Re: WBZ & WRKO - No Audio

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>Oh and by the way, something else I just remembered...WBZ-AM is the primary 
>station for national EAS alerts for a LOT of stations in the area.   So 
>WBZ-AM ever going down is very very very very bad.   I wonder if they'll 
>face FCC fines because of it?

But remember, with EAS there is no longer a single primary station.
In this area, we have WBZ, WBMX, and (I think) NOAA weather radio
which serve as primaries.  All stations in the area must monitor all
three of them at all times, precisely because any one of them could
go down at any time, backup site or no.  I can't imagine the FCC fining
any station for some downtime, EAS primary or not.

As for the possibility that the TX in Hull was still on with no audio,
thus preventing them from firing up the backup on Soldiers Field Road
- yeah, that seems to be a likely possibility.  And yeah, it is pretty
fundamental, even for small stations, that a mechanism be in place to
automatically shut down the TX when connectivity to/from the studios
goes down.  But let's face it, many automated systems in place today
are far more complicated than they need to be, and Murphy's Law is
always in effect, no matter how well-engineered a system might be.

I'm sure there's a good story behind BZ's downtime from yesterday,
one that may even qualify as a good "war story" that engineers will
get a good chuckle over long after the actual event.  Maybe we'll be
lucky enough to hear it someday...

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