In the last couple of weeks we have experienced, and received reports of, poor performance on our Classical HQR signal (92.7 in Wilmington, 102.3 in Myrtle Beach). Symptoms included distortion in loud music and overall weak signal resulting from our attempting to address the problem by lowering the music volume. Once again, wonder-working engineer Jobie Sprinkle (Jobie-Wan) was able to fix the problem, and balance has once more been restored to the Force.
For you technical types, here's more information: After some long-distance troubleshooting with George Scheibner and John McHarry (Jobie lives in Charlotte) and no resolution on the distortion problem, Jobie decided that it that wasn’t going away without some on-site attention. So he drove down on Saturday morning July 30th.
In the Classical studio Jobie confirmed that the distortion was level related, and was in the right channel only. After Pat Marriott’s program at 1 pm Saturday afternoon, he took that studio off-line, and through a process of elimination the problem was finally found in a wiring short in another room entirely. He recut and re-punched the connections, eliminating the problem. Further testing showed that tone levels far above what is normal for Classical Studio 3 sounded fine with no further distortion.
As Jobie rode off into the sunset Saturday, all levels have now returned to normal on Classical HQR. Jobie is asking Classical listeners to please confirm with your ears and normal listening habits that you no longer hear the distortion and low levels you may have experienced in the last couple of weeks.