[BC] Some perspective on the list

[Keith Hammond]

Barry Mishkind wrote:

>          One last note: please remember, yes
>          there are many EXCELLENT guys and
>          gals at Clear Channel, as with other
>          companies.  We can do without
>          and and all mindless bashing.
> 
>          However, no monolithic
>          solution will work for all. Until and
>          unless the structure is changed where
>          the engineer finds himself all alone
>          in the field against a "power structure"
>          that is weighted against him before
>          he starts, nothing will change.
> 
>          Mike may or may not unsub. I hope
>          he stays... like David, I hope and
>          encourage the lurkers to become
>          more visible. There are positive things
>          that can be done. It takes more effort
>          than pot shots... but it can be done.


  One other (hopefully) inoffensive observation:

  I'm not so sure that this is genuinely that is intended as such. What
I'm seeing is a lot of "this station irritates me and it's a Clear
Channel station". Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that
there are a LOT of CC stations and, according to the law of averages, if
CC is doing just as good as others, we will still see MORE complaints
just due to the fact that there are stations to complain about.

  Having said this: My commercial station (in Texas) is an affiliate of
Clear Channel network programming (Oklahoma News Network) and I have
absolutely NO complaints about CC as a network affiliate or as a (one
time only) engineer who was called in to make an emergency repair to the
KGYN transmitter in Guymon, Oklahoma. In that instance, the GM stood by
and helped in any way he could without the least bit of pressuring,
screaming, shouting or complaining. (He's quite possibly the ONLY GM
I've ever encountered who *didn't* complain when the repair consisted of
an hour of studying the manual and 10 minutes of work! Most of the GM's
I've encountered until now will balk and complain that I've done
"nothing more than waste an hour reading squiggles in that book and
finally getting off of my lazy a$$ to do 10 minutes of work!") Payment
was prompt and most generous. (Remember, I'm more accustomed to the
approach of "we determined that you actually only had your hands inside
the equipment for 10 minutes and had wasted more than an hour READING
WHILE YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN WORKING!")

  I have nothing at all bad to say about CC. (Unless I'm allowed to
complain that they didn't pay me to say this, which they didn't!)

  Totally unrelated but a bit comical: I recall one instance in which a
certain 10KW RCA BTA-10U had just lost a final and (unknown to me at
this early stage) I was going to be asked to bring it up on one (6762 -
is this right?) final only. Within the first five minutes of the TX
shutting down, I had already answered no fewer than FOUR calls from the
owner asking, "What's wrong? When can you get me back on the air?" I
finally reached the "snapping point" and told him, "I don't know what's
wrong because I'm spending more time telling you that I can't answer
your questions than I'm spending in getting answers to give to you. I
can tell you whether this will be a quick-fix or a major outage after at
least five to ten minutes in which you LEAVE ME ALONE!" He didn't call
me again until I called him with news of the tube failure (about 10
minutes to be sure). This leads me to believe that GM's (and owners) can
be made to "see the light" (for just a brief instant) if circumstances
happen to be "just right" at just the right time. But, it usually
doesn't last...


Keith Hammond

KBKH-FM (Shamrock, Texas)

(806) 256-1221