saulamdx wrote: > I think it comes down to how the opinion is expressed. > If rudely, then I'd agree with you, Les. But if a > constructive comment, put civilly, causes such > distress that stations cease to QSL or conduct DX > tests, and hold DXers in ill repute - well, I think > that's an over-reaction on their part.
It seems to me that some stations are just looking for a convenient excuse not to be bothered, and if it weren't a mailing list posting, they'd have some other reason not to run a test. > I'm not terribly moved > about stations whose owners and/or management don't > give a damn about their listeners. Like another > lister, I thought WWL did a bang-up job during Katrina > and in the aftermath, though I continue to hold the > N.O. Times-Picayune newspaper staff as particularly > exemplary in the face of what really was a dangerous > situation. My guess is KXEL would have floated away. It isn't now (and never was) my intention to cast aspersions on KXEL specifically. I didn't start the thread, and I keep trying to change the title of it. I don't know the engineers there, and I don't know what they were up against. They're in an awfully small market for a 50 kW AM, and buying a generator might not be the slam-dunk cost-benefit calculation it would be in a bigger market. The points I've been trying to make are more general ones, that being prepared for an emergency pays off in the long run for stations big and small. WWL is, in many ways, a more interesting case than KXEL. They were quite well prepared for a big storm. Ironically, their chief engineer had just given a presentation on emergency preparedness at the NAB convention the April before Katrina, including some interesting shots of the old WWL site in Metairie (long gone, to make room for the airport) under several feet of water after a flood in the 1940s. They had backup power for the studio, backup power (two generators) at the hardened transmitter site, and even a completely separate backup transmitter site. And yet...when the storm slammed that site overnight Sunday into Monday, WWL did go off the air, and stayed off the air until late on Monday. What happened? For all the planning, one element wasn't taken into consideration: they didn't station an engineer out at the transmitter site, and when the shore power went off, the generator started running, but then hit an "overcrank" alarm and went off. That's something that can be reset in a matter of seconds if someone's present, but instead it took almost a day to be able to get someone out to the remote site to kick the generator back on. I do not know, even now, why the backup transmitter site wasn't put into service. WWL recovered heroically once it got back on the air, and its subsequent role as a communication link during the flooding and recovery is indeed worthy of one of the mythical "gold stars" being handed out in this thread. But any emergency recovery plan can have its weak links, and now WWL (and anyone else who cares to learn from their experiences, which they've been very good about sharing) knows something else to add to their plan in case there's a "next time." (There are now three generators at the WWL site, from what I'm told.) Is this all germane to a DX list? As a DXer who's also a broadcaster (or, these days, a broadcaster who also occasionally finds some spare time to DX), it adds value and perspective to my DX experience to know not only who's on the air and who's off the air, but why. s _______________________________________________ IRCA mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/irca Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org To Post a message: [email protected]
