be when the electrical service out to the island finally deteriorates to the point where it no longer operates. Since they are the only customer out there I highly doubt that UI will replace the lines going out there.
 
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