April 10: One Year Ago Today

I noticed that today's date is April 10.

One year ago today, my Part 15 AM radio station, which operated on 1160 AM,
broadcast for the last time. It wasn't intended to die, but...

A thunderstorm a few days before hit near the house, frying a couple of parts..an amplifier, for one, which I hurridly fixed at about 6:00 in the morning, finally getting on the air that day at 8:30 a.m. I'm guessing something in the transmitter was damaged that day, but the transmitter kept working..then.

April 10 started out apparently normal. But, just after 10:00 a.m. something seemed wrong. The transmitter's power hovered at just above 0 and the signal barely came in, even in the studio. About that time, POOF! A tube exploded in the transmitter, bringing the entire broadcasting operation to dead silence.

I discovered a broken line between the transmitter and the tuning box. I ordered a new line, and a new tube for the transmitter, and both arrived a few days later.

Sometime in late April, I don't know what day, I installed the new parts and fired the transmitter up. It came up and made power, when POOF! The same tube exploded once again.

I kept hoping that this transmitter would ultimately be fixed, but with the passing of the gentleman that built it, I don't know. I don't know how to fix it.

So it has sat in its same location, off the air, for one year today.

In some ways I miss the little AM station. Picking it up in a few places down the road, doing the live morning show and having folks write in and say 'Hey, I picked up 1160 while going down the Parkway, and your station was the only one on the AM dial with music..'

I don't miss getting up to sign on at sunrise, either rushing home or missing events just to sign it off at sunset, and the overall "I HAVE to..." that the whole thing caused. I HAVE to sign on, I HAVE to try to sell some ad time on it, I HAVE to..on and on and on.

RIP little 1160. In spite of it all, I enjoyed the run. It was a lot of fun while it lasted.