Some college stations (Re: College engineering)

["Peter Q. George" <radiojunkie3@yahoo.com>]

     The legal term is the "Chief Operator".  He/or
she is the main contact point with the FCC and/or the
administration.  Most people know the chief operator
as the "Chief Engineer", and that's OK!  Yes, there
ARE some college stations around (and I am not naming
names) that simply don't care about dealing with
maintenance, checking logs and keeping the public file
up-to-snuff.  Some even leave dead carriers during
breaks or summers (highly illegal), et.al.. 
     Many (but not all) college stations are nothing
more than an extention of the GM's or the DJ's egos. 
Fortunately for my situation, I don't work at any
stations like that.  The college stations I work for
take their job as a service to the community very
seriously.  The students and managers, of the various
college stations I take care of, know how lucky they
are to have a fully functioning FCC sanctioned FM
station.  Other people at other colleges would die for
such facilities. I find that, at least at the stations
I work for, these kids really enjoy radio and they are
very up-to-date about the latest trends in the
industry.  They also have a lot of fun bringing
something local, live and unique to the college and
the local community, without commercials.  Boy, what a
concept!

73,

Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts


--- aread@speakeasy.net wrote:
> There used to be a requirement that a licensed
> "Chief Engineer" (as in, the legal term) had to be
> employed by the station to some degree, didn't
> there?  If there was a requirement, is it still in
> place?
> 
> BTW, most medium-sized, and some smaller, college
> stations DO farm out their tech support...either to
> a contractor or to some hapless Joe in another
> college department.  WGAO, WHRB, WZBC, WMLN all
> immediately come to mind.
> 
> A lot of smaller ones (WMFO, WZLY and WBRS come to
> mind) do without any real engineering service at
> all...and get by with the occasional techie student.
>  These stations are frequently in very sorry shape.
> 
> - Aaron
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Shawn Mamros [mailto:mamros@MIT.EDU]
> > Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 09:47 PM
> > To: 'Sid Schweiger'
> > Cc: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
> > Subject: Re: Fwd: Herald: Is WWZN dragging down
> SNR?
> > 
> > [Reformatting to 80 char width lines, to avoid the
> wrath of Garrett...]
> > 
> > >[...]  Unless a college station is run by
> professionals, what group of
> > > students is going to have time to do all that,
> with classes, papers,
> > > projects, exams AND the FCC breathing down their
> necks?  Further, what
> > > group of students (yes, even EE students) knows
> enough about AM
> > > directionals to be able to properly maintain and
> troubleshoot the array?
> > >
> > >I know whereof I speak, BTW.  I went to Cornell
> for a brief time.  Their
> > > student-run station was and still is a
> commercial FM operation...and was
> > > known campus-wide for the flunk-out rate of its
> staff.
> > 
> > Sounds like a familiar story... (fortunately, not
> *that* familiar. :-)
> > 
> > Seriously, though, I think these days that the
> only college stations
> > with student technical staff tend to be "techie"
> schools like Cornell
> > and MIT.  I believe most non-technical schools
> contract out to consulting
> > engineers for their stations.  Not that they would
> necessarily have the
> > time to constantly babysit a directional array,
> either...
> > 
> > -Shawn Mamros
> > E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu
> > 
> 
> 
> 


=====
Peter Q. George (K1XRB)
Whitman, Massachusetts
                           "Scanning the bands since 1967"
radiojunkie1@yahoo.com
radiojunkie3@yahoo.com
***********************************************************

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