White Rose Outage Status Report.

[benburch]

Hey folks! Though our offsite servers were fine, my home studio was without power for 15 hours after storms tore through the area and took down over 1000 power lines and many hundreds of trees.

I just got service restored, and I am one of the lucky ones; Some folks will not have power until around midnight tonight.

Since all of the recording are done here, we will not have archives for the following shows today;

The Morning Wake-up Call with Lizz Brown
The Jay Marvin Show
Keeping it Real with Will Durst and Willie Brown
The Thom Hartmann Show
and The Randi Rhodes Show.

All other shows scheduled for recording today will make it into the archives, though, and last night's Mike Malloy show will be posted as soon as I can stitch together a complete copy from the fragments I have.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Please keep this topic kicked. Thanks!

[xxqqqzme]

1. thanks, I wondered why I couldn't get Guy James today.

[EFerrari]

2. Good god! I hope you all are all right, ben.

:kick:

[benburch]

3. Just fine, my dear.

But the street I live on is minus a 150' tall ancient oak tree.... :(

[EFerrari]

5. I'm sorry to hear that. n/t

[proud patriot]

4. Thank goodness you are okay

:loveya: thanks for the update

[Swamp Rat]

6. pontapé

[tech3149]

7. Glad you survived with no major loss like Radiopower

Have you considered soliciting volunteers to save audio from shows that could back up the archive? I don't have much for hardware, but I'm surgically attached to my computer most of the day. I've had good results recording one stream while listening even on my sorry old PC(using freeware Audiograbber). I could probably save a few days of any particular show with the storage space I have. With a few other people doing the same thing, WR could become an unassailable resource for progressive radio broadcasts.

[benburch]

8. Three expensive UPS systems and a great surge protector...

And a gas tube set on the building entries...

I'm covered except in a direct strike. Which is what got Radiopower you know. Her building was hit!

And I am looking into a backup recording site. I have a friend who is situated for computers about like I am and who could run all this software.

[tsuki]

9. Thanks right back. Kick for White Rose.

[benburch]

10. BTW, we are budgeting for a backup.

A Honda generating set that we can fall back to in time to keep from exhausting the UPS systems.

But that is a few months away yet.

[KharmaTrain]

11. One Hell Of A Storm

I had an old audio server that survived one, but not a second or third power spike...thank goodness for back-up systems. Fortunately I was planning to rebuild the machine, just ended up having to do it sooner rather than later.

15 hours with no power? We were out for about 4 and they're still cleaning up tree branches. Reminds me of a bad Elgin ice storm when we lost power for nearly 3 days

[benburch]

12. 1967?

I recall that Blizzard. We lived at 19 & 59. We owned the old tavern that used to be there, and we had no power for at least three days. It was the second day before the road was even cleared.

[KharmaTrain]

13. 79 Was The Bad Year

'67 was lake effect...we had over 30 inches at my parents house in Lincolnwood, but west of O'hare it was very little. '79 was the killer year...we had 10 inches on New Years and then another 20-25 or so a week later that made getting to work and school lots of fun. I remember climbing up on my parents roof without a ladder the drifts were that high.

The power outtage was when we lived, briefly, on Elgin's West Side about '87 or so...a real bad snow/ice storm took down dozens of old overhead lines all over the west side and Com Ed didn't have enough crews to fix all the downed lines.

But of course, being in radio...the show must go on.

BTW...I remember a couple of restaurants/taverns at 19 & 59...one, if I recall, was called Enricos and then was called Nancys.

[benburch]

14. I was actually living in Pontiac then.

The only year I ever didn't live here. I was working for Interlake Steel designing software for robotic cranes.

We were the old tavern across from Nancy's. "Meller's Corner". We had a great cheeseburger.

[KharmaTrain]

16. You Didn't Miss Much...LOL

I was working for the Elgin radio stations at the time...it had an automation system and when the power went down the station was toast. Another fun day was when it was -30 below...driving people to and from the station thinking that if the car stalled, we'd be dead. Ah, thoughts for a 100 degree day. LOL.

I remember a bunch of good taverns in the Bartlett/Hanover area...now it's all turned into real estate developments and strip malls. They just tore down the original 1920s era WGN transmitter building near Villa Olivia...shame to see that relic go.

Glad to see you survived the surges...I'm about to get my "radio box" back on line in a few minutes.

Cheers...

[benburch]

17. Is *that* what that building was?

The one that was part of the Purina feed testing station all those years?

[KharmaTrain]

18. On Lake Street Near Villa Olivia

I remember it being Borden, but I drove past the place for years and it always fascinated me. I did some research and came up with a fascinating story going back to 1923 including bootleggers and hot jazz music. It was known as WTAS Radio and I was even able to find a Program Guide from the station from 1924. WGN took it over a year later, used it as their transmitter site for the next 15 or so years. It was one of the last original 20s radio shacks to survive, but no longer.

Cheers...

[Kurovski]

15. Kick!

Thank you!

[B Calm]

19. My local news in Champaign had the W on the screen, must

have been all north and south of here because we didn't get any bad weather. Thank's for the heads up Ben with White Rose.