[BC] Getting phones on the air

[Chuck Lakaytis]

In the early Seventies I was CE for KOPN in Columbia, Missouri.  I 
got a frantic call from the GM that the audio on the air was not the 
audio from the studio.  I flipped the station on and heard two women 
comparing cherry pie recipes, along with the information that one of 
the husbands was not the most sober guy in the world.  I went to the 
transmitter site that was located on the top floor of a high rise 
building for the handicapped and elderly.  I knew that something was 
afoot with the telco when I saw three of their trucks in the parking 
lot.  It seems that they had a cable failure into the building and 
were busy punching down the "spare pairs", one of which was the 
undocumented program line for the station.  As I recall, the 
conversation was a lot more entertaining then the regularly scheduled program!

Dana Puopolo wrote:
>In the late '70's I was a CE in Pittsburgh. One day our AM went off. 
>I went to the TX and found no audio there. I called telco and soon 
>it came back on. The problem: a bad tube in the program amp.