When batteries explode

This is a picture of an exploded battery on a 45 KW backup generator:

850 CCA battery exploded during generator startup
850 CCA battery exploded during generator startup

This happened during a thunderstorm.  The smoking crew was out on the back porch, during a thunderstorm (you have to have your priorities I suppose) and witnessed the entire incident.  What was told to me was lightning stuck the generator.  I find that improbable since there are many metal objects scattered around the area that are much taller.  What likely happened was lightning stuck something close by, causing the power to drop out momentarily.  This caused the generator to turn over.  The battery was likely low in electrolyte, so there was an internal arc and the thing exploded in short order.

These events happened in rapid succession, giving the illusion that lightning struck the generator.

I removed the old battery and hosed the inside of the generator with copious amounts of water.  There is nothing that can be done about the spilled electrolyte, since it was likely washed into the storm sewer during the storm.  After the replacement of the battery, I tested the generator and all is well.

Book Review: Fighting for Air

fighting for air

I just finished reading Fighting for Air by Eric Klinenberg.  It is a good book and a great description of what has happened to radio since the major consolidations occurred in 1999 and 2000.  Depressing.  Just damn depressing is what it is.

The book chronicles the evolution of the Prophet System and how that system was used to replace entire radio station air staff.  It discusses the various failures that radio has produced as a result of automated programming, the complete lack of originality, public safety issues, and how major media companies have stripped the heart and soul out of radio.

Something that the book points out that I never really considered, every one of these unoriginal canned music stations diminishes all radio by some increment.  For those that think the Clear Channels, Cumulus, and Citadels are only harming themselves, think again.  People who get fed up with radio and buy an I-pod are excluding all radio stations from then on.  That is another degree of audience lost to a competing medium.

Having worked for one of the smaller group owners since 1999, one that rarely if ever appears on anyone’s radar, I can say I have seen some minor shades of what has happened with Clear Channel in the company I work for.  I think everyone who works in radio has seen some of this in one form or another no matter who they work for.

Radio has never been the most stable of employers.  Even in the early days, people moved in and out of radio stations, sometimes taking a job with the competitor across town and sometimes moving across the country.  It was understood that sometimes changes needed to be made, sometimes people had to be let go.  It was a part of the landscape.  The difference is in the post-consolidation radio environment, people are leaving radio altogether, replaced by a mindless computer programmed from afar.

During my time as a radio engineer, I have installed a few of these computer automation systems.  I think the first one was in 1993 on an AM station doing all news.  We used it for the overnight hours, replacing some minimum wage board operators.  The general manager was shocked and a little bit in awe of how well the system worked.

This trend continued in 1994, when I installed a BE Audiovault system at an AM/FM combo.  There again, the system replaced an overnight board operator on the AM station.  Later, the FM station did a sort of mini-mation where the overnight news guy checked on it every 45-50 minutes.  Those stations are now completely voice-tracked and or satellite syndicated.

Through the 90s, I installed first-generation computer-based automation systems mostly on AM stations.  Things like Digilink, DCS, ENCO, etc.

In other markets, an automation system was used to resurrect a couple of FM stations, starting out voice-tracked, then adding live bodies to fill in day parts, usually having the 6 pm to 6 am time slot voice-tracked.  Having three-day parts live is better than none I suppose.

The AM stations in my market cluster now are running some awful syndicated satellite news/talk programming.  Why are these stations even on the air?  They should be sold to someone who will operate them locally, or turn their licenses in.

For whatever role I have played in ruining radio, I am sorry for it.

It is a good book, I recommend anybody that works in the radio business read it.

T-1 outage

One of our stations relies on a T-1 (DS-1) to relay audio from the studio to the transmitter site (STL).  This station started as a piece of paper, with no format, no staff, no real estate, and no studio equipment.  There was a transmitter and an antenna installed on a leased tower site.

That being said, corners were forcibly cut.  Instead of installing a microwave STL system, a T-1 was ordered because we had a T-1 multiplexor.  Fast forward several years… The station is now successful, making a decent amount of money and having a popular format.

The station has two T-1 circuits on different cables with an automatic switcher.   Yesterday afternoon, the inevitable happened, both T-1s went out, along with most of the other TELCO circuits in the surrounding area.  A construction crew cut two 3600-pair cables a mile down the road.  The TELCO is racing to restore the service to all of the tenants on that tower by rigging a temporary aerial cable.

TELCO trucks, courtesy of <a href=Now the mad scramble ensues with conflicting requirements from the wacky program director.  Screw it, I grabbed one of the AudioVault express machines and took it to the transmitter site.  They are back on the air with a radio station in a box playing music until the T-1 gets fixed.

This site has had numerous problems since we have owned it.  In the 5 years since we launched the format, there have been six T-1 outages longer than 24 hours.  For backup, we have tried an ISDN line, a 3G wireless card in a computer, and a second T-1 circuit.  None of these have proved reliable as most circuit outages involved a cable cut, and multiple circuits were affected.

The real solution is a microwave STL, either a conventional 950 mHz system or a 2.4 or 5.8 gHz last mile system.  Either would work better than what we have now.  Station ownership, they don’t want to hear it.

Update: This took until Friday, September 4th to repair, for a total outage of 9 days, 2 hours, and 26 minutes.  During that time, the station remained on the air with the AudioVault server at the transmitter site and the program director updating it twice per day with voice tracks and commercials.

Lightning strikes

For about 4 years, I lived in a house next to a four hundred-foot radio tower.  Although I never actually saw lightning strike the tower, I heard it several times.  Like everything else, after a while, you get used to it.

This is a video of lightning hitting the WSIX STL tower in Nashville, TN. The camera work is a little unsteady, the strike occurs around the 1:36 mark:

Yep, that is what it is like.