That saying originates from Greek and Roman times, when Sirius, the Dog Star, aligned with the Sun during July and August and was thought to bring extra heat to the earth. The Dog Days are evil times; seas boil, wine turns sour, dogs grow mad, and all other creatures became languid; causing to man, among other diseases, burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies.
Bad news, indeed. Add to that; air conditioners fail, general managers become cranky, and transmitters overheat causing damage to sensitive control circuits, which is even worse.
We shall be busy dealing with things like this:
AC condenser frozen dryer and piping
Air conditioning condenser with low refrigerant. This unit either has a leak or was not charged properly. I would hazard the former.
AC condenser broken fan
Fan blade on condenser coil failed due to metal fatigue. I have seen this in more than one place.
Bard 5 ton wall mount AC unit
These wall-mount Bard AC units are pretty reliable, however, even they fail from time to time. The best course of action is to have a maintenance plan, a backup plan, and the number of the best HVAC contractor that can be found.
This incident happened a few years ago. I thought I had lost the pictures of the disaster, but I found them this morning on my thumb drive. Hooray! This occurred one morning just before Christmas after the area received a snow/ice/rain storm. The gutters on the old ATT long lines building were clogged with ice and the water on the roof built up. Unfortunately, the transmitter was installed directly below a disused exhaust stack for the former backup generators.
I received the off-air call from the morning show while I was driving to the office. I diverted and went to the transmitter site and found water pouring into the top of the main transmitter.
WBPM transmitter room flood
Thus, water ran down directly into the top of the QEI FMQ-3500 transmitter (transmitter was upgraded to 6 KW). Unfortunately, high voltage and dirty stack water do not mix. The combination of sooty, iron-laden water, and the B+ damaged much of the transmitter circuits beyond repair. The main transmitter is on the right, the backup transmitter is on the left.
I inspected the backup transmitter, also a QEI FMQ-3500, and it seemed to me that no water made it into the unit. I rigged the tarp to ensure that none did, which was a very pleasing bit of work, what with the cold, smelly, dirty diesel water dripping on my head and running down my neck and back.
Top of WBPM QEI FMQ-3500 transmitter
The 1 5/8 coax switch was also damaged:
WBPM 1 5/8 coax switch
As was the remote control in the equipment rack:
WBPM Gentner remote control
Fortunately, the backup transmitter ran, although I pressed the plate-on button with a dry wooden stick while standing on a dry, non-conducting ladder. Even so, I still felt a little trepidation holding that stick.
WBPM Saugerties, NY Nautel V-7.5 transmitter
It took almost a year, but finally, the insurance company for the building owner came through, and a new Nautel V-7.5 transmitter was installed. I believe this is the last V transmitter Nautel made. We moved the transmitter location across the room, not under the old generator stacks. We also removed the generator stacks and patched up the roof with hydraulic cement and roofing tar. By the way, that yellow color should look familiar to anyone who ever worked inside a Bell Telephone System building.
Or NECRAT for those who have been around the internet for a while. Many, if not most of you will know Mike Fitzpatrick’s NECRAT website which features many pictures of radio transmitter sites around the country (not just the Northeast).
Even before I began blogging, I checked NECRAT often for interesting pictures of many different transmitter sites.
If you are one of the few who has not visited his site, go and check it out: http://www.necrat.us
I found this promotional picture in an old NAB conference technical papers book dating to 1969:
RCA TT-30FL promotional picture
So here we see an obviously qualified and appropriately dressed technician gesturing to all the components she is about to install in the transmitter behind her. I wish I worked there. No, wait, I wish I had that transmitter and perhaps this fetching young woman would come and work at my station. Well, hell, I don’t need a TV transmitter, just the woman.
Sigh.
I wonder how many of these rigs RCA sold before the broadcast division went out of business.
By way of reference, the RCA TT-30FL is a VHF television transmitter, 30 KW peak visual power, 7.5 KW peak audio power, air-cooled.
