[BC] A question for Rich Wood

[Mark W. Croom]

Ha Gary I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! Unfortunately, when
I was doing both on-air and tech, I had a stretch of time in which I was out
of the studio working on our AM site until just shortly before my airshift. So
I'd come blasting into the studio about 20 minutes before I was supposed to be
on the air, only to find the time-shift machine (an Ampex open reel tape deck)
with the tape fully recorded onto the take-up reel, because the mid-day person
failed to rewind it for the afternoon time-shifts.

I never figured out a way to tell the truth about the incorrect audio without
making it sound like I had something personal against her (which I didn't--but
it sure ticked me off). 

I did figure out some ways to get back ups of just about all of those
recordings, but it really cramped my time during the shift.

You are right--the computer time-shift stuff works so much better. We fixed
the problem with the mid-day gal by installing a minidisc machine to replace
the R2R. Our evening guy was extremely reliable about stuff like erasing tapes
and such, so we just taught him how to "blank" the minidisc every night, and
it recorded all day so it didn't require additional intervention to catch all
of the morning AND afternoon stuff.

I guess it was cheaper than training a replacement staff person (funny
thing--she's *still* at the station and I'm not...oh well...).

Mark
MN

---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Gary Peterson" <kzerocx at rap.midco.net>

> This reminded me of something that used to really annoy me.  Back in 
> the days, before we had so much automation, it wasn't uncommon for 
> DJs/announcers to blame engineering, on-air, for their own screw-
> ups.  The most common example would be the operator's failure to 
> record Paul Harvey from the network, an hour before it was scheduled 
> for airing.  The usual excuse given was "Due to *technical 
> difficulties*, today's Paul Harvey News and Comment will not be