Re: [IRCA] KXEL, etc.

[Scott Fybush <scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

saulamdx wrote:

> I think it comes down to how the opinion is expressed.
> If rudely, then I'd agree with you, Les. But if a
> constructive comment, put civilly, causes such
> distress that stations cease to QSL or conduct DX
> tests, and hold DXers in ill repute - well, I think
> that's an over-reaction on their part. 

It seems to me that some stations are just looking for a convenient 
excuse not to be bothered, and if it weren't a mailing list posting, 
they'd have some other reason not to run a test.

> I'm not terribly moved
> about stations whose owners and/or management don't
> give a damn about their listeners. Like another
> lister, I thought WWL did a bang-up job during Katrina
> and in the aftermath, though I continue to hold the
> N.O. Times-Picayune newspaper staff as particularly
> exemplary in the face of what really was a dangerous
> situation. My guess is KXEL would have floated away.

It isn't now (and never was) my intention to cast aspersions on KXEL 
specifically. I didn't start the thread, and I keep trying to change the 
title of it. I don't know the engineers there, and I don't know what 
they were up against. They're in an awfully small market for a 50 kW AM, 
and buying a generator might not be the slam-dunk cost-benefit 
calculation it would be in a bigger market. The points I've been trying 
to make are more general ones, that being prepared for an emergency pays 
off in the long run for stations big and small.

WWL is, in many ways, a more interesting case than KXEL. They were quite 
well prepared for a big storm. Ironically, their chief engineer had just 
given a presentation on emergency preparedness at the NAB convention the 
April before Katrina, including some interesting shots of the old WWL 
site in Metairie (long gone, to make room for the airport) under several 
feet of water after a flood in the 1940s. They had backup power for the 
studio, backup power (two generators) at the hardened transmitter site, 
and even a completely separate backup transmitter site.

And yet...when the storm slammed that site overnight Sunday into Monday, 
WWL did go off the air, and stayed off the air until late on Monday. 
What happened? For all the planning, one element wasn't taken into 
consideration: they didn't station an engineer out at the transmitter 
site, and when the shore power went off, the generator started running, 
but then hit an "overcrank" alarm and went off. That's something that 
can be reset in a matter of seconds if someone's present, but instead it 
took almost a day to be able to get someone out to the remote site to 
kick the generator back on. I do not know, even now, why the backup 
transmitter site wasn't put into service.

WWL recovered heroically once it got back on the air, and its subsequent 
role as a communication link during the flooding and recovery is indeed 
worthy of one of the mythical "gold stars" being handed out in this 
thread. But any emergency recovery plan can have its weak links, and now 
WWL (and anyone else who cares to learn from their experiences, which 
they've been very good about sharing) knows something else to add to 
their plan in case there's a "next time." (There are now three 
generators at the WWL site, from what I'm told.)

Is this all germane to a DX list? As a DXer who's also a broadcaster 
(or, these days, a broadcaster who also occasionally finds some spare 
time to DX), it adds value and perspective to my DX experience to know 
not only who's on the air and who's off the air, but why.

s

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