WBAI's transMISSION

Dear Leadership Team -

At about 6 pm tonight we began broadcasting from 4 Times Square. A lot of people did a lot of critical work to make this happen, starting with the PNB and the decision on the loans.

Our on the ground tech team included Tony Ryan from WBAI, Jake Glanz, our transmitter engineer who used to get paid by WBAI and Jon Almeleh.

As of about this time yesterday it looked like we could well have been going dark for as much as two weeks. 

We won't get our new transmitter for a week or two because of what became the short timeline.

We thought we had a foolproof backup. KPFT sent a surplus transmitter that we could use as a backup. It was shipped via FedEx to the contractor.

Yesterday the contractor called up to say they couldn't find the transmitter! We know it was delivered. 

Our solution (after checking with other NYC broadcasters to borrow a backup to no avail) was to borrow the WPFW backup transmitter. I drove from Baltimore this morning, met Jerry Paris at the WPFW transmitter site (the traffic coming into DC was terrible - reminded me why I'm glad I've moved to Baltimore!). 

When we got to the site, on the campus of American University, a crew had dug a trench across the driveway to the transmitter site. We had to carry the two heavy pieces up the stairs through a campus building to my car. 

Traffic up 95 was light (if you've ever been on 95 you understand "light" is a relative term), and I delivered the transmitter to the team there about 3:30 (traffic was pretty bad in Manhattan too. there was no way to turn left off of 42nd), and they had us on the air within a few hours. As I write this, they are gathering the things we want to keep from the Empire State Building, and I'm back in Baltimore celebrating with a drink and a (cooked) frozen pizza. 

If we'd gone over by an hour, our expectation was that ESRT would charge us double rent ($130k). John Crigler said not to bother even asking if they'd let us keep broadcasting for a few days from there.  If we'd gone off the air for the two weeks until the new transmitter was delivered and installed it would have caused immeasurable damage. 

Now back to Nakapon (we are hoping to close this coming week), audits 2016 is essentially done, and the audit committee is close to choosing a new firm), the finance function (we have five or six proposals) and pensions!

Tom

Tom Livingston

Acting Executive Director- Pacifica Foundation

President/CEO- Livingston Associates

(410) 243-1974 (office)

(703) 798-1199 (cell)

It's good to have a hands-on ED, even if it's on an Interim basis. I hope all goes well and the old management goes into richly deserved oblivion, or jail. Ditto a very large percentage of WBAI's current on and off air trash.

Apropos transmitters, old and new, I thought this footnote might have interesting relevance. I should add that—considering how things were in 1966—it was a good buy for us. Lou Schweitzer was a remarkable man, one of the most memorable people I established a friendship with. Contrary to what maladjusted opportunists claimed, he never tried to interfere with our programming, except to help us make the station he gave to Pacifica sound better. 

Lou was a staunch believer in free speech. He would have been deeply hurt had he lived to hear the vandalism of recent years, but he would have suffered silently —Chris

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