Oftentimes, the engineering staff of a radio station is unheralded for all the work they do, until the time something doesn’t work the way it should, then they become very heralded! For a little behind the scenes, a conversation with Don Danko and Will Staffan.
Don & Will are on top of the technical side of broadcasting, but your support makes our operations possible. Show some love for their work with a donation today!
Don is CPR’s Vice-President of Engineering and has been with the station since 1997, so he’s seen many changes in technology plus the addition of WVXU to the organization in 2005. Will is our Chief Engineer who is originally from Lebanon, Ohio but was working in Tennessee when we brought him back in 2022.
WILL: “I think what most folks don’t realize is that 90-95% of our work is preventative maintenance, upgrading hardware and software, and troubleshooting. The other 5-10% is planning ahead for major projects.”
DON: “Right now I’m working a lot on the equipment and preparation to move into our new building early next year. That does require a lot of pre-planning and meetings and more meetings. But since that’s coming online, we are keeping our current equipment, much of which is at or past its lifespan, up and operational until the move.”
WILL: “Every morning when I walk in, I take a route around the studios and offices, looking for anything that might need attention. I check the server room, the satellite room, peek into the studios, and even look at the lights in the ceiling. We don’t want to be caught by surprise if we can help it, but sometimes, things just happen.”
DON: “We work hard to not just have a back-up plan for potential problems, but also a second back-up plan if the first one doesn’t work and even some ideas on a third if neither works. There are just so many different operating systems, technologies, and equipment, both here on Central Parkway but also at our transmitter site in Mt. Auburn and Oxford. It’s nice these days that most have alert systems that text us if something is amiss, and some fixes can be done remotely, but not always and not always immediately.”
WILL: “We’re at the mercy of the equipment, our transmission systems, and the weather. Heavy snow means cleaning out the satellite dish with a push broom on a 20-foot pole while standing on a roof 3 floors off the ground. Windstorms and tornados can knock out power. Fortunately, we now have generators to keep us on the air but those also need regular testing and maintenance.”
DON: “An accident when they were remodeling Taft High School destroyed the power transformer, so we were without power for days. We didn’t have a generator then, so I brought mine from home, set it outside the building and ran extension cords to our satellite room. I was able to plug into the raw NPR feed which listeners heard for a few days. For WGUC, I plugged a CD player into the transmitter, and we put it on Shuffle so it kept playing until one of us could get back up there and switch CD’s. Soon after this we received funding for a generator capable of running all our studio and IT equipment. I’m very grateful for our generators!”
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