[BC] unscheduled moments of scilence

[Allen Sherrill]

I think that was a fairly common idea among PDs at the time.

 

I was working at a station in the midwest at about that time.  I was getting ready to change one hop of the STL to a T-1 circuit.  I told the PD I needed to take the station down for a couple of hours on Sunday night for the conversion.  No big deal, thought I.

 

Ten minutes later, there's a promo running...."Kxxx is GOING OFF THE AIR!"

 

That ran long enough to get the phones blowing up with worried listeners.  A little later came the explanation that yes, Kxxx is going off the air...for some equipment installation.  The 9x caller after the station comes back on wins *something*.

 

Unfortunately for me, the T-1 gear wasn't ready by the time I had planned for the outage.  So I just went to the transmitter site, turned off the rig at midnight, did some maintenance, and turned it back on.  Sometime later I installed the T-1 without any further fanfare.

 

Allen Sherrill

 

 
 
> I *might* be the guy who originated that approach.
> It was about 1989 or so. There was deep concern in that station
> about losing audience while off the air, so I proposed that
> "contest".
> There were a LOT of calls, though I don't remember how many
> exactly. Hundreds at least.