AM station funny story

[krush99]

Hi everybody.

I was wondering if you could help me track down a funny story I heard. Apparently a guy got tired of mowing his 10,000 watt AM array and got some cows in to keep down the grass. Eventually a cow bit through the feedline and exploded.

Does anybody have the full story or a link to it? I'd love to send it to another CE I know.

Thanks
Jake

 

[Bengalsfan]

I'm assuming it's fiction since 10kW would not blow up a cow.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I think krush meant that the feedline "blew up" instead of the cow?

Never heard this story.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I'm assuming it's fiction since 10kW would not blow up a cow.

Blow up, no. Kill, yes. I had a diplexed pair of 1.5 kw stations kill a cow which for some reason licked the base insulator and created a short... put both stations off the air. Cows, when dead, are very hard to move from their position of death.

 

[Tom Wells]

That story was here on RI a few years ago, but searching "cow" only turns up this thread.
They did claim that the cow was blown to smithereens but I don't recall the power level mentioned.

 

[radiorob2.0]

It's a small world, I brought up that story just yesterday.

Here is the link:

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=61129.0

If you're too lazy to click:

I hope everyone will contribute their 'best worst' experience - bad things happen in stations big and small and I look forward to reading some humdingers.

In the late 80's I owned WDGR Dahlonega, GA. The station's studios, transmitter and tower were all located together, with the tower being in the middle of the 5 acre property. The station was (where else?) - Radio Road, and the land behind the station was fenced. Trying to keep the field bush hogged was a job, and after didging snakes for a summer I decided on a solution that would pay me. A local farmer needed some grazing land for some cows, and we struck a deal where I'd keep his cows inside the fence where they could effectively keep my tower field mowed. After getting paid for keeping the cows fenced and fed for 7 months, I was quite pleased.

One afternoon I heard a loud pop from inside the station and we immediately went off the air. I headed out the back door where I saw a small fire in the middle of the field. As I went down the steps with an extinguisher I noticed the rail was dotted with red paint, something else to fix. I noticed all the cows were bunched tightly together way down at the bottom of the field, and at the same time I saw to my horror, a cow leg and hind quarter lying next to my car. Further down inside the fence I saw another. A fire, cow parts - I couldn't put all this together, and as I looked at the back door I saw that the entire back of the station was dotted NOT with red paint, but blood. An extremely unlucky cow had bitten into the transmission line buried close to the transmitter building and 10,000 watts had literally blown it up. It was a pretty horrible sight, and also pretty hard to explain to everyone calling wanting to know when we'd return to the air. "We 'll be back on the air soon - a cow blew up and took us off the air."

I went back to bush hogging the field - the money I'd made from fencing the cows went to repairing the transmi$$ion line. Wild days, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. I'm sure the cow would though.

Jay Andrews
VP & General Manager
Jacobs Media Corporation

 

[Bengalsfan]

I'm assuming it's fiction since 10kW would not blow up a cow.

Blow up, no. Kill, yes. I had a diplexed pair of 1.5 kw stations kill a cow which for some reason licked the base insulator and created a short... put both stations off the air. Cows, when dead, are very hard to move from their position of death.

Cows are very hard to move from their position...period!

Thanks for posting the link, rob. However, I don't believe that story for a minute. Simply biting into the feedline carrying 10kW would not blow up a cow unless there was something else going on with the cow or the ground she was standing on.

 

[KR4BD]

Don't forget: Cows are loaded with methane gas.....

 

[Tom Wells]

Cows are full of methane.
I believe this story. I've seen a few things blow up impressively at lower levels of power than 10 kw.

 

[DanStrassberg]

Cows are full of methane.
I believe this story. I've seen a few things blow up impressively at lower levels of power than 10 kw.

AND the cow had to be standing on ground radials! Did the station have to pay the farmer (rancher) for the destruction of his livestock? I'll bet nobody thought to inform the farmer in advance of the... umm... potential hazard

 

[spinjector]

Well there was that exploding whale in Taiwan... But it had been dead in the hot sun for a long time... They still don't know what happened; it wasn't ballooned up enough to have been a cold-pressure release. With the violence of the bang, the next logical explanation seemed to be a methane explosion ignited by a nearby cigarette.

WARNING: Neither of the following links are for the squeamish. They're icky.

Here is a news story about it (with bad audio):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leKVfJcXqck

And here is a real National Geographic documentary on the event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sC0nTHN960

 

[stacker]

Well, a fun story, but I join the ranks of the non-believers. Maybe the cow nosed the tower at the moment of a lightning strike. That would do it. But just 10 kw of RF? Naah.

 

[radiorob2.0]

I would like to see the transmitter log's comment section for the day. ;D

Actually, cows are evil to radio. I worked for a station that lost the top 200 feet of a 1000 foot tower. One of the theories of the collapse included the possibility of a cow leaning against a guy wire causing excessive stress.

 

[spinjector]

Cows like to scratch on things. Maybe the guy wire became a favorite back-scratcher for the herd.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

A station in Greensburg decided to let a farmer cash rent their AM tower field. When the farmer was planting the Chief shows up and asks if the farmer happened to hit any wires. No one had asked before taking on this extra income using that useless patch of land they had to pay to mow. "Yes, I have to keep stopping. There's a whole pile over there." Cash rent - $800 a year. New ground system $5-$10k. Stupid people - priceless.

An AM station stopped paying it's phone line to remote control the station in 2008. They transferred to another company without telling the F.C.C. They went bankrupt and lost the AM site, studio, and transmitter at a Sheriff's sale. (2nd unauthorized transfer.) The bank sold the property to a new owner and transferred the assets.(3rd unauthorized transfer) Off over a year and now they say it was never off. If you have enough money and a lawyer in DC who can say something without the truth being involved you too can do the same thing.

 

[boiseengineer]

A cow and a 34.5 KV feeder will blow the sucker up real good.

AM station moves studios several time w/out telling FCC.
FCC has to ask around where it is.
While FCC is inspecting other stations in the market he spends most of time talking about this weasle.
FCC finds studio.
Owner sneeks out back door making FCC wait 5 hours in lobby.
13 big violations. None of them stick.
Same AM station moves transmitter w/out telling FCC. Twice.
Day and night coordinates on license are different by 5 miles for at least 8 years.
Moves studios 2 more times never coordinating or changing the STL license.
STL license expired in 2005. They're still operating and not even on the old licensed frequency.

 

[wgliradio]

Cows, when dead, are very hard to move from their position of death.

The same can be said for some radio stations...........

 

[Bengalsfan]

Cows like to scratch on things. Maybe the guy wire became a favorite back-scratcher for the herd.

That's why, anyone with a brain between their ears, puts a fence around the guy anchors. Does not have to be an expensive one, just a split rail fence 4-7 feet high.

 

[TomT]

Also power poles. Cow with an itchy back almost knocked power drop off pole at one site (FM station: shack inside a fence, but pole just outside, knocked drop loose by banging against the pole). Barbed wire works well, too, as long at it is attached to some substantial fence posts.

 

[Bengalsfan]

Also power poles. Cow with an itchy back almost knocked power drop off pole at one site (FM station: shack inside a fence, but pole just outside, knocked drop loose by banging against the pole). Barbed wire works well, too, as long at it is attached to some substantial fence posts.

Pulled up to an FM one time that was off the air, no power. First think I noticed was the pole pig lying on the ground. There was a ring around the pole about chest high where the cows had rubbed the creosote off the pole, they been scratching themselves with it. What we figured was, over time, banging against it, they loosened the nuts on the bolts holding the transformer on the pole.

Would have loved to see the expression on the cow's face when the pig landed next to her!