Wednesday, May 21, 2014 — You wouldn’t know it from talking to me (i.e., my accent and speech pattern filled with “ums” and “uhs”), but for eight years now I’ve done some broadcast radio. It fits well with my hobby (the radio one), and my interest in politics and current events. For example, yesterday was primary election day here in Kentucky, and the station manager and myself were over at the county clerk’s office broadcasting live election returns as the precincts were reported (actually, the station manager was doing most of the talking because I was adding election machine printouts and reading the results of my meager math skills. Fortunately I’m not half-bad at addition).
One of the current radio (and TV) broadcast commercials for Kentucky Speedway uses two-way comms between driver and the pit crew in a hilarious way to help illustrate how the state’s signature track’s rough surface has earned it the nickname “Kenbumpy Speedway.”
I have played this one back a bunch of times; gotta love the crew chief who tells his driver “I didn’t get a lick of that” and “I’m gonna need that in English, brother!” Anyone who has done any point-to-point VHF/UHF comms can appreciate the spot. My personal kudos to the marketing team who put this together, they did a superb job of highlighting an aspect of the track that drivers complain about, and they did so in a really funny way!!
I ran into my own communication issues last night at the clerk’s office.
I’m used to my nice long mic boom on my Heil headset. The station’s headsets are nice, but the mic book is very short. Seems like I never had it positioned right … it was either broadcasting my beard rubbing against it, or I had it rubbing against my shirt collar or chest. I finally had to move it up higher out of the way. Its meant for close talking, so I had to move it a few times when I needed to talk or offer analysis (i.e. my best educated guess).
That’s it this trip, back with more soon.
73 de KY4Z … dit dit …