Tech Notes from the Field

As you can tell from my last two posts we have been busy fixing things. My signature line, “breaking things before their time”, seems quite fitting for me. My assistant gets a kick out of this stuff as I train him on the ins and outs of broadcast engineering.

Yes, I am training a new assistant. He is a sponge right now and he asks the right questions. He does not hesitate to ask the questions. He asked a question that had a simple answer. I gave him the simple answer and then asked him, “do you want to know what really is going on?” It was on optos and relays in our SAS 32KD system. Using a simple example of what we are about to wire up, I started to show him what really was happening and bounced over to our one and only satellite delivered show that is fully automated. His last comments of the day, “now I won’t sleep. My head is spinning.” Welcome to my world.

For those of use doing this for so long it is amazing how second nature some of this becomes. Then you try to explain it to someone. It is mind boggling. I think we should get more credit for some of the miracles we pull off. Today it seems some much easier than 20 years ago. At the same time we are dealing with newer technology and companies who are attempting to do radio from a non-radio mentality. It is fun.

As a round up, over that last few months you have read the completion of a 445-foot tower with a diplexed, shunt-fed, skirt system; the installation and commissioning of the first 2 Nautel NV20 transmitters in the states; the early issues with the Daysequerra mod monitors; the total lock-out and corruption of an Audemat FMB80; and early on the success of our Arbitron PPM equipment installation and Nautel V1-D transmitter. Not bad for the last 4 months.

I hope we all make it through this little economic down turn and get to move on. I have so many other ideas to make this facility a dream place to work.