{"id":10807,"date":"2022-09-17T13:16:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-17T17:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=10807"},"modified":"2022-09-17T13:16:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-17T17:16:34","slug":"from-the-not-too-distant-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2022\/09\/from-the-not-too-distant-past\/","title":{"rendered":"From the not too distant past…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

And when such things were important:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Important Memo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While cleaning out a closet at home, I found a 3.5-inch disk with some interesting memos. When I left WGY in the spring of 1996, I made a backup copy of all the items in my documents folder. I figure it was an intelligent thing to do since I was still working for the same company in the role of Director of Engineering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those days, management wanted a precise accounting of all off-the-air incidents. The studio was staffed with a board operator who monitored the air signal at all times. Anytime the carrier dropped, there would be a note in the transmitter log. Those 5 second interruptions are likely due to thunderstorms. Lightning would strike somewhere nearby inducing an EMP on the tower. The venerable MW-50B would kill the PDM for a brief period as protection from VSWR. If I were at the transmitter site, the insulators in the guy wires would start crackling anytime a storm was within 10 miles of the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The helium balloon incident involved one of those metallic helium party balloons which escaped and ended up tangled in the 240-ohm open wire transmission line. This caused multiple VSWR trips for both the main and backup transmitters. I remember pulling up to the site and having a bit of a chuckle. By the time I got there, the balloon had mostly been burned into oblivion by the RF and the station was back on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting item is our standard reception report form letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
WGY reception report letter; name and address redacted because of the internet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These were printed out on WGY letterhead and mailed. I sent out several of them every week. I think the furthest away was Cape Town, South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And when such things were important: While cleaning out a closet at home, I found a 3.5-inch disk with some interesting memos. When I left WGY in the spring of 1996, I made a backup copy of all the items in my documents folder. I figure it was an intelligent thing to do since I … Continue reading From the not too distant past…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-10807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-history","tag-am"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10812,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10807\/revisions\/10812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}