Today is NOT my day.....
Well, the day can't get TOO much worse.
A few hours after signing on this morning, I noticed my audio was real loud, distorted and muddy. Shortly after, I got a phone call from a ham radio friend of mine in town who said the same thing.
I tried fiddling with the modulation monitor along with my Innovonics 222 and Symetrix 528 processors thinking a setting had SOMEHOW gone awry.
Well, that didn't solve anything...
I turned off my processor, in hopes I could by pass it and thinking it was an equipment issue. I could watch those levels for a day till my engineer got here.
Nope, it wasn't that either.
In fact, when I turned off the processor, I noticed that I had a slightly noisy signal on the boombox radio in my studio. That's when I looked over at my Gates BC1G transmitter.
The RF Plate volts read about 2250 or 2300. The RF Plate Current, RF Line Current and Modulation meters all had readings WAY out of wack. In fact, the RF Line current read ZERO and the other 2 barely read ANYTHING at all.
I shut the transmitter off, grabbed the keys to the fence and walked outside. I walked along the transmission cable and didn't see a problem. I ended up not needing to go into the fence, as everything looked ok.
I walked back to the front door......and it was... LOCKED! Out of habit, when I walk out the front door, I lock it, unless Im just going to the mailbox. I was on the phone with someone and got distracted.. locking the door on my way out without thinking about it.
The back door to the station was latched and had the deadbolt locked. All the windows were locked too.
I took a square piece of wood that was pretty thick and midly tapped it against the window pane till it broke, reached in and unlatched the lock and climbed in through the window behind the soda machine.
I called my Chief Engineer, he told me to shut the transmitter off and he'd be down tomorrow to look into it.
What leaves me wondering is... if barely, if any, power was getting to the tower.. how was my friend 4 or 5 miles away getting a listenable signal from the station? When my ham friend called me, he didn't note any signal issues with regards to it being weaker then usual
I also peaked at all four 833 tubes in the transmitter and didn't see anything wrong.
Mind you, this transmitter is in great shape (or was??) and had been wonderfully maintainted while in use up to a few years ago at a station on 1460 in Western North Carolina. It's way better then the RCA BTA1-M WABV had in use that finally died after 51 1/2 years of service.
Other then having my audio and signal go to shit.. and having to break the window, my dady is just damn peachy. At least it's not winter, and I have a permanent breeze in the back hallway now.
Not much else new to report!
A few hours after signing on this morning, I noticed my audio was real loud, distorted and muddy. Shortly after, I got a phone call from a ham radio friend of mine in town who said the same thing.
I tried fiddling with the modulation monitor along with my Innovonics 222 and Symetrix 528 processors thinking a setting had SOMEHOW gone awry.
Well, that didn't solve anything...
I turned off my processor, in hopes I could by pass it and thinking it was an equipment issue. I could watch those levels for a day till my engineer got here.
Nope, it wasn't that either.
In fact, when I turned off the processor, I noticed that I had a slightly noisy signal on the boombox radio in my studio. That's when I looked over at my Gates BC1G transmitter.
The RF Plate volts read about 2250 or 2300. The RF Plate Current, RF Line Current and Modulation meters all had readings WAY out of wack. In fact, the RF Line current read ZERO and the other 2 barely read ANYTHING at all.
I shut the transmitter off, grabbed the keys to the fence and walked outside. I walked along the transmission cable and didn't see a problem. I ended up not needing to go into the fence, as everything looked ok.
I walked back to the front door......and it was... LOCKED! Out of habit, when I walk out the front door, I lock it, unless Im just going to the mailbox. I was on the phone with someone and got distracted.. locking the door on my way out without thinking about it.
The back door to the station was latched and had the deadbolt locked. All the windows were locked too.
I took a square piece of wood that was pretty thick and midly tapped it against the window pane till it broke, reached in and unlatched the lock and climbed in through the window behind the soda machine.
I called my Chief Engineer, he told me to shut the transmitter off and he'd be down tomorrow to look into it.
What leaves me wondering is... if barely, if any, power was getting to the tower.. how was my friend 4 or 5 miles away getting a listenable signal from the station? When my ham friend called me, he didn't note any signal issues with regards to it being weaker then usual
I also peaked at all four 833 tubes in the transmitter and didn't see anything wrong.
Mind you, this transmitter is in great shape (or was??) and had been wonderfully maintainted while in use up to a few years ago at a station on 1460 in Western North Carolina. It's way better then the RCA BTA1-M WABV had in use that finally died after 51 1/2 years of service.
Other then having my audio and signal go to shit.. and having to break the window, my dady is just damn peachy. At least it's not winter, and I have a permanent breeze in the back hallway now.
Not much else new to report!
posted by The Radio God at
4:02 PM
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