What really happened

["Charles R Bullett, III" <cbullett@maine.rr.com>]

On August 24, Dan Billings wrote:
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 23:24:32 EDT
From: Dib9@aol.com
Subject: Maine Weather

Severe thunderstorms that hit southern Maine this afternoon and tonight
has
played havoc with broadcasters.  Many radio stations were off the air
and the
Time-Warner Cable System that serves Greater Portalnd was also down.
All of
Saga's stations were off the air at times and WMGX went off at 5:00 pm
and was
still off the air as of 9:30 pm.  The station was expected to be back on
soon.
WMGX was one of the few stations that did not go off the air at all
during the
ice storm in January.

The studios of WGME-TV at Northport Plaza in the North Deering section
of
Portland are without power and running on generators.  (WTHT is in the
same
building so I assume the same is true for them.)  Doug Rafferty did the
11:00
pm news without a jacket because the generator could not power the air
conditioning and it was 93 degrees under the lights in the studio.

Dan Billings
Bowdoinham, Maine
Never without power in this storm

Actually, Saga's WZAN, 970 kHz never left the air, and WPOR AM & FM
(with its FM auxiliary at the studio)stayed on throughout the ordeal,
which featured mircobursts of winds in excess of 75 mph.

The STL path carrying triplexed WMGX, WYNZ, and WGAN was compromised
with both transmit and receive dishes were blown out of alignment,
crumpling the stiffener arms on the dishes themselves.  Lightening also
damaged the batteries, and battery charging system on the generator at
the combined transmitter site, preventing the three stations from
getting back on the air.

Lightening also hit the power line at the studio, with minimal damage
being incurred, thanks to the huge surge suppressors that I put in a few
years back.  We did run up our little 5kW diesel here at the studio for
about 30-minutes as a precautionary measure.  The big 125 kW Detroit at
the WMGX/WYNZ transmitter was outfitted with a new battery set, and was
up and running by 7PM. WYNZ and WGAN returned to the air at 7PM, and
WMGX at 12:15AM the next morning.

Thanks to a wonderful tower company (Eastern Communications, Gray,
Maine), who climbed in between storms and fits of heat lightning, we got
the dishes all re-aligned by midnight.

The FM's all retuned back to full power and their main transmitters by
later the next afternoon.

Chuck Bullett, Dir. of Engineering
WYNZ/WMGX/WZAN/WGAN/WPOR AM & FM

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