Re: Two-hundred-fifty watt Xmitter wanted...

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>Xmitter is OK.  Work crews form the Moron Construction Co,  re-doing the roof 
>saw a cable in their way and without thinking decided to saw it in two, 
>despite the fact that it was visible to them that that cable led right to the 
>close-by 280' tower!   Folks could hear us a few blocks away as WJIB's signal 
>was being transmitted from just the long cable!     We're back though as of 
>1:58 PM today.

I wonder if that's the same Moron Construction Co. who, 18 years ago,
was doing work on the roof of MIT's Eastgate building.  They, too,
happened to see a cable in the way, leading to a red-and-white painted
tower also on said roof.  Somebody on the crew must have had at least
one neuron firing, for they didn't chop the cable in two; they simply
bent it a little to get it out of the way.  Unfortunately, coaxial
transmission line doesn't work very well when bent (having inner and
outer conductors touching is *not* a good thing), and WMBR was forced
off the air as a result.

Somebody's lucky they didn't get zapped when that JIB cable got cut.
Granted, it'd have been worse if JIB was a 50,000 Watter, but still...

-Shawn Mamros
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu