Sox network still way late with legal ID break

[Matt S.]

> 
> When Jane Day ran the Sox network out of WPLM Plymouth she
> made sure
> that nothing WPLM related went on the bird.
 
She did?  LOL !  I used to run the board during the games on WKBR Manchester in the mid 80s and WPLM was not on the bird....it was 3.5 phone lines and it was just the rebroadcast WPLM signal.  Everything went down the line and since they often would not follow the log they sent affiliates I would often get caught off guard and a local WPLM ID or spot would get on the air in Manchester. One word described the Red Sox network in the 80s...clutter@#$%.  One day back in 1985 the line went dead and I called WPLM and they got us back on by just putting their phone on hold and I put the studio phone on the air at WKBR. After less than one inning I heard click ! then this voice said "Hello, hello ..Who left this (expletive) phone on hold?  I went to music for the rest of the afternoon after calling the PD and GM and telling them what happened. By the way I only got one complaint from a listener who said he was listening in the car with his son and wanted to know
  why someone swore on the air and the game stopped being broadcast. I guess the 1985 Sox on the radio was not a ratings grabber in New Hampshire. 

  Then there's the story of how at another Merrimack valley station the owner refused to pay for the phone line from WPLM and they would pick the games up on a FM boom box perched on top of an equipment rack. The signal would fade during hot summer nights when tropo interference would clobber the 99.1 signal.  Mark..chime in here and tell us more stories...LOL.

Matt Stevens
(now out of the biz except for weekends at WZID and now in Master Control at Comcast Spotlight ad insertion in Wellesley. In cable, NESN does a pretty good job sending us the "tones" during the 3rd and 6th inning breaks that trigger local spot insertion in all the cable headends.)