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!
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