On 19 Apr 2004 21:06:29 GMT, Bill Thompson wrote:

I think that is great... I enjoyed working as a broadcast engineer, so
much so that I acted as technical advisior at the college station until
this past Decemeber. But after a point the local market really closed
down... most stations cut their engineering budgets, and as they got
bought one poor engineer ended up taking care of multiple stations...
until there simply wasn't much of a market.

Back in the dark ages when I was CE at WMNF in Tampa, we had a minimalist
approach to processing brought on by a tiny budget.. We had a gates peak
limiter at the transmitter, and nothing else..

The station was the cleanest on the air in Tampa.. Mono, but clean.

The problem that made it sound junky at times: Phone lines. I fought with GTE
(genital telephone and electronics, so called because when you asked for a
"class A line", you had to hunt for hours before you could find someone that
knew what it meant. One guy in Tampa, who was usually not at his desk..)

The line to the transmitter in Riverview went past tons of tv transmitters,
and the end result was an ugly mishmash of horizontal sync audible in the
audio when the weather was right.. A little moisture, and all heck would break
lose.. There were times I threatened to drive it with a 100 watt amplifier to
get their attention. Didn't happen, however...

They finally got a new studio location. GTE hit them for $10k to change the
line from the original old house they were renting to the new location. Then
they got a microwave, and got the sound cured once and for all. As far as I
know, they are still paying $200 a month for the land line to the transmitter,
since it had a 20 year contract.

sheesh.

Since then they've gotten an old Optimod, and are treating it gently,
resulting in decent sound on the air.. at least it was last time I was down
there.