Jocks say the darndest things...

[countrykev]

With all due respect to the programming folk, most have absolutely no clue about the technical aspect of the station. It's probably better that way anyway.

What's the funniest thing a jock has ever asked you or done?

A few weeks ago we lost an audio processor on one of our AM's. Wasn't off-air, but upon sign-on the station was filled with hum and distorted audio. The phone call I received went like this:

Jock: "There is a weird buzz on the station."
Me: "Okay, I hear what you're talking about. I'll take care of it"
Jock: "What do you think it is?"
Me: "I don't know yet. I'll find out when I get to the transmitter"
Jock: "It wasn't something I did with the log scheduler is it?"
Me: *Smacks head*

An engineering buddy of mine told me a story of when he was on vacation a jock called him:

Jock: "Hey, there's flames coming out of the cart machine. What should I do?"
Engineer: "Uh, put it out..."

[NECRAT]

Love this one...

MCO: "Uh there is a tower light out on the XX tower... what do I need to do?"
ME: "Are you afraid of heights?"
MCO: "Ummmm, not really, why?"
ME: "Good, come fix it. Its only 600 feet up."
MCO Silence
ME: "IM Kidding, follow the instructions and report it to the FAA"

[leaderofthefreeworld]

At a local college station that turns off the transmitter when no one is on the air

"When I check the air monitors I don't hear anything"

"Is the transmitter on? What were your readings?"

"Close to zero on everything."

"Turn on the transmitter"

"Oh, wow, yeah I don't know where my head was at"

The urge to say "up your ass" was somehow not uttered at 5am

[K9EZ]

PD: I dont like the way my stations sounds.
Me: OK what do you want it to sound like?
PD: I am not sure. Just make it sound...... like a radio station.

[rockmanac]

Love this one...

MCO: "Uh there is a tower light out on the XX tower... what do I need to do?"
ME: "Are you afraid of heights?"
MCO: "Ummmm, not really, why?"
ME: "Good, come fix it. Its only 600 feet up."
MCO Silence
ME: "IM Kidding, follow the instructions and report it to the FAA"

When I was at WREX, we had a production intern one semester. We happened to have a side-marker go out (so not something that has to be reported to the FAA) but something that had to be logged an reported to engineering. Well, our assistant chief happened to be working that night and had an old tower light bulb in his office. So we both went to the intern and said, "well here's the light, you need to climb up the tower and change it." The weird part is, I think he believed us.

-Adam

[boiseengineer]

Had an STL failure to an AM transmiter, so the jock got a silence alarm. By the time he finally called someone, he had
1- Put the backup transmitter on
2- Put the generator on-line
3- Changed to night pattern (it was noon)
4- Put the main back on, low power setting
5- turned it off
His explanation? "I followed the directions". When asked to repeat what he had read in the instructions there was much "ummm" "well, I can't find that page", etc...


Another jock got a silence alarm on an FM. By the time he got through with it he had dumped the transmitter by running the power up to the PA overload trip point. All because the Airwave Digital had locked up (again). "I just raised it like I was told to." He had called his buddy, another part-time board op. Oh boy.

[leaderofthefreeworld]

I think all studios should have a sign saying "DJs are not paid to think"

[RGORJANCE]

Names and places omitted on purpose.

The engineer gets a call one night at around 9:30. The announcer reports "something really is messed up.
i can't get the network on time, my schedule is so screwed up I can't figure out what's wrong". The engineer shows up, looks at the clock on the wall and discovers the highly educated DJ kicked the clock's plug out of the outlet. It appears the DJ didn't understand how time works, and didn't have the mental ability to check his own wristwatch. The cops are still looking for the body.

This was a very "old school" studio at the time.

I remember an incident back at KVOO Radio and TV in Tulsa when I worked there. We had a master clock system that went screwy one night. I was down in TV master control watching something when all of a sudden network took a break. Nothing was ready in film for our spots as the projectionist thought we still had 10 minutes. Talk about a mad scramble. Sure was fun to watch someone else caught with their pants down for a change.

Took us two days to get the parts replaced in the clock. Sure was touchy for awhile. I recall that we were able to manually tune WWV in and periodically reset the clock.

Fossil

[Deep Thought]

Place: College town in central Illinois.
Year: 1976
Time: Sunday night, back when we used to turn things off every week to remove expired rodents, etc. from the transmitter and generally clean things up.

Seems a certain engineer and part-time DJ, while waiting for his colleague to arrive at the transmitter for some routine maintenance requiring someone at each end (about a half hour or so), took it upon himself to make a party tape in the studio after the station was signed off for routine maintenance at midnight. Said engineer fancied himself as a sort of stand-up comedian in the style of Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce.

Being the diligent type, he made sure the transmitter was off.

Except, this was a 1960's-vintage Collins 830D 1KW FM transmitter. When the filaments are on so is the exciter, and when the exciter is on a nontrivial amount of it's mighty 10 watts gets through the lit tube to the antenna. Transmitter site is atop a 230-foot building in the middle of town. When the plates were "off" except for a little flutter you couldn't really tell if you were within a couple of miles of it (remember, this was before the FM band was packed full).

Said engineer entertained possibly 50,000 people with his party tape makings. I wasn't at the studio but I understand that when the phone rang to inform him that his performance was being enjoyed by the station manager at his home, the term "all the color drained from his face" was redefined.

We never did receive a complaint.

Imagine that happening these days...

[K4WRF]

One night long ago, got a beep on the tone-only pager. Quick check revealed the FM was off the air. Located pay-phone and called into the studio hotline only to be told by jock “I’m in the middle of a contest now, you’ll have to call back.”
w/

[Voris]

I will never forget this one, we upgraded our Merlin Phone system with a new line.

2:05am
Jock: Hey these damn phones don't work!
Me: Oh? What are you calling on?
Jock: The phone in the air-studio.
Me: I thought you said the phones didn't work!
Jock: I DID! Ah.....Well the lights are different on the out lines.
Me: Anything else??

I think the poor guy was lonely.....