[BC] Transmitter Safety

[Rich Wood]

------ At 06:12 PM 4/29/2008, Sid Schweiger wrote: -------

>Some of you may remember Jim Howard (now, I believe, deceased), the 
>former CE of WJIB/Boston (the 96.9 FM signal, not the WJIB currently 
>owned by Bob Bittner at 740 AM).  Jim received a painful lesson, 
>which he would relate to anyone who asked him, about having to call 
>someone's wife to deliver the worst news possible.  He used to work 
>at the WRUL/WNYW shortwave site at Scituate MA, years before I first 
>met him, when one of his co-workers, working alone late at night and 
>presumably on too little sleep, made a fatal error.  Jim was the one 
>who found him the next morning, and had to call the man's wife.  Jim 
>and I worked in the same transmitter building for a few years 
>(underneath the candelabra in Needham MA), and whenever I had to do 
>some transmitter work, he insisted on sticking around.

I worked with Jim for many years at WJIB. I hope you're wrong about 
Jim's death, though I tried to call him a couple of months ago and 
found the number disconnected.

He was one of the finest people I've ever worked with. Mild-mannered 
but adamant about safety. I remember going to the transmitter site in 
Needham fairly often. During Winter he advised me to stay away 
because of the falling ice from the tower. I don't know how often his 
shortwave site changed patterns but I remember visiting the Moncton 
CBC shortwave site. The engineer showed me how the pattern was 
changed and was adamant that I stay by his side as he made the 
change. I can imagine that Jim's heightened sense of safety came from 
rerouting high power RF in less than a minute. One failure in a 
motorized switch and all Hell could break loose. St. Elmo would be amazed.

WJIB was a great place to work, primarily because of the people. As 
the IBUZ cheerleaders know, I can be a pain in the butt. Jim had the 
patience of a saint as I fired questions at him while he was trying 
to install or repair something. I was constantly calling him when 
something didn't sound right. Most of the problems turned out to be 
bad recordings. We did very little processing. I programmed the station.

There's a story about an engineer at WGBH/WGBX-TV falling into an 
operating klystron. He survived because there was someone nearby who 
was able to extract him before it became lethal. I worked there at 
the time an couldn't imagine anyone working on a live UHF 
transmitter. While he saved his life the other engineer should have 
prevented him from doing something so dangerous.

>  Besides his comments and suggestions born out of years of 
> experience while I was a neophyte, having him there watching over 
> me (and teaching me the routine of making absolutely sure the box 
> was fully discharged before sticking my hand in there) was both 
> highly informative and comforting.  It's a lesson I never 
> forgot.  My dad (RIP) was an electrical engineer, specializing in 
> high-power transmission, and he reinforced the lessons as well.

I always had the feeling Jim was watching out for us.

Rich