Dead air on talk radio over Fourth of July weekend
Callers suspected a vast left-wing conspiracy silenced the station. "Uh, no," said Bill Lundun, program director. "I just tell them the truth that what we had was a catastrophic transmitter failure." By Tom Adams KVAL NewsEUGENE, Ore. - The sound of silence was deafening from a conservative talk radio station in Eugene. Some anxious KPNW AM listeners suspected a liberal conspiracy, but a broken radio transmitter has no politics. Over the holiday weekend, not one but two KPNW transmitters went down. The big 50,000 watt machine was lost Friday. The station "went to our back up transmitter which has been very reliable over the years, and lost it shortly thereafter," Chief Engineer Robin O'Kelly said Tuesday, "and we've been fighting both of them since then." In the studio, it was just as hectic. "You can see that the phone right now is ringing and has not stopped ringing for, well, since Friday," says Program Director Bill Lundun. What about callers who suspected a vast left-wing conspiracy had silenced the station that carries Rush Limbaugh, Lars Larson, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck? "Uh, no," Lundun said. "I just tell them the truth that what we had was a catastrophic transmitter failure." Late Tuesday morning, the new transmitter parts and fuses finally arrived and KPNW went back on the air after almost 5 days of silence. "Welcome to the Lars Larson show," intones the talk show host on the feed from Portland. Morning show co-host Robb Holloway said getting back on the air is a huge relief. "Really it was the engineers and people at the transmitter that really deserve the accolades. Hats off to them that got us back," Holloway said. Now, it's time to make up for all those lost commercials. KPNW engineers blamed the problem on a system overload, made worse by the hot days last week in the valley. |
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