Two days ago I wrote about next February's shutdown of analog transmitters that have run faithfully for decades.  Well, our main transmitter -- a relatively new Harris (it's only 25 years old) -- decided to jump the gun.  Early this morning one of its power supplies died in a cloud of smelly smoke.

We're on the air right now with the station's very first transmitter:  a 1962 vintage RCA TT-11.  The picture looks pretty soft and there's a noticeable ghost in it (no, not the Baron!).  It takes a while for it to warm up, and then a fair amount of tweaking to get it looking good... but eventually it gets there.  Quite impressive, considering that there isn't a single transistor in the thing: this is our last piece of entirely tube-type equipment, for which "warming up" is the literal truth, not just an expression.  It's also quite large -- especially compared to our DTV transmitter, which is the size of a high-end refrigerator.  The RCA is as big as an RV, but a lot heavier... and you actually walk around inside the thing to work on it (but not while it's running).

At least this doesn't affect Time Warner cable subscribers: they get a direct feed from our studio, so transmitter problems don't affect them.

Equipment just seems to know, somehow, when its days are numbered... and it goes out of its way to be ornery while it still can.  C'mon, guys... just ten months to go...

This is not a good way to start a day.

-- Jeff