BC-DX 789 05 Jan 2007 Private Verwendung der Meldun

When one hears a VOA transmitter signing on, the rendition of Yankee
Doodle Dandy that is played before the top of the hour, comes from a CD-
ROM or EPROM that comes from VOA HQ in Washington, so it's entirely
possible for IBB stations to ID themselves independently.
(Charles A Taylor-NC-USA WD4INP, ibid.)
I have a sea-story to tell about AFRTS-15430, if anyone cares to hear it!
The score was CAT 1, AFRTS 0; but CAT got the penalty!
Shortly after I reported on board VOA (now IBB) Greenville in August 1986,
I was placed in training status. Mostly that meant manning the control
room (which meant switching the correct antennas to the correct
transmitters, setting the transmitter's dedicated synthesizer to the
correct frequency; and, of course learning to tune the transmitters
properly.
And if any of you AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS think the latter must have been
a piece of cake, well tuning the old Continental 420A Dougherty- amplifier
transmitters at 500-kW was a twenty-minute task!
Anyway, the transmitters were (and still are) interlocked such that
switching the antenna off a transmitter unkeyed the transmitter and shut
down the 15-kV plate voltage.
Antenna 03 was used for the AFRTS-15430 transmission. Its bearing was
right toward Gander, Newfoundland; and via the circular route, into
Europe.
Well, Chuckie the Transmitter Troll was assigned the master control room
that 8-hour shift. I switched up the phantom (dummy) load on the
transmitter immediately to the left of transmitter GB-6's antenna
switching panel position. That was GB-5's position.
Well, after tuning GB-5 to its next operational frequency on the dummy
antenna, I inadvertently switched down antenna 03 from GB-6 and switched
up antenna 39 (the dummy load) on GB-6.
In other words, I had taken down the AFRTS transmission on 15430 for all
intents and purposes, without knowing it!
Fortunately, our supervisor saw my error after five minutes, and
thoroughly fussed me out after getting transmitter GB-6 on antenna 03.
I still have the scars to show for the chewing out. Ah, the good ole'
days. Good ole' days, haaaaruuumph!!
(Charles A Taylor-NC-USA WD4INP, ABDX via dxld July 27)
vy73 de Wolfgang DF5SX