[BC] Stations that sign off

[Mark Humphrey]

Some college stations figure they save money on the power bill by
shutting down overnight.   In fact, less than  35 years ago, this
practice was the norm at a lot of commercial stations in fairly large
markets.  WSYR-FM (now WYYY) -- with 100 kW, arguably the best signal
in the Syracuse market -- operated only from 10 AM to 10 PM until
1976.

When I took over engineering at WRTI in Philadelphia in 1984 (a Class
B station owned by Temple University) it was standard procedure to
sign off every Friday morning between 6 to 10 AM (yes, morning drive)
for routine transmitter maintenance.  The scheduling had been set up
this way for many years solely for the convenience of the previous CE
who didn't want to work after normal hours.     Although the station
had a functional aux transmitter, there was no way to run it into the
antenna without moving the coax from one rig to the other.

Needless to say, I put an end to this policy and also installed the
coax transfer switch which had been sitting on the shelf for years
collecting dust.

Mark

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Paul B. Walker, Jr.
<walkerbroadcasting at gmail.com> wrote:
> Why, in this day and age of digital automation or commnuity volunteers or
> student volunteers... why would a 3000 Watt NPR affiliate owned by a college
> only operate 6am to 10pm?
>
> http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wprl/guide.guidemain
>
> I don't see the point in signing off. is it too hard to program automated
> music overnight?
>
> --
> Sincerely,
> Paul B. Walker, Jr.
> www.onairdj.com
> walkerbroadcasting at gmail.com
>
>