Over at OMI, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the Ignite automation system at KOIN (and whether that automation system helps or hinders the overall news production). Has anyone on this board ever had any wild experience(s) with radio automation going goofy and/or failing completely? Do you find that automation helps or hurts radio in general?

Automation stories good or bad...

Bad. (NEVER HIT F9)

Seriously to answer the questions. a couple of times we had a crash and had to rebuild the log on the air as we went. had one cd player so the choice was to slip in a various artist cd and let it track and build a couple of hours or keeep changing out CDs try to reboot and hope it comes back.....

Automation can make things smoother and beats having a pile of worn carts or skipping CDs, but like other tools it can become a crutch. If you can put everything in the computer then there is a feeling that you don't need live people. Kind of like if a car can drive itself then you wouldn't need to go to work. Sure you can put in the music, the spots, the sweepers, the imaging, pre-record a seamless (breathless)news/weather/sportscast, but while all the elements are there, in the end, you just have a robot attempting to communicate with live people.

It lacks warmth, immediacy, and a personal element. Sure saves on salary expenses though!

Automation should be a tool to relive the repetive tasks at a station, not as a replacement for the staff

I'm sure most KINK alumni (circa 1978-82) can remember Otto, a heafty girth of a machine that sat outside the Production Room. Otto sprang into action during the early days at 1501 SW Jefferson and was put out to pasture by the time I started in 1981.Unfortunately he remained functional,just in case there was dead air or so I was told. Enter Opus 102,a 2 hour live classical Sunday program that ran from 9-11am. During a quiet concerto Otto would suddenly come on and Men Without Hats would
be blaring...sure kept you on your toes.

Good. I tell ya, once automation took over, an overnight shift became 6 hours of doing nothing related to radio and getting paid to do so. I use the phrase "getting paid" loosely.

Hell, I spent more time asleep during an overnight than doing actual work.

Yea, as long as you were paid for overnights, you might as well have been live

Oh good Lord...here we go again...

When I was doing the weekend all-night shift on KGW in the early 70's, those of us on the AM side were responsible for babysitting the KINK automation (affectionately known as either the "KINK-A-LO-DIAN" or "Ancil's Pain". When it burped and had a problem it would default to a 30 minute cart in the bottom of one of the racks and flash an alarm in the AM studio. We had to run down the hall and try to get it back on track before the fill music ran out. It usually involved calling and waking someone up to talk us through the proceedure. I never really did understand how those damn cart carousels were programmed with that little board with all the pegs in it!

Ah, yes! The Kinkalodeon! Occasionally, KINK would program the NBC top-of-the-hour news. (Sister station KGW was still an NBC Radio affiliate at the time.) I remember one Saturday night in early 1969 when the Kinkalodeon called up the NBC newscast, and missed the cue to dump out at the end... I heard an NBC news actuality feed, net line fill music, and there might have even been a closed circuit program advisory for affiliates that went out over FM102's air.

The fill music was not even close to KINK's Undergound Link format!

Fun times...

1990. Wenatchee Washington. 25 triple pack CD player auto system. (18 discs to a deck)
BROWN OUT! POWER BACK! 25 CD PLAYERS PLAYING ON THE AIR SIMULTANEOUSLY! (Frank Barone) HOLY CRAP!!!! I actually took my time getting to the station to fix it. Sounded kinda cool. I was trying to identify all the songs I was hearing.
A true MORE MUSIC format.

"And now....another 25 at a time!...on Wenatchee's more music leader!!"

Nice!

Did 'ya get any calls on that one?

Some loser somewhere probably thought it was the mashup to end all mashups!

I was once listening to KINK when it suddenly occurred to me that it had defaulted to KGW! There must be a story behind that. It was 1970.

Listen to Klyc late night when a cd gets stuck and no one is there! lol

Oh, I love to tell this story. I was on my way back to my station in Roseburg (mid 80s, I think) when I heard the same commercial play over and over and over and over and ... well, you get the idea. Carts HAD TO have at least (if I remember right) :10 of time between spots (2 :30 spots on a 100 second cart with :10 in between) so, if there was glitch, the system would detect the dead air and start the next event. No matter how much anyone screamed, some people just didn't get. I got to the station and prompted the next event and that spot had run for almost 3 hours before I got there because there wasn't the required gap between spots. The cart was, essentially, toast. I didn't notice the phone ringing when I arrived.

Way back in the day, WRNO New Orleans ran their spots from an automation unit. The machine was called, "Iron Man."

Whenever it became time for a spot break, the jock would just push the big green button and Iron Man would do the spot break for you.

Someone must relate the "Minutes of Silence" for John Lennon. KINK went voluntarily silent with 90 percent of other stations in the world until......the transmitter kicked on a cart of a John Denver song that was there as "silence sense" protection........DOH! Details Jeffrey?

Was it "Thank God I'm A Country Boy"?

steve: was that the Les Schwab spot?
I remember that happening too, and I was on vacation driving home, turned on 1240 to see how far away I could get it, don't remember where I was when I started hearing it faintly then of course louder as I drove north and all I heard was one spot over and over with the 10 seconds in between.
That had to be the same time, because by the time I hit winston it had stopped.
It was quite frustrating being in a car and hearing that, not being able to do anything. LOL

The automation system at KEDO in the 80s did not have a UPS on it, so every time the power went out, Otto lost its entire memory. We didn't have a tape backup to hold the program either. That meant re-entering hundreds of commands amounting to four days of programming (M-F Sat Sun Holiday). Get a song on the air, write a music subroutine then start on the main routine. Despite clear written instructions on how to get Otto back on the air, I got so many 3am phone calls, even my wife could recite it in her sleep: KYBD from the first row, PGM from the second row, NXT from the third row, type 1200 then enter....

Then there was a period when we were playing selected songs on cart through a Carousel. I would pull some from the library to be loaded that evening. Once it was left in MAN mode, and the same song played about 50 times between 10pm and 6am!

Odd that I can't remember the song, and odd that it only happened once!

Three or more songs airing at once was common on that old beast.