The internet is a wonderful technical achievement. It has truly changed the course of human history in ways incalculable. The amount of information available to anyone with access is simply astounding. Then there is this:
Demotivator
I am supposed to be doing research for my technical writing class, but I keep getting sucked back in. Some of these are quite funny:
Demotivator
GAH! Someday, if I could figure out how to get that cloaking device to work, I would like to seek into all those conference rooms and replace the standard issue motivational poster with this one:
Standard issue demotivator
And the minutes still tick by, with my paper undone. These are from despair.com,
Demotivator
The professor is going to have my butt.
It has been relatively light blogging these last few weeks, for several reasons; some of them obvious, some of them not so much.
I was cleaning out the engineering room at WBEC in Pittsfield, MA today. The previous engineer, Ken Jones, passed 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 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 A rule is no longer in effect.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. Oftentimes, 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.
Readers of this blog will know that I enjoy history. Old photos are great things to study, as they say, pictures… thousand words… etc. Here is one that I found on the RadioMarine website:
WER radio, 192X?
Here we have three gentlemen at work at an early radio station. It seems like a posed shot, nobody can study a meter that intently. They are sitting directly in front of the transmitter and it looks like the antenna tuning coils are behind the operating position. Notice the open wire and transmission line, presumably all under power when this picture was taken. There seems to be no concern about RF or electrical safety, I suppose it was trial and error back then, with a heavy price paid for error. Meter boy should be careful not to back up too far, if he does, he’ll get a little behind in his work.
We’ve been a little busy this last week, I’ll catch up on the blogging this weekend, there are many things to tell.
