5 minute read
Workbench: How to get a
“Dan figures the
the high-voltage power supply. ”
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Fig 3: Ready for burial.
Above right
Fig 4: This flexible and “deformable” garage light screws into a standard light socket …
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Fig. 5: ... and can be manipulated to put light where you need it. dust and debris, so he decided it was time for a thorough inspection and good vacuuming. After turning off all AC breakers and discharging the components, Dan set out to work.
Unfortunately, there are some places you simply can’t see without spending another half hour or more to remove the rear cover from the power supply, such as behind the transformer, choke and filter capacitor. Dan’s solution was to use his phone’s camera to shoot photos in the hidden crannies.
And that’s when he found the little problem seen in Fig. 2. In case it isn’t clear what’s amiss, Fig. 3 offers a closer view behind the capacitor.
Dan says he doubts this was a factory-installed part.
Apparently, this rat snake had managed to crawl into the power supply through a gap at the lower left corner of an ill-fitting front cover on the cabinet. Dan suspects the critter managed to slither across a couple of wrong points in the HVPS and had a really bad day, also tripping the breaker.
Rat snake or not, Nautel’s Jeff Welton calls all such critters “rattle-headed copper moccasins.” And they don’t belong in transmitters.
Dan sent the assistant GM photos of his findings and work; he also put the dearly departed critter in a box, labeled it and placed it on the desk in the transmitter building, where the manager could inspect the evidence first-hand and dispose of it as he wished. (Let it not be said that Dan takes things from client sites without their approval.)
Dan visited the site a few weeks later and the box was still sitting on the desk, unopened. Imagine that!
As an engineer, you see a lot of strange things. Take pictures of these encounters to help management understand your value.
At one station where I was chief, I put a small bulletin board in the station lunchroom, and posted a “Picture of the Week” from my site visits. Try it and see the reaction.
Let there be light
Like many engineers, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve required more “light” to see details like the numbers on a chip or a resistor color code.
The photo above shows a flexible LED garage light, a replacement “bulb” that actually consists of three adjustable panels and screws into a standard light socket above my garage workbench, throwing off 6,000 Lumens! Also above you can see some of the possible configurations.
Find this at Amazon, search “Illuminator 360 Led Garage Light 60W.” It’s the best $36 you’ll spend.
Writer Ken Deutsch
A longtime RW contributor, Ken says he was a college radio disc jockey in the late 1960s when words like “far out” and “groovy” were uttered in earnest.
How to enter
Nominations for the 2021 John Drury Awards are open until May 31. Each radio station must be affiliated with an academic high school and be licensed as an AM or FM facility, registered as a carrier current station by the FCC or be heard online. Visit johndruryawards. com.
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Cadence George works in the booth at KPFG(FM) “The Pulse” at East Valley Institute of Technology in Mesa, Ariz.
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WLTL(FM) in La Grange, Ill., was named the best high school station in the nation.
Drury Awards celebrate high school radio
If commercial radio is the major leagues, noncommercial high school stations represent the youngest of our farm teams. Each year the John Drury Awards recognize the best of these. WLTL(FM) in Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Ill., was recently chosen as best high school station in the nation.
Additional awards during the December ceremony went to other high school broadcasters for best news feature story, best specialty music program and best website, among other honors.
Zach DeWitz, general manager of WONC(FM) at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., is in charge of the awards.
“When I was a junior attending this school and working here at WONC John Madormo, our then-GM started these awards, and he named them after John Drury, a famed broadcaster who was on the air for decades in Chicagoland,” said DeWitz.
“My wife teaches high school and tells me that so many radio courses have been cut in these hard times, but it’s great to still see so many students dedicated to learning this craft, learning how to be good broadcasters.”
The Drury competition receives 200 to 300 entries across its various categories each year, mostly from high schools in the Midwest, though some come from as far away as California. DeWitz wants to reach more schools across the country in the future.
Awards are given in wide-ranging categories like talk programs, sports play-by-play, documentaries and social media. Thanks to the work of Nathan Ronchetti, awards coordinator and assistant to DeWitz, who designed its website, entries are now submitted each fall via www.johndruryawards.com, where airchecks and other content can be uploaded.
“In the pre-COVID days we would invite entrants to visit us here at the college for the ceremony, to tour our station and receive their trophies in person, and we hope to get back to that after the current health crisis,” said DeWitz. “For now it’s done virtually and we mail the awards out.”
DeWitz believes that young people are still very much interested in radio, if perhaps not in the same way as in years past.
“There are more media for them to investigate,” he said. “Students want to learn podcasting, making videos and everything else, and many are interested in radio as a hobby rather than a career. I definitely see that as a trend.
“Some of the students have what it takes to make it in professional radio, but for now they just want to experience a little of everything. Doing every job, as I did when I worked on the air at WONC, is the best way to prepare yourself and provide what employers want. They want one person who can do the job of more than one person.”
Interest in news
Chris Thomas is general manager and faculty advisor at the latest recipient of the top prize, WLTL. Like DeWitz,
