WYRK technical troubles

[average_listener]

This is a couple of days late but did anyone notice that WYRK was all over the upper FM band starting around 104.5 on Tuesday evening? They showed up on any open channel and even blanketed 107.7. It wasn't just downtown but could be heard this way near Alden. It was fixed by late evening the same day.

Anyone know what might have happened? Just curious.

[Bob1370]

Every once in a great while a station's exciter will lose synch with its nominal center frequency (maybe the crystal burns out, maybe the oscillator that the crystal controls will go nuts) and a station that's supposed to stay within a couple kHz of nominal center frequency may drift rapidly all over the dial. When that happens you have to GET OFF THE AIR, either shut down and go to whatever alternate main or backup you have at hand, if any, or stay dark if you don't have a working backup and stay down until you get it fixed. You cannot legally stay on with an out-of-control transmitter one second beyond the moment you discover you have a problem. Had this happen to me once at my first gig, it showed up immediately on the air monitor as a signal that was drifting in and out, and the frequency meter showed it oscillating rapidly out of control up and down the dial. I knew what to do, and immediately killed the plates, took us off the air and took us to the lower-power backup transmitter (which fortunately was stable and could hold frequency) to get us back on until we could get the problem fixed later that morning.

How long did WYRK stay on with this problem?

[average_listener]

It didn't sound like it was drifting but rather suddenly very broadbanded. If you tuned a frequency where it shouldn't have been - 104.5 for example - it was there constantly. Shouldn't the low pass filter have kept the RF level way down at least? And, I believe they're on a master antenna on the Rand Building. I would expect channel or bandpass filtering to keep energy out of band down enough not to go beyond the immediate downtown area. It was corrected by late evening. Oh, and 106.5 was solid as a rock throughout.

[JustPastBuffalo]

Didn't hear this, although I wish I had, because it's very unusual in the era of rock solid RF emitters, exciters and components. Still, stuff happens. IIRC, WYRK uitilizes an un-shared designated antenna, while WJYE and WBLK are diplexed on another set of bays, each set atop the spire of the Grand Rand Building ("Oh, yeah yeah yeah, Hound Doggers..." Sorry.)

Spurious emission could have been the result of any number problems. TTBOMK, those RF traps in the feed lines to the antennas are primarily designed to keep WBLK @93.7 and WJYE @96.1 from interfering with WKSE @98.5 (96.1 - 93.7 = 2.4  :  96.1 + 2.4 = 98.5) One thing's certain, the brilliant Bill Stachowiak most likely did the trouble shooting and corrected the problem as soon as possible.

[Radio_bored-Op]

this whole thread is awesome!

[Mike Sheridan]

What is the chance that WYRK's signal could have been mixing with something else?

[BJC]

Hey Jim..I remember in winter going up on the cat walk at the top of the Rand building to knock the ice off the mast, the wind blowin' at 90 mph up there and cold to the bone....then in the summer the sand flies would cause the antenna to arch over, I remember a guy calling and saying "your antenna is on fire" so we cut the carrier and ok till the next swarm....

[Penrod Rightout]

One thing's certain, the brilliant Bill Stachowiak most likely did the trouble shooting and corrected the problem as soon as possible.

Indeed Bill was right on top of it, he switched to their backup after he was notified of the problem.  I was involved in the flurry of phone calls to Bill and OM Joe Chile when we got the call from our OM asking, "why am I hearing country music on 107.7??"