[BC] Re: Dead air or no air...

[Jeff Carter]

Once on a Saturday, it was my day to put WCLP-TV on the air.  It
hadn't yet gone to 24 hour service at that point, so somebody had to
show up at 4:30 AM and fire it up every day.

I began the process of starting the pumps for the cooling system, etc.
and it became obvious that something was wrong.  The big regulator,
which lived in a room by itself, showed that a leg of the 3 phase 480V
service was out.  I called the power company in a near-panic and they
promised to be right there...at the top of Fort Mountain in the middle
of nowhere on a Saturday.  I stressed to the person on the phone that
we were a TV station and it was of the utmost importance that we get
back on the air.

I turned on all the remotes and translators we controlled from there
(we still had 110V), and resigned myself to answering the phone all
day, taking calls and verbal abuse from angry folks who needed to vent
their hurt and frustration caused by the gaping hole in their lives
where WCLP-TV used to be.  It hadn't yet rung, and I figured it was
because nobody had gotten up yet.  I congratulated myself on being
lucky that it was a Saturday and nobody got up to notice.

Fast forward to 2 PM that afternoon, the power company got the
transformer changed and power restored...and *not a soul* had called
all day.  It was as if in our entire North Georgia and partial East
Tennessee audience  that I assumed we had, since I knew we covered the
area with adequate signal level, wasn't watching like I assumed they
were.

It was humbling to think of all the many thousands of dollars that had
been spent on that station, how much time I personally had put into
it, and yet not one person in all that huge coverage area missed it
enough to call a plainly listed number and ask what was going on.

I knew we weren't the hottest thing going, so to speak, but I'd never
guessed we didn't rate a phone call.  I guess it's a good thing that
we never tried to give tower crews any swag with the station callsign
on it, like in the other thread.  I shudder to think what they'd have
done with it.

Jeff

---- Original message ----
>From: WBRadiolists at aol.com
>
>Something similar happened to me one morning in the late 1980's at WFIF. We
>had been on the air for about 15 minutes, when... POP! We went off, but the
>lights were still on. Turns out a bird decided to commit suicide on the pole,
>taking out one of the 3 phases that Ol' bessie needed. I forget how long it took
>the PowerCo to get there, but those were anxious minutes/hours.
>
>Being off the air is horrible.
>
>Willie...