RE: WBZ & WRKO - No Audio

["Aaron [Bishop] Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 05:06 PM 6/25/2002, Bill O'Neill wrote:
>Bob writes:
> > Ch. 4 just said there was a Verizon outage in Allston
> > (a line on Western Ave. was accidentally cut into,
> > possibly by a commercial construction crew), resulting
> > in WBZ radio being off the air--but "they're back on
> > now".
>
>What, no STL/TSL microwave backup?  I'm curious what WBZ has for
>tech coverage both at studios and at the stick?  If a page-out was
>needed to roundup someone, that could account for lost time...and
>units.
>
>Bill O'Neill

Perhaps they were dependant on a voice/data link to the primary transmitter 
(in Hull) and when the fiber was cut, they couldn't shut the primary down, 
hence why the auxillary transmitter (at the studios) was not 
activated.  Perhaps an engineer could've driven out to Hull to manually 
shut it down but the data line came back up before he/she could get 
there.   Or maybe they DID get there and that's when the auxillary was 
fired up.

However, if I'm correct it would demonstrate a glaring oversight in 
planning out the transmitter control systems if you ask me.  Sort of 
transmitter control **at the transmitter** that automatically shuts off the 
transmitter when dead air goes on for too long was - I thought - the 
standard in large-transmitter operations.


____________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read     aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels.com Technical Consulting
www.friedbagels.com   AOL-IM: ReadAaron
"I'm weird, but around here it's barely noticeable."