Eventually, you will get caught, odds dictate. The local engineer for Cumulus Broadcasting in Cincinnati found this out earlier in the week. Of course, innocent until proven guilty, so I won’t assume anything.
Broadcast engineering, especially radio engineering is a small field. Sadly, when something like this happens it makes all radio engineers look bad and there is no good reason or excuse for it.
I have seen several cases where an engineer or technical person has taken advantage of their position to pilfer from a radio station. These vary from cashing in on dud tubes from a transmitters site to taking high value equipment and selling it on eBay. I recall on recent instance of backup transmitter and STL systems being sold. I cannot imagine what these people are thinking. A transmitter, STL system, console or even a dud tube has a serial number and is traceable. Anything with a serial number is likely part of a station inventory list and or will have some record of manufacture and sale.
There are instances when old equipment is getting thrown out. In that situation, I always get permission before removing anything, even from the dumpster.
I have made several trips to the scrap yard with old transmitter chassis, wire or left overs from transmitter installations. In those circumstances, I always get a receipt and write the source of the scrap on the back. This way, a record is kept and if there is any questions, I can refer to it.
Generally speaking, it is better to be overly cautious.
I was cleaning out the engineering room at WBEC in Pittsfield, MA today. The previous engineer, Ken Jones, past away last July and we have been hired to do the engineering work. Part of that job is knowing where key information and parts are, thus the clean up.
Whilst in the middle of that fun, I found a sheaf of papers consisting of this:
That is the classic engineering department bitch-o-gram, typed out on a typewriter. There were no fewer than eight memos to Ron (Stratton), who appears to be the General Manager, from Don Coleman, the lowly engineer. Since WBEC was a directional AM station, the engineers had to walk out to the towers every day and take a set of base current readings to confirm that the antenna sample system was working properly. A rule no longer in effect. Like many AM stations, WBEC is located in a low, swampy area. You will notice that this engineer had given the swamp a name and one wonders what the significance of that name is.
Back in the day of typewriters, sending off memos was no easy task. After the document was typed, a copier had to be found, copies made and distributed to all parties. Often times, distribution consisted of handing a copy directly to the person and waiting for a response. It was a way to put things in writing and to create a paper trail if needed in the future.
Here is another one:
In this memo, our hero references all of his previous memos on the same topic. Obviously, this engineer was very concerned about tower access and not breaking his or anyone else’s leg. I like the invitation for a walk out to the tower. The studios and general manager’s office are located at the WBEC transmitter site, so it would not have been a long walk.
These are fairly mundane, I can remember typing a few memos to the programming department on asbestos paper to keep them from bursting into flames. Ahhh, those were the days.
For some reason, this idea just popped into my head. Sometimes engineers get a little leery when it comes to a new project, especially in this micromanaged digitally connected world. I have learned to beware of buzz words and phrases like:
We couldn’t do it without you
We need you to guide this project through
I’ve got your back
Failure is not an option
Engineers are what makes radio stations tick
What they really mean is:
If we could figure out a way, we’d do it without you
We need you to answer your cellphone and email 24/7 so we can direct your guidance
Watch your back
This is such a lame brained idea, it’s going to fail and we are going to blame you
Who really knows what engineers do?
What management does not seem to understand is what motivates engineers. How do you get the guy who is on call 24/7 three hundred and sixty five days out of the year (even on vacation) to rise above his normal performance level and really shine?
Have no fear, there are things that engineers daydream about, those special little projects that can only be categorized one way: “NEAT!”
Most engineers that I know are enamored with efficiency. Anything that can increase efficiency, increase data throughput, provide more information and or make a difficult job easier may fall into the NEAT! category. Things like IP enabled remote controls, transmitters and processing that can be accessed from lap tops or smart phones. Installing VNC or like program on computer automation systems, servers and the like so that they too can be viewed and fixed from lap tops or smart phones is another good example. Of course, exactly what qualifies as NEAT! varies from engineer to engineer.
Here is the complete list of engineering motivators:
Having some projects with the aforementioned NEAT! items on occasion
Increased compensation and or bonuses for good performance, completed projects, etc
Decreased number of “pocket protector” jokes, glassy eyed staring, silly remarks and the like
Engineers are highly trained professionals. It is not up to us to fix the chair your ass broke, fix the toilet your cheap ass had installed, tape the worn out carpet you got on trade, fix the leaking roof you also got on trade, change light bulbs or wash the station vehicle. So don’t ask.
If somebody could figure out how to include one of these with all new equipment installations or projects, perhaps in the ancillary kit or something:
In almost every broadcast company I have ever worked for, there is always some communications dysfunction between management and the technical staff. It is perhaps, inevitable given the different cultures. Most managers come from a sales background, where everything is negotiable. The engineering field is fixed in the physical world, where everything has two states; right/wrong, on/off, true/false, functional/non-functional, etc. Try to negotiate with a non-functional transmitter, let me know how that works.
Engineering eggheads often couch their conversations in technical terms which tend to confuse the uninitiated. While those terms are technically correct, if I said “Радио генератор инвалида.” You’d say “Huh?” and rightly so. If the receiving party does not understand the terms used, it is ineffective communication.
The other mistake I often see, which irritates me beyond reason, is long rambling e-mails or other documents that fail to come to the point, directly or otherwise. Time is a precious commodity, waisting other people’s time with long needless diatribes is ineffective communications. Likely, the recipient will not read the entire thing anyway. If a person gains a reputation for generating huge amounts of superfluous verbiage, then it only becomes so much background noise to be filtered out. When I was in the service, I went to a class called “Message Drafting.” This was back in the day when everything was sent via radio. The gist is to get the complete idea across to the recipient with as few words as possible. Think: “ENEMY ON ISLAND. ISSUE IN DOUBT.” Clear and concise, six words paints the picture.
The key to effective communications is to know your audience. If you are writing a white paper for a bunch of MIT graduates, use all the appropriate technical terms. More often than not, however, as a broadcast engineer, our intended audience is more likely station management and/or ownership. Their backgrounds may be sales and finance.
In order to get those technical ideas into the heads that matter, a good method is to use the lowest common denominator. If the general manager is a former used car salesman, car analogies might work. The transmitter has 200,000 miles on it, the tower is rusting out like a ’72 Pinto, and so on. Almost anything at a transmitter site can be compared to a vehicle in some way. Find out what the manager’s background is then figure out what language he or she speaks and use it. You may say, “But he is the manager, it is up to him (or her) to understand this stuff.” You are not incorrect, but that is not how the world works.
Secondly, use brevity in communications. Managers are busy, engineering is but one aspect of the radio station’s operations. If written, provide a summary first, then expound upon it in follow up paragraphs if required. If you are in a meeting, give a brief presentation then wait for questions. Always have a high ballpark figure in mind when the inevitable “How much?” question comes along.
Don’t assume that the manager will follow through with your ideas up the chain of command, always follow up a few days later. If it is important, continue to ask, in a friendly way, if there is any progress on the issue.
There are so many ways to communicate these days that failure to communicate is almost unfathomable. One additional thought, if you find yourself out of the loop, find a way to get back in or you’ll find yourself looking for a new job.
One of the great side benefits of working at a radio station is the regular availability of free food. I almost don’t want to do a post on this because somehow, some corporate boss is going to read about it and a no free food edict will result.
Every so often, some local deli or pizza place will drop off something for the air staff. Usually, it is a friend of a friend and nothing nefarious is going on. When it arrives, the odor of good things to eat wafts through the building. With the smell of blood in the water, the sharks swim out of the sales bullpen and a feeding frenzy develops. Just watch out for your fingers, during the scrum, it is difficult to tell the difference between a digit and a sausage.
It goes fast, when I walked by this table 15 minutes ago, there were five full pizza boxes, just delivered.
radio station food
Now there is one box with two slices of some meat lovers heart attack special.
It just doesn’t have the same ring as Disk Jockey or DJ. However, that would be an apt description of the person who plays the hits on most radio stations these days.
It is mostly just drag and drop the next element into the play deck, if anything needs to be done at all.
Technics SP-15 Turntable
I remember when DJ’s actually jockeyed disks, it was a sight to behold. Back in the day when everything was on vinyl except the commercials, which were on cart, the DJ had his or her hands full. Most of the songs where in the 2:30 to 3 minute range, so while the song was playing, the next song had to be cued up on the platter, the old song needed to be put back into it’s sleeve and shelved (most of the time), check the log to see what was on deck, pull the next commercial stop set, answer the phone and god forbid if the Program Director called on the hot line and it rang more than 3 times. And hopefully the head wasn’t too far away, that coffee went somewhere, after all. While all that is going on, timing, audience interaction, hitting the post and sounding fun. In spite of what Howard Stern says, it was not easy.
Today, of course, if there is even a person in the studio, they may glance up at the computer screen every now and then to see when the next time they need to talk. Otherwise, they would be engaged in talking on the phone with their girl friend, texting, surfing the internet, or watching the baseball game on TV.
Remember the movePlanet of the Apes, at the end, when Charlton Heston realizes that the planet is actually Earth in the future, run by apes? Here is a little refresher for you:
Anyway, my take on that movie was that world of the Apes was not a better place. When the Statue of Liberty was blown up, it was the end of everything that represented western civilization, e.g. everything good.
I find some striking parallels in this story.
Radio was discovered and perfected by various inventors and innovators. Heinrich Hertz is generally accepted as the first person to experiment with electromagnetic waves and their ability to be manipulated. He was a physicist and an electrical engineer.
Nikola Tesla was the first person to use electromagnetic waves to transmit information. He was also an electrical engineer.
Guglielmo Marconi developed and implemented commercial radio services, mostly ship to shore transmission facilities which charged customers by the word for delivered telegrams. He was a physicist.
Reginald Fressenden invented Amplitude Modulation (AM) first using a rotary spark gap transmitter. His first transmission included a violin solo and a reading from the bible. This was transmitted a distance of about 1 mile. He was an electrical engineer.
Lee Deforest invented the electron tube, which allowed for better amplification of transmitted and received radio waves, allowing the reliable transmission of voice over radio and broadcasting. He was an electrical engineer.
Others such as Steinmetz, Alexanderson, Baker, Armstrong, and even David Sarnoff (like him or not) added to the inventions and innovations that made radio work as a mass media and entertainment outlet.
Through the Golden Age of Radio, engineers and technical people ruled the roost, continuing to develop the technology and make improvements such as FM radio, Stereo Broadcasting, improved studio equipment, inventing television, and other wireless technology. Radio was the first technical medium where budding electronics geeks could sink there teeth into something. The number of devices that we use today because of radio is staggering. Two way radios, cellphones, wireless internet connections, blue tooth, EZpass, RFID, shoplifting alarms, cordless phones, baby monitors, etc. all came about because somebody had the idea; “hey, we can use radio to do this…”
As the radio broadcasting developed into a big business, it became more of the realm of sales guys. I once knew a General Manager, who rose from the ranks of the sales department say “Look, I don’t know nuttin about no technical stuff. Those tubes and everything.” We call him Biff (cause he looked like the guy from Back to the Future) the manager. I worked for a general manager who, when I asked to spend money to fix something, would say things like “In the land of the blind, a one eyed man is king.” While I contemplated what that meant to me, he would run out of the room and disappear for the rest of the day. From this point, things only became worse.
Now radio is run by bean counters and bankers, a droll lot if there ever was one. Not that bean counters and bankers are necessarily bad people, they don’t seem to understand the entertainment aspect of radio. The fact that a successful radio format is more than just playing some music on the air. It has to take the listener somewhere, either by evoking a memory or emotion, or by providing useful information. Even a commercial, if well done, can accomplish this.
Computers are inexpensive, they are reliable, they don’t need vacations, they don’t call in sick, they don’t get divorced or get pulled over for drunk driving, they even reproduce good sounding audio. In the end, however, it is just a machine. Computers have no personality, no soul, no cognizant judgment, computers cannot decide if something is an emergency, they cannot engage a listener and make a personal connection.
And that is what radio is all about, making a personal connection with the listeners.
So imagine you worked as an engineer in radio in the 1940′s and by some strange occurrence, you were transported to the same radio station in 2009. The atmosphere would surely be much different, if not completely unrecognizable. Then you are discovered to be an engineer and the hounds are released. You are beseeched with inane requests for everything from replacing the florescent light bulbs in the bathroom to fixing the squeaky chair. You might think you are on another planet. One run by… Apes.
This would be what it is like on a typical Monday morning department heads meeting…
The other day, the NTR (Non-Traditional Revenue) person came to me and said “Great news! We hired a new web guy, he knows all about engineering too!”
Really?
So I spoke to the Web Master/Broadcast Engineer for a bit. As it turns out, he knows how to do things like reboot the XDS satellite receiver, and he has been to the transmitter site a few times to take meter readings. I suppose these days, that is what counts as broadcast engineering experience. I suppose that someone like this could get by for a bit until something really bad happened.
Sadly, I think the upper management and ownership believes that this guy could do my job. To them, I am an employee number, with a salary and benefits package worth X. If they can replace me with someone that makes <X, that would represent savings. Plug that guy into this spot, everything will go on as it did before.
I don’t think they understand exactly what a Broadcast Engineer does. On any given day, I may:
Program an automation computer
Change the battery on a backup generator
Change the battery bank in our 18 KVA UPS
Clean a transmitter
Aim a satellite dish
Trouble shoot a DS-1 Circuit
Repair a microwave transmitter or receiver
Take a set of monitor points
Repair a tower light flasher circuit
Install a console
Repair a CD player
Trouble shoot an RF module
PM a generator
Work with a tower crew to place an antenna on a tower
Install an RF connector on 3 inch transmission line
Wire an Air conditioning unit at a transmitter site
Repair lightning damaged ATU
Trouble shoot an AC unit
Aim an STL antenna
Repair an RPU transmitter
Wire a new rack room
Order a new HICAP TELCO circuit
Coordinate a complex format change
Program and wire a new satellite reciever
Trouble shoot an audio hum
Pass an FCC inspection
Program an EAS unit
Wire a new studio
Design a tower light monitor circuit
Fix a studio phone system
Install an audio router
Match an AM transmitter to a new tower
Wire an ethernet patch panel
Manage a new tower project
Install a new transmitter
Make NRSC measurements on an AM transmitter
Reboot a server
Fix a reel to reel machine
Install a computer program
Clean a console
Pass an inspection by the fire marshal
To name a few. In other words, there are a lot of complex systems at a multi station radio facility. Some of this can be learned at various schools and colleges. A lot of it is experience. There is no substitute for an experienced veteran broadcaster who has seen almost everything and can think on his or her feet.
I have had this discussion with the market manager, and he gets it. I know that he understands who knows more about the ins and outs of all of our studio and transmitter sites. Things like, where is the water shutoff, the handle is broken off of the toilet on the second floor. Of course, I know it is down stairs in the furnace room next to the fire sprinkler system.
I know where the skeletons are buried. I have the inside numbers for the utility companies and the phone company. I know the code enforcement officer for most of the municipalities where we own buildings and property.
Ever since the new morning show guy started about six months ago, my work bench chair has been frequently migrating into the air studio. I don’t mind sharing, as long as things are put back where they came. I requested that the ever so cool, to hip to care DJ return it after use, which was ignored.
On my last trip to the hardware store, I made a purchase:
Behold, a length of 5/16 chain and two master combination locks. Now, every time I go to sit in my work bench chair, it is there.
If you work at a radio station that still has a local program director instead of one at the corporate programming lair (I know, sooooo old school), then you might be interested in this. I compiled a list of things that radio station program directors like:
Good ratings. A good rating book means that they are great program directors and they really know their stuff. Bad ratings means that engineering dropped the ball (again) when the station went off the air for 30 seconds during afternoon drive.
Taking credit for anything good. Sort of goes with the good ratings above, but this extends out to all other aspects of a radio station, promotions, sales, news, and even engineering.
New Processing. Any new gizmo or gadget that changes the sound of the microphone or entire station, for better or worse, is good. The more flashing lights the better. The more knobs to adjust the better. Things that can be plugged into computers and remotely controlled are the ultimate.
More. More of anything is better, more compression, more expansion, more highs, more mid-range, more lows, more gain, more de-essing, more loudness, more power, more punch, more reverb, more crack, more more more. If they could just have a little more, the station would be number one.
Any other new piece of equipment. Watching a program director look at a new studio is like watching a two year old open presents on Christmas morning. I know, I have a two year old. Unfortunately, the studios don’t stay new looking for long.
Taping notes up in the studio. I have one studio where every stationary piece of equipment has a note taped to it. Mind you, the notes have nothing to do with the equipment they are covering up, they are more like general directions, phone numbers, and other miscellaneous pieces of information.
Free stuff. Used to be called payola or plugola, now it is a free lap top, or a trip to Disney paid for by the record rep. I’ve even seen some mysterious mike processors show up (see number 3).
Rigging up lights to alert operators. This is a great one, the studio operator does not know if the Marti (or Matrix or ISDN) is active, so they want a light to indicate there is someone there. Or a light on the phone hotline, or a light for the EAS machine, the back door, the coffee machine, the silence sensor (never mind they are in the studio, they still need a silence sensor light)
Blaming other people when things go wrong. The program director is infallible. If something goes wrong, it is somebody else’s fault. Always. And forever. Amen.
Some one suggested that I put up the video “More, more, more” by Andrea True Connection to go along #4. Well, okay, I guess. It is not a terrible song but the video kinda suxor. From what I can tell, Andrea True is a former p0r n star that turned signer for just this one hit. Looks like it was filmed on a p0r n set too.
Feel free to add anything else that I may have forgotten. Of course, this is all in good fun. I’ll to a “stuff radio engineers like” post as soon as I figure out what that is.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~1st amendment to the United States Constitution
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
~Benjamin Franklin
...radio was discovered, and not invented, and that these frequencies and principles were always in existence long before man was aware of them. Therefore, no one owns them. They are there as free as sunlight, which is a higher frequency form of the same energy.
~Alan Weiner
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
~Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Article 19
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