Pattern Changes and You (was: WLS)

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Tue, 27 May 2008 18:11:02 -0400, John Francini <francini@mac.com> said:

> How much control/foreknowledge does the on-air staff (or even the  
> board op, these days) have of the pattern change?  Is it fully  
> automated on stations like WEEI? If so, you won't necessarily know  
> when it's going to happen without consulting an ephemerides table...

Consulting an ephemeris wouldn't help, since the pattern change takes
place at FCC sunset (which is an average time over the entire month,
rounded to the quarter-hour) and not at astronomical sunset.

Many directional AMs have the pattern-change time prominently posted
in the air studios.  (At least among the ones I've visited.)

IBOC and profanity delays certainly make it harder.  I can't recall if
I've ever seen studios with two clocks, but it would seem an obvious
solution to have one studio clock showing real time (to meet network
schedules and so on) and one studio clock showing delayed time (for
timechecks).

-GAWollman