[BC] Interesting sign-offs and Tech Difficulties

[brew@theMode.com]

> "We're sorry but our transmitter is off the air."....  We'll be back as
> soon as we can...blah blah with instructions to run it in case the
> transmitter went off the air. This was back way before digital cable
> feeds and direct tv feeds....  I tried to reason with the lady general
> manager that this was a waste of time but gave up and we made the tape
> and ran it when the transmitter crapped out.  What can you do.

I was one of the transmitter operators at WCBS-TV on the WTC before it
went remote control in the mid-nineties.  We had an Emergency Backup Tape
with a bunch of PSAs, followed by an episode of Quincy, in an old U-matic
machine for use in case the STLs both failed.  There was a memo, posted
prominently next to the station license, that further said under no
circumstances were we to run that tape unless authorized by one of three
people, naming the CE, the Manager, and (probably) the Program Director.

Of those three people, one had left for another job, one was dead, and the
other spent a lot of time on his boat with no phone.

I figured I could have some fun with that if the tape was ever needed (but
I would run it eventually, even without the authorization, I decided). I
never had occasion to use it since we had a backup site on the Empire
State Building with it's own program feed anyway.

brew Bruce Schiller at CBS-TV NY Master Control Maintenance and WA2ZST