Hilarious phone call last night.
So nothing much of interest usually happens when I’m at the radio station late running the board for a ball game. But last night I got a call on the business line that I just about couldn’t keep a straight face though. I wish I could have recorded it. I’ll try to recite the call as well as I can remember it.
The woman was older, but not senior aged. Maybe late 40’s with a slight rasp to her voice. Her words were spoken with a general tone of bewilderment.
“Eagle Radio and Hull Broadcasting,” I answered.
“Yeah, uh. Is Trader John on today?” she said, I assume she is talking about ‘Trading Post’ hosed by our AM guy, John.
“Umm… Yes ma’am. It was on at 9:00 today and will be on again at 9:00 tomorrow,” I answered.
“Oh, so he’s going to start doing it at night now?” she said a bit suprised.
“No, no. 9:00 to 10:00 in the morning,” I said.
“But I have my radio on right now and I’m picking up some other guy,” she said as if I were lying to her face.
“Well, it’s 9:30 a night right now…” I replied in a deadpan tone.
“IT’S NINE O’CLOCK AT NIGHT?” she bellered.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said trying to keep from snickering, but somewhat wondering if she is messing with me.
“Oh, don’t tell me I slept all day. Are you sure? Oh no. Okay… well… thank you…” she said.
“No problem, Trading Post should be on in about 12 hours!” I couldn’t help it, I let out a small chuckle before hanging up the phone.
Black Friday Experience
Well today was my first ever participation in Black Friday. I’ve always heard the news stories, and talk to people that have gone shopping at that insane hour in the morning. But I’d always just shrugged it off as a sort of niche thing that “normal” people didn’t really have much to do with. But apparently (once again) I’M the one who’s far from normal.
I had a live broadcast today from Orschlen’s. It’s a new personal record for earliest remote I’ve ever done (6AM – 9AM). And as I was driving across town, I first noticed the cars lined up and parked around the block from Sears. “Wow,” I thought. Must be some deals there or something. THEN I drive past Wal-Mart. HO-LEE-CRAP. There wasn’t an empty space in the entire parking lot. Infact people were parking at the stores and fast food joints next to Wal-Mart just to get in that place. I can’t even imagine what it was like on the inside. And this is just Great Bend, Kansas! I mean good greif!
So I pull up to Orschlen’s about 30 minutes before they opened to start setting up equipment. Sure enough, there were already people lined up outside the store. I’ll be honest. I assumed that Orschlen’s would be 2nd or 3rd on people’s priority list. But that place was jam packed for a good 2 hours and then pretty steady after that.
I mean they had some good deals. Pretty much everything I didn’t really need. But they had a really nice mounted work light set that I snatched up for $20. I figure for $20 that will help working on stuff after dark. With the shorter days, it’s a shame to let all that time go to waste.
So that’s my Black Friday introduction. After seeing that Wal-Mart parking lot though I can’t imagine I’ll ever be bold enough to run in THAT crowd.
10.30.09Bored-ing
Source: Spoofshadow
Welp, just hanging out at the station tonight as I have most Fridays so far since football started. I’m running the board for the Great Bend High School game. It’s not too stimulating, it makes for some long days, but I suppose the extra money is worth it.
Andrea’s sister and family are heading up for the weekend to go trick or treating. I asked around at work here and have some good leads on the “sweetest” neighborhoods in town. Should be fun!
09.9.09Here’s the “new” radio all finished and in action!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_DO2up764s]
09.1.09Behind the Scenes: Old Junk
Here’s the “new” radio in action. I re-soldered the connections on the repaired capacitors, and cleaned up controls a little bit. Below are the results. I just love the tubes in these old radios, and even the sound of the power selector. The volume isn’t “volume”, it’s “LOUDNESS” Check it out!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOoELOOQaeI]
08.30.09Radio innards.
Well I got the new radio the other day and I figured I’d take a look inside and see if I could make any improvements. The source selector/power switch is kinda finicky and causes the right hand speaker to cut out at times. And the FM reception could be a bit better. If you’ve never seen inside of one of these old things, check this out.
Pressboard covering removed from the back.
It looks like the amplifier has been repaired at one point. It looks like whoever fixed it knew what they were doing, but didn’t repair it very well. They replaced some capacitors, but there is no labeling of wires, and the capacitors are simply taped together and then tied to the bottom with some thin wire. Because they aren’t secure, they’ve wobbled around and some of the wires are starting to break free of their connections.
Amplifier
Previous repair.
Tuner
08.27.09
Score of the day!
Well since I took my old radio to my office at work, people had been commenting on it. So everybody pretty much figured out I “like that kind of stuff.” Well today one of the gals up front said somebody was selling an old radio phonograph that supposedly worked and they were only asking $20. That’s all I knew about it, but I figured I’d take a look. I mean it’s not like I buy something old and cheap all the time, even if I don’t need it. Oh wait.
Well here it is. Not too bad for $20 I guess. And the basement needed better tunes that the little boombox I had.
Fold down phonograph.
The tone arm is bent, but I think it's fixable.
FM, baby. Welcome to the friggin' future!
All in all it works pretty well. The turn table does spin, but the tone arm needs fixed. The tuner works, but the volume and balance controls are a little scratchy. But it works!
07.16.09Old Hat
So I have my first remote today in a LONG time. Even while I was working at Rocking M I think I only did one or two remotes the whole time I worked there, as opposed to the near weekly remotes at Platinum.
I’m not nervous, but I’m not really looking forward to it to be completely honest. It’s kinda nice not having to lug all the stuff around, hang around for a few hours. And hope that all the equipment works right.
It didn’t help when they told me what the talent fees were. : – | I never really have ENJOYED remotes other than a select few locations. (St. Patty’s day in Aggieville comes to mind.) But I will admit that Platinum Broadcasting usually made it worth your time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not peanuts or anything. Just I would probably be happy to pay somebody else the same amount to do it for me. Ha ha.
I suppose it’s like getting in the swimming pool. Getting in is the hardest part, but once you dive in it’s not too bad. It’s the After Harvest Festival and the weather is supposed be nice so I guess I should shut the heck up! Ha ha.
06.5.09My desk
I haven’t really posted much about my new job on here yet. Just been so busy with the cars and traveling and all that I guess I just haven’t had much internet time period. Incase somebody is out of the loop, I’m the new Production Director/Quazi Traffic/Fill-in DJ/Webmaster/Other Stuff guy at Eagle Radio… err… Hull Broadcasting in Great Bend. I’m liking it so far. It’s quite a bit of work to keep up with, but once I get a routine I can start finding some efficiencies I think.
So there’s my desk. I scrounged up an old ratty mouse pad I found laying around the station. But I need to swing for a nice simple mousepad sometime. BUT I finaly have an LCD and optical mouse at work! I swear ol’ Rocking M Radio didn’t have an optical mouse in the whole building. Those antiquated pieces of technology should be outlawed and all those little rubber balls can be sent to the guys at Mythbusters. I’m sure they would come in handy for SOMETHING there. And all the time saved by
I do like a nice clean desk, but right now, I feel it’s lacking one key ingredient. A conversation piece. Something that captures someone’s attention, sparks curiosity, and most importantly isn’t SO people want to steal it. So I’m at a loss right now. I can’t think of anything I have laying around the house, and I don’t really want to spring for something just so it can sit on my desk at work. I’m sure something will pop up.
But that’s about it. Life keeps on, keeping on. I hope it’s doing the same for you.
Oh what a night
Well I got my first sour taste of the glorious “responsibilities” of being Program Director.
Last night I’m just relaxing as I usually do. I take a shower and throw on some comfy clothes and sit down and play a little Wii. I had some leftover Wii points that have been on our account for months, so I decided to go ahead and download Super Mario Bros. 3 for the virtual console. Yeah, I have my NES still hooked up and everything, but the virtual console is so much more convenient! So I’m getting ready to start the “angry sun” level in World 2 when the work phone rings.
The transmitter calls saying there’s an audio alarm. Of course the station it’s calling for I can’t actually HEAR in the house. I can just barely pick it up in my car stereo. Then all of a sudden I have ANOTHER call incoming from one of the other stations. WTF is going on? These stations are 60 miles apart with studios in completely different towns! But quickly they all come back and the alarms are cleared. Then seconds later the Hays station calls again. Welp, gotta at least go out to the car and try to tune it in. Nada. So I drive into the radio station so I can remote login to the computer in Hays. It’s about 11:45 right now.
I still don’t know exactly what happened. Either the satellite wasn’t feeding any audio, or the reciever locked up. But I had to sit and play an hour of non-stop PSAs before the satellite finally came back. I waited for a few minutes to make sure it was going to stay on and I finally get back home around 1 AM. I get all set in bed, but I can’t get to sleep. Then I realize I forgot to reset the log for the next day. I could just leave it, but I decide that might as well go back and deal with it since I can’t sleep anyway. That was my stupid mistake. So I get back home, still restless and finally fall asleep sometime around 2AM.
Then what feels like 20 minutes later, the damn phone rings AGAIN! I look at the clock and it’s 5:15 AM. This time it’s the other PD’s station. But of course, he’s on vacation. Luckily this station actual has a signal that reaches Great Bend, so I head to the living room to try to figure out WTF is going on. It’s a satellite morning show, and it’s supposed to play our local commercials automatically, well it isn’t. So I have to head back in AGAIN. Turns out that satellite receiver is locked up too. So I plug in some emergency music and reset the damn thing. Of course then I have to wait 25 minutes until the next break to see if its going to work. At least I get a few commercials for the weekend done while I’m waiting in my PJ’s.
So at about 6:55 AM I finally get back home. Just as I’m laying down in bed…the alarm clock goes off. And so began this day.