[IRCA] kxel and my thoughts

["Robbie j." <challenger82901@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey All, I just wanted to add my thoughts to this and
relate a story from my own days in broadcasting. Most
of the time now the people that "matter" to a station
are the ones that spend money with advertisers. Often
its not the CE or the gal at the front desk that
responds to a dx reqwest(as it was in the old days)
becouse a lot of stations don`t even have those folks
on staff anymore! its just a "sat. station". One that
gets its programing via sat. or the web.(via a phone
line) 
  Its nice to hear from someone 2000 miles away that
heard your signal but if they not going to come over
and buy a car from that car dealer that just ran a
spot, then who cares what you heard. 
   That is the feeling of a lot of upper mangers.(and
THEY are the ones signing the checks for qsl cards and
their signers) These folks are not(for the most part)
engineers and thus have not a care nor understanding
of the physics of radio.(i.e. how or even that I was
able to hear them 1000 miles away)   
  On the topic of back up power, Its up to them also
weather they feel its needed or not. Thats a lot of
money for something that will get little use and in a
bus. where money is already tight, things that aren`t
needed that much are just a waste of $$ in their view.
  Story about this: When I worked in tv, the guy that
owned the station(he was not a broadcaster until then)
didn`t understand why we in eng. sead that we needed a
snowcat to get into some of these really "off the
beaten path" places.(we had sites in 3 states) 
  Until one night when S&R had to be called out to
come get us and HE had to pay 2 guys(us) a days pay +7
hours overtime AND travel time(several more hours)
becouse our truck got stuck on a mountin top while
building a site in the winter.(just 2 of us and many
summer time projects)
  After that he sead ok to our reqwest for a cat and a
better truck to haul it around. You see, most of the
calls that matter aren`t made by CEs and such. Rather,
thay are made by "the suites and bean counters."(most
of these folks are bus. people NOT broadcasters) 
  Another story from my files: It really helps to be
nice and not tell stations how to run their bus. I was
pulling transmitter duty one night AFTER spending the
day down at the studio doing other stuff.(the other
guy had a family of his own, I didn`t) I was also up
there becouse the owner of the station also had a
local sports team and one of the players was going for
some kind of record.(he got it)
  The whole city(a major market) was going to either
be at or watch the game on our station,(as we were the
only ones with broadcast rights at the time for that
team) so they wanted someone on site at all times
during the games. So I got to go up and babysit. 
 Well, across the street form the studio was some kind
of bank logistics building.(mostly staffed by women) I
ended up spending that night at the trans. site as
there was a blizzard outside and it wasn`t "safe" for
me to come back down so I stayed over.(we had a nice 2
story builing that was fully equipted)
  When I got back down the next morning I went into
the break room to clock out and found on the bullitin
board a letter that the gals had passed around to have
everyone sign that congradulated the team, players,
owner, ect. But it also sead "A big thank you as well
to the staff at the station" for doing whatever you
did to allow us to see the game and share in the
record setting event.(it was signed by about 50
people) 
  The job for me had started to get a litle thankless
and mondane.(I installed and maint. tv translater
stations in 3 states as well as doing studio and main
transmitter site work) 
  Let me tell you, that one letter made ALL of my
time, trouble, and risk worth it! It was worth more
than one can ever know! And yes, a lot of the "powers
that be" in broadcasting do watch these sites. Just a
few of my thoughts. Good dx to all, Robbie in wyoming 
  



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Need Mail bonding?
Go to the Yahoo! Mail Q&A for great tips from Yahoo! Answers users.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396546091
_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx