Saturday, May 7, 2011

ESPN Deportes returns to airwaves




Our Hispanic sports station returned to the air last week. The April 16th tornado leveled its tower just south of downtown Raleigh and 1550 AM/ESPN Deportes was off-air for 2.5 weeks.

Our engineers, Keith Harrison and Will Patnaud, quickly came up with a plan for a temporary antenna. It smacks of amateur radio – an antenna wire stretched between two poles.

However, their ingenuity was thwarted by the demand for poles. It took a while to get ‘em; demand for utility poles was acute across the south following the tornado outbreak.

…but they got it done:
The show must go on! (El programa de radio debe continuar!)

Here's a photo of our science project. Will and Keith get a Blue Ribbon.



The fallen antenna: 285' of steel destined for the recycling yard.