[BC] Making engineering pay

[DHultsman5@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/24/2006 2:13:05 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
sid at wrko.com writes:


That's fine, as far as it goes.  The rest of that "problem" is  that more 
reliable equipment stays that way ONLY with regular attention and  maintenance.  
You can have a radio station full of the latest equipment,  but if it's never 
tended to, never cleaned, never checked for proper  performance, it will be 
more unreliable than the stuff we were dealing with 30  years ago.



****************************
 
As a group chief many years back,  I recall one of GM's when a new  studio 
building was built and a new transmitter was installed the he insisted  that two 
of the full time engineers be dismissed and the Chief Engineer with an  
engineering intern could take care of everything. 
 
That went along for about three years until the routines caught up  them,  no 
carts aligned, no 4 tracks aligned, to ampexes aligned,  no  testing done, to 
parts replaced.
 
Suddenly I was spending too much time at the station helping the CE get all  
these problem taken care of.  We finally had to set him up on a schedule of  
daily planning in order to get the old routine things that he had set up for  
different engineers to do that were no longer done after these guys  left.   We 
still ended hiring another engineer.   And this  was before computers,  
UPI/AP machine and telephone became a part of  broadcast engineering.
 
Dave