Several weeks ago I posted a storm alert as the midwaste got pummeled by wind, ice, rain and snow, and now we are once again being buried in a coating of ultra-white.
I'll hold my hand up above the snow for as long as possible until I'm either rescued or transformed into garden sculpture.
If the power goes I will not be able to post online nor transmit distress calls on part 15 radio, which almost goes as far as a good yell.
Like the Antarctic explorer James Godwin Scott, who never returned from a south pole expedition, I'll keep a journal so that survivors can become aware of what it's like to be swallowed by snow. I myself have been exploring for years in search of the east pole, which has never been found.
How is your weather?
Here in the Pacific Northwest we are enjoying a rare sunny day - mid 50's Farenheit. Sorry about that.
A downdate is the opposite of an update. If I understand words, an "update" is an improvement. Things here haven't improved.
Before dark I was out clearing fluffy snow and slush from the pathway, guessing about 5-inches depth.
Now close to midnight and it's not really dark because all that white snow is reflecting every light in the area, and I had some lights on as well, so I removed 4-inches that had undone my previous work, and put down some anti-slip particles.
I did a series of radio reports today from The Big Picture Window so the listeners, who are also in this same storm, will know that the storm is actually happening.
Have been on the lookout for a stalled beer truck all day, but no luck.
I am glad that the Pacific Northwest has decent temperatures. Somebody should be lucky at all times. Maybe next week the U.S. midwaste will be lucky.
When you find the East Pole let me know!
That should be a big news story!
Bruce, The Dog Radio Group
Everything was going fine with programming streaming and beaming, when the tornado sirens penetrated the walls with a new beefed up intensity.
Off went our equipment and in a flailing manner we grabbed lamp, radio and family treasures and headed down into the wine cellar.
Luckily the wine paid off, as the only tornado activity was miles away from this serene location.
But plans to install a power generator have been renewd thanks to help from a California broadcaster who has a power generator and is offering to guide Worldround Radio in building a power station.
Local stations mostly ignored the weather and continued with sports and Jesus.
Broadcasting began this morning at the usual time, with a large thunderstorm moving closer.
At 45-minutes into the program day a very loud bang shook the windows and a static pop registered on both AM radios. At this time AM 1680 switched to all static, and I had visions of returning the AMT5000 to sstran.com for repair.
But upon closer examination the AMT5000 was o.k. and still on the air, but the FM Studio-Transmitter-Link was interupted, from the Wholehouse 2.0.
Checking the Wholehouse we found that it was dead, no signal, no power. Darn. And we don't have a backup.
But guess what? The power pack for the Wholehouse had dropped from the extension cord it had been hanging from, and fallen to the floor. It must have been scared by the bang.
We were able to resume normal operation and the program day is moving ahead.
I really like your stories about the
weather and what's happening at
KDX Radio.
Keep em coming!
Man! you must be really sick of that snow!
Bruce, The Dog Radio Group
The indoor tower probably needs to be inspected by the FCC or the butcher's union or somebody.
The base is a foot stool with a lot of cross-bracing, so those cross braces are being used for a slab of wood stuck across which contains the power pack for my drain-pipe microphone. If it were to get bumped the wrong way it would all go crashing to the floor.
The top of the stool, the nominal "seat", has a tringular piece of particle board setting there with three bamboo poles plugged and glued into drilled holes on the outer edges and reaching high to the ceiling where a wire antenna is held dangling with the Wholehouse 2.0 FM transmitter hanging like a puppet snapped to the wire with an allegator clip, its power cable strung down to the wall wart which is plugged into a heavy-duty 3-prong extension cord which hangs from one of the stool cross-braces.
One leg of the bamboo tower has the base and phone of a cordless phone tie-wrapped to the leg, within reach of me, the station operator.
I'm not even held up by anything, just lucky to achieve balance once in awhile.
I see imperfections as the potential makings of perfection, laying in wait of a perfector who someday will upgrade everything.
Heck, the whole world isn't held up by anything, it's just hurtling around with no seat belts.
At 6:55 AM CDT this Monday morning an abrupt electrical storm arrived, and due to lightning strikes close around KDX Worldround Radio disconnected and entered safety mode.
During the silent period we scanned the dials and observed that 3 high power AM stations were off the air.
We discovered that 9,000 people in the area are without power.
At 7:30 AM CDT we resumed operation, under the threat of more intense weather throughout the day.
How is radio business at your station?
I generally shut down as well. A vicious Florida thunderstorm hit my station when it was on 1160 a number of years ago. It was almost two years before I was able to save enough to get another transmitter.
Right now it is 80 degrees in North Florida, with a chance of scattered t storms later.
One grandson now appears scheduled for surgery, and the younger one is here for a week. Radio is good but no live shows due to having one of my favorite little people in the world with me.
I can honestly say, I have never shut down my stations for severe weather. In fact, I took great pride in keeping them on the air delivering crucial weather information! Though I had been knocked out in the past with lightening, I quickly discovered by using a UPS, the stations would never go off, and in the event of a power surge, the UPS would sacrifice itself to save the radio equipment.
So I heavily recommend every Part 15 statiom to get a UPS! A good one can be had for $100 at rat shack!
We are in a Tornado Watch.
Ready to go down below if needed.
Good luck, Carl. Heard about the tornadoes close to where you are. Hope you are safe.
Birds are chirping and the daylight dawns on a scene of wet erosion, following plenty of rain and banging noises, but the tornadoes didn't rotate.
Now there's the matter of today's forecast, which I think says, "More on the way."
We should have a Part 15 roll call.
Crow's UPS method of staying solid (Uninteruptable Power Supply) for reliable weather/disastor reporting is a very perfect solution. It totally takes care of the technical part of the job.
The next matter worth deep discussion is the "information gathering" problem, finding sources of useful information for the Part 15 radio announcer to present to the listeners. It seems to me you'd need at least two people, so one could collect information while the other talked on the air.
I hope you will provide input on "How to have the vital information for your station."