Re: WBNW patterns (former: Red Sox Spanish Play By Play)

[Jeffrey Gill <folkimage@yahoo.com>]

[Sorry for the delay with this. I've been having
problems sending with a new email server.]

That "retiree" should probably be me. The deplorable
practice of not
switching to night power and pattern began at the 1120
operation back in
its final days of the original WADN calls and format.
It's a classic
example of what happens when corrupt, incompetent
management destroys
the cash flow, starts the layoffs, demotes the last
staff member
experienced in broadcast operations (yours truly), and
gives management
responsibilities to anyone off the street willing to
take them, whether
or not they are qualified.

Back in the Fall of 1996, a new sales/management
person secured a
sponsorship from one of the large office supply chains
for sports
coverage that the station was going to carry at night.
He sold it on the
premise that the station reached Boston at night.
Knowing little of the
nature of FCC enforced operating perimeters and the
possible
consequences of violating them, this sales/management
person told all
board ops to up the station's power and pattern to
daytime levels during
these games so that his account would not be
threatened by the truth.

>From there it simply evolved... or devolved actually.
If you don't
punish a naughty child for inappropriate behavior,
he'll try to get away
with more and more of it. By the time Barry Armstrong
(a financial
consultant by profession, not a radio operations guy)
took over
ownership of the station, he apparently felt that,
hey, they've gotten
away with it so far. Why not avoid going to night
power altogether?

For many years, the transmitter of the 1120 operation
had telephone
remote control capacity. In other words, if you had
the phone number of
the transmitter building, and the access codes, you
could control all
user-servicable transmitter functions - including the
power/pattern
changes - from any telephone in the world. During the
months I was
largely responsible for the station, I would often
change the power and
pattern from right here at home, especially on
weekends.

One evening about six months ago, I found myself so
pissed over WBNW's
flagrant violation of their nighttime operating
authority, I decided to
dig up the old codes to see if they still worked. As I
recall, the
transmitter phone rang, but it didn't do the automatic
pickup. My guess
is that the system has been disabled, and the
transmitter can no longer
be controlled by telephone... damn! What's Barry
afraid of, having a
"ghost from the past" turn down his power on him? :)

By the way... if - yes IF - 1120 ever does switch to
their nighttime
power again on a regular basis, you would notice that
the nighttime
signal to Lowell is considerably better than the
daytime signal, which
is nearly nonexistent due to the sharp null protecting
WNNZ.    

Martin Waters wrote:
> 
> --- Hakim Madjid <HMadjid@mindspring.com> wrote:
> <snip>
> .> So you think WBNW doesn't switch to night time
> > power/pattern like it should,
> > huh? I'm sure the FCC would be real happy if they
> > found out.
> 
> No, they wouldn't be. They'd feel like maybe they
> might be expected to do something about it, but
> probably they'd have to call up some retiree to find
> someone who remembered what it is that maybe they
> might be supposed to do :) Plus, they'd figure, hey,
> why single out this one out of the ?hundreds? of
> stations that fail to change to night pattern
> some/most/all of the time . . .

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