[BC] Need STL

[Scott Cason]

Reliability!  The station took a direct lightning hit Thursday.  Blew
one of the balls off of the ball gap at the base of the tower!  Took out
the fuse in the processor and took out the amplifiers in the Nautel
J1000 transmitter.  We didn't know it took out the phone loop amp until
after I got the transmitter back up and going and there was no audio.
Called Windstream's repair center and they said they didn't make it a
"policy" to send out repair crews for things like this on the weekends.
Needless to say, as soon as I can find a good, reliable STL pair,
Windstream will NOT be getting the $250 a month we pay for this loop
anymore.  The studio and transmitter are two miles apart.  I can put a
wet noodle out the window and get a link.  It's a ND station.  Little
class C on 1450 kc.  

Before I left, we plugged a CD player into the processor.  The Man in
Black never sounded so good.  That's got me wondering about the
"quality" of the loop we have, also.

I'm still stunned over the response of the phone company about this.  I
have several other stories about this particular Windstream office if
anyone's interested.





>>Why do you need to get off the loop?  Cost?  Reliability?

If the loop is local (same CO end to end), it can't be more than 
$200/mo.  That's a LOT of months to pay for a complete STL system.  And 
many many more if the station is an AM DA and you need to mount the RX
dish 
on one of the active towers..read..partial proof.

Scott Cason
LaGrange Communications
www.lagrange-com.com
(877)265-9773
(502)213-0024