Power surges & UFO's

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Tuesday, 08/07/01

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Power outages, surges in Hartsville cited for radio station’s move

By TAMARA WALLS Staff Writer

A Trousdale County radio station is moving its studios to Lebanon because of repeated power outages and surges at its Hartsville home.

Ted Randall, general manager of WJKM-AM 1090, said the station has had ongoing problems with power surges and can't afford to keep replacing its studio equipment.

Last month, a powerful energy blast moved through power lines at the radio station and other businesses in Hartsville, knocking off power and killing birds near the station.

''It sounded like a surge of electricity running through the building,'' Randall said.

The station will relocate to Cedarvine Manor in Lebanon to protect itself.

Tammy Dixon, manager of marketing at Tri-County Electric, which provides power to WJKM and other Hartsville-area power users, said nothing was unusual about the outage, and she doesn't understand why Randall is complaining.

''We hate that it happened, but the birds just got on the line,'' Dixon said.

Currently WJKM is about five miles from the site of the unfinished Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plant.

TVA started building the Hartsville plant but abandoned it in 1982.

Since the power outages at the station, Randall said listeners have been calling in with suggestions that some type of activity at the TVA plant site might be causing the surges — they say they've heard humming sounds coming from the old plant and seen strange objects overhead.

Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman John Molten said no activity at the plant is causing the power surges and outages.

The agency has used some of the buildings there for storage, but much of the land on the plant site is being turned into an industrial park.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/01/04/07287292.shtml?Element_ID=7287292

-- Cave Man (caves@are.us), August 08, 2001

Answers

You should post this at Poole's forum and see if Stephen has an opinion. I believe he works for a radio station in Birmingham AL.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), August 08, 2001.

Lars:

As I recall WJKM is reputed to be the voice of the lunatic fringe. Good PR.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), August 08, 2001.


DUH... This happened to me a month ago. The crows know which day is garbage day and line up early in the morning to watch for an open garbage can. Used to be when we had metal cans they would jump up and down on one side, often knocking the lid off if it were on an overfilled can. Now that we have county provided composate cans with tight fitting lids, the crows have become somewhat agitated.

Anyway, walking into my living room about 5 am one morning, I saw a large flash and heard a big boom, followed by my power going out. The dead crow bleeding up on the transformer across the street was the 14th the utiltiy company had knock power off already that morning.

After they replaced the fuse to the transformer, they threw the crow down to the ground. All of the neighborhood kids gathered around to examine the crow and got a strong leson in electrical saftey when they saw the hole from the neck to the butt of the bird the diameter was the size of a screwdriver handle. It was a big crow and as it was bing carried around, it's partner and friends flew around creaming their rage.

Poe's poetry not with standing, there is nothing abnormal or mysterious about what is happening.

Did I ever tell you the story about my Dad going to "area 51" to track down and find out where the "ghosts" on their equipment came from? It is a true story, he kept to himself until a few months before he died.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 08, 2001.


Did I ever tell you the story about my Dad going to "area 51" to track down and find out where the "ghosts" on their equipment came from? It is a true story, he kept to himself until a few months before he died.

Do you want us to beg, Cherri? If it's a good story, please share.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), August 09, 2001.


Do you want us to beg, Cherri? Uhh.. yes..... Evil grin. Actually I didn't remember if I had told about it here or on one of our debunker boards.

The base was self contained, they were independent of outside utilities and provided their own. Dad was called in because he was one of the best electronic engineers in the Air Force. The radar equipment and other devices were showing shadows that their on base techs cound not trace down and remove. Dad was very miitary, he never asked questions or tried to discover what they were doing there. (Damnit!)

I'm sorry it couldn't be more exciting, but their generator had a bad filter which was periodicy passing through stray voltages which caused the "ghosts" on the equipment. But this just goes to show you that there is usually a logical reason for most "mysterious" events.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 09, 2001.



Ah Cherri, you should or your dad should have made up something juicy.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), August 09, 2001.

I agree....the truth was kinda anti-climatic.

Maybe we could throw around some good juicy ideas?

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 09, 2001.


Cherri: Our data center was down for an entire week after a racoon had traversed the high-voltage wires out back a few years ago. It's all just a part of life.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), August 09, 2001.

The reason for the "ghosts" was the phase degradation, causing the same phenomenon as happens on a TV with an analog antenna that is not lined up in the right direction.

Cable channels that are blocked use this kind of phase distortion to prevent you from seeing what you don't pay for. Who'd a thought this distortion would end up being applied on purpose.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), August 10, 2001.


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