[BC] The FCC comes calling

[Barry Mishkind]

At 03:02 PM 2/27/2012, Cowboy wrote:
> All of the field inspectors I've ever dealt with have been reasonable.

        There *are* ... and have been ... a lot of really
        super guys in field ops. There have also been
        some who apparently were pretty enamoured
        of their badge.....

        I've told this story a few times over the years.

        There was a local station inspected in 1978.
        The first thing the RI asked for was 
        "all the contracts on your part time announcers."

        From there, it did not get much better. 

        The back of the  station's transmitter was off, 
        awaiting a replacement fan. It was inside a locked building, 
        inside a locked fence. There were only two keys.

        The inspector's response was to write the station up for 
        violating good engineering practice and having
        a short section of one radial exposed. 

        Then, to make things interesting, he announced
        he was going to have to write the station up for
        "excessive radiation," as he measured the
        station at 954 mV at a mile (this was the old
        days, before km).

        Oh... did I mention the station was a daytimer,
        running under 500W from a 60 degree stick?

> Sometimes the rules conflict with common sense.
> Usually, in my experience which I admit isn't real recent, common
> sense would win.

        Fortunately, when the EIC out in LA was called,
        he laughed off most of it and said, "just get
        the fan fixed and let me know."