Stupid DJs - An Engineers Perspective

I was assistant chief engineer at a station in northern Illinois some years ago.  I thought I had seen it all, but this one takes the cake.

Our morning man (trouble!) was assigned a remote from a shopping center about three miles from the station.  We'd done numerous remotes from the same location before, so we didn't think a rehearsal was needed.  Unfortunately, we failed to take into account the "inventiveness" of our jock.

Shortly after the remote started, I received a panicked phone call from this great talent saying the signal sounded scratchy on the air.  We were using a 30 watt Marti for the shot, so it should have been a piece of cake.  I tried to talk him through a few things.  Was he using the Yagi?  Yes, he was.  Was it pointing toward the station?  Yes, it was and would I please come by the remote site and help.

I was only a mile or so away, so I hopped on over.  Upon arriving, there was the W*** van in front of the shopping center, but there wasn't any Yagi to be seen.  I found the talent inside schmoozing with his public and pulled him aside.  I asked where the Yagi was.  He took me back to the van  and pointed inside to where the Yagi was still sitting on its transport mount in the back, and yes, it was indeed pointed toward the station.  I explained to him that the W*** van came complete with a pneumatic mast, and that the whole idea was to get the antenna outside the van and up in the air.  

"Oh!" he replied as if he'd just learned the ultimate reason for existence.

Now, lest anyone think I'm belittling him, I'd like to state that he was a much better DJ than I'd ever be.  However, I do know enough that if a station's format is some form of rock that Beethoven is not on the playlist.  In other words, just use common sense.

A couple weeks later, a different DJ had a similar remote from Wisconsin, which I also had to "attend".  I asked if the Yagi was being used.  Yes, it was.  Was it pointing toward the station?  Yes, it was.  Was it on the mast and was the mast extended?  Yes, and would I please hurry!  About half an hour later, I arrived to find that all was as I'd been told.  The Yagi was on the extended mast and pointed toward the station.  Only one thing was wrong:  where was the coax that connected the Marti to the antenna?

As an epilogue, this episode caused the formation of Uncle Dave's Radio School, and the latter DJ turned out to be my prize student.  She's now in the Chicago market and also does voice work.  And she can point a Yagi with the best of them!