[BC] WATO Tower Falls

[Vernon Kuehn]

At 11:45 PM 3/31/2008, Neal Newman wrote:

>who is their engineer?
>
>why make the station silent?
>File an emergency STA for reduced power as a NON-D.
>from one of the other 2 towers..
>and get them back on the air......
>geeze   whats so hard about that..

What's so hard about that..  ?  Cash!  Even piddly amounts of cash.

I have known for maybe 3 years that these stations were possibly for 
sale and having some difficulty producing sufficient income.

They have four stations in the Knoxville area all "lashed together" 
carrying one identical audio feed is the way I understood the story 
recently.  Looking at the coverage maps my guess is that the single 
operator on duty controlling all four stations probably could not go 
out into the parking lot and with a good car radio determine whether 
WATO was on the air or not.

I am under a non-disclosure agreement that probably covers this 
situation so I will stick my neck out only this far:  (and throw a 
little gasoline on the fire from that other topic that keeps us 
busy...)  If you could see financial statement for this group of four 
stations you would not have to be a BEAN COUNTER to come to the 
conclusion that you simply leave this station dark for the duration 
and possibly let a new owner or owners deal with the darkness and to 
decide how thorough the fix of the darkness would be.