when you're hot, you're hot

[Roger Kirk <rkirk@VideoServer.com>]

Donna Halper scribed:
>it was 97 degrees here today, and according to David Brudnoy, the 
>air conditioning at WBZ was broken all day!  This set me to wondering 
>how the TV side would be able to do their casts, since I assume the 
>lights on the TV set would be incredibly hot.  

A. Joseph Ross rejoined:
>When I was at WMUA, we had no air conditioning (though they do in the 
>present studios).  We had large windows that we could open.  <snip>
>...of course, with radio, you don't have to worry about wearing a tie.  
>Or even a shirt.

Shawn Mamros noted:
> There is at least one Boston-area radio station that operates without
> the benefit of air conditioning in the studios, and no windows either.
> Yep, it's WMBR, MIT's radio station.

Rob Landry responded:
>WHRB at Harvard has no air conditioning either.

Bob Nelson, not be outdone, contibutes:
>neither does WMWM, Salem State. A few fans, though.
>but they can only do so much.

This sounds like a cross between a lame SNL skit and 
a Monty Python classic.

So, allow me to add my 2 degrees worth:
When I first got into radio (summer '64), we worked 
in an un-air-conditioned building with a Gates BC-1G 
transmitter in the control room along with a vacuum-tube 
console, tube (turntable) preamps, Ampex 601(tubes), 
tube limiter, and a tube Conelrad receiver.  At least the 
cart machine was transistor!

There was a _pathetically_ small air conditioner (4,000 BTU 
max) in the wall (behind the rack) and the best it could do 
was keep a bottle of soda slightly less than warm if you set 
it right in front of the air vents.  As far as humans went, it just 
barely kept us from passing out altogether.

Combine that with the Sunday afternoon duties of copying logs 
(while riding board for the Red Sox game) in the next room with
an ammonia-based copier [the logs looked like blueprints] and no
air conditioning at all - for $1.25/hour!

AND WE LUUUUUUVED IT!

<grouse mode off>

Roger Kirk
rogerkirk@usa.net

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