[BC] And Portland, too: 50kw KPNW 1120 Off The Air - FIRE!

[towers at mre.com]

Then the station deserves what it has sewn. 9 stations and a contractor. 
Nope...no sympathy from me for the station or the owners. What's more, the
engineer is an enabler by continuing to go along with the madness. And
I'll bet he's charging something less than what he should be as well
because management has said that's what they'll pay.

What accountants CAN'T pin down reliably is the amount of good will lost
with both advertisers and listeners when outages occur. It will take a
LONG time to make up from this episode. And with enough of them, the
business is a gonner.

MM

> Methinks that the Portland 50 kW had a "contract engineer" on call, not a
> full-time engineer.  My information source claims that this "on call"
> engineer handles KDUK-FM, KEJO, KFLY, KLOO (AM), KLOO-FM, KODZ, KRKT-FM,
> KTHH, as well as KPNW, all owned by the same company. This is the general
> trend. The logic of "on-condition" maintenance, where somebody is called
> to fix some problem, is that it is cheaper in the end. A full-time body
> might cost much more in salary than the replacement cost of the equipment
> he would maintain. Accountants make these choices.
>
> Cheers,
> Richard B. Johnson