In this letter to the editor, the author responds to the story “Two Scary Station Stories.” Do you have a spooky station story to share? Radio World welcomes letters to the editor on this or any story. Email [email protected].
I read your recent republishing of the 2016 article about spooky events. Love it. And I have heard “Bobby” stories before.
But I have a scary, not spooky, story that I think would link up here.
Back in the ’90s, a contract engineer and I were working on a 5 kW AM directional transmitter site. We were doing a series of overnights to try to get tower number three of a four-tower array to behave itself.
One night, around 3 a.m., I had my hands inside the transmitter, with the other engineer standing close by, when the door to the shack slammed open! Two cops rushed in, guns drawn!
“Freeze!”
And freeze I did — for two reasons:
First, from personal experience, if a police officer has his gun drawn and tells you not to move … you don’t, unless you want to be a statistic.
Second, I had my hands inside the 5 kW transmitter. And most engineers have a good idea what 5,000 volts can do to a 5′ 11″ piece of organic matter.
The contract engineer couldn’t bring himself to say anything. But I asked if I could take my hands out of the transmitter and stand up.
“Just do it slowly.”
And I did it, slowly. Then I informed the cops that we were engineers doing testing and maintenance for the station.
Looking at us, and around the room, they re-holstered their weapons. They saw that I was in my 30s and the guy from Georgia was in his 40s. My tool kit was open on the desk. There was no damage to the entry door, and there weren’t any beer bottles or cans laying around on the workbench or floor.
“We had reports of high school students vandalizing this site.”
“Yeah. I’m the one that made the reports.”
I don’t know why they came in with guns drawn. But I’m sure that the week before the other engineer had me call 911 on a deer. But that is another story, for another time.
— Archie Stulc, former broadcast engineer
