[BC] Frequency Measuring

[Thomas G. Osenkowsky]

> During my very limited experience in broadcasting back in the 
> sixties, the station I worked for in central Pennsylvania 
> used a person in Massachusetts to measure the frequency.
> I always wondered how he could hear the station well enough 
> to make the measurement?

You no doubt had the late Clarence Cheney of Cambridge
Crystals. Some speculated that he was unable to actually
receive the stations. When I was CE at my first station I
repaired the crystal oscillator in a Gates BC-5H. I waited
30 minutes, reset the freq on both oscillators according to
the RCA freq monitor. Clarence was scheduled to do the
freq check the following night.

I got a call from the DJ who said he got several complaints
from listeners in the fringes saying we were playing a tone.
He heard none on PGM, AIR monitor or on his car radio.
I told him I was coming in later on so I could do the freq
check myself. Normally, the DJ would go to day power/
pattern after midnight, play the tone test cart and we would get
our report in the mail.

As I was driving towards the station, I heard the "tone". I
figured it was the Cubans. When Clarence called he had me
play the cart several times. This was unusual. He then asked
if I did any work on the transmitter. We were +420 Hz! That
was the tone! He explained that the old freq meters would go
to zero on overtones (above 40 Hz, I believe). So indeed he
was able to receive a 5kW 1380 KHz Naugatuck, CT station
in Mass.

After Clarence passed on, a woman briefly took over the
freq measurements. It went out of business shortly thereafter.
Freq counters were becoming very popular. The FCC rules
requiring 30 day measurement were still in effect.

Tom Osenkowsky, CPBE