In the late 1960's/early 1970's, when I got into the game, most small market radio stations had one guy (yes, almost always a man) in charge of all things technical. He was the Chief Engineer and he was part and parcel of the license. If it had to do with anything plugged into the wall, he was the MAN.
Some larger stations, with union contracts, had one set of engineers for the transmitter facilities, different guys for maintenance and repair work and, occasionally, another whole crew of board operators because, God forbid, a DJ should ever touch anything technical. Each reported to a different shop steward as a member of a different union. This was very expensive for a small radio station.
Believe it or not, the board-op thing was the result of the legal battle for the rights to play music between ASCAP and BMI. More on that sometime later.
Yes, there was a time when unions made a difference in the paychecks of technically skilled personnel, but those days are long, long gone. Still happening in TV, maybe, but not for long.
Over the years, the engineering unions gave up on radio board ops, allowing DJ's to run their own board and playback gear. Then the engineering unions caved into allowing the DJ's, if properly licensed, to operate the transmitter and take the appropriate, legal and timely readings. That left the transmitter guys to learn studio gear maintenance and RF and tower engineering. And so they did. If they wanted to remain employed. Which they did.
Then in the late 1970's/early 1980's radio stations began using satellite downloads, dishes erupted in their backyards for news and music show feeds. Most station engineers were older (but still very experienced) guys and at this point were not inclined to rapidly learn this new technology. But they did, as best they could.
Then digital technology came into play, with CD's and their players replacing turntables and tape carts. Younger engineers began to replace older engineers. By the mid-1980's it was a new world of CD's and fax machines and primitive computers coming into play to create playlists. The older engineers were swamped with the learning process; many retired because they rightly presumed that they would be needed to help the computerized programming effort if something went wrong.
In comes a whole new generation of geeks to the radio engineering world, 'puter geeks with little or no knowledge of RF or gear maintenance. The good news is that many of them picked up the trade quickly. The further good news was that there were still a bunch of RF and maintenance consultant companies serving radio that could help and help train.
By the end of the century, as many radio stations went to voice tracking, they realized that they had wound up back at the beginning. Most radio stations needed engineering skills in three flavors and it was tough to find someone who could fill the bill:
1. RF -- they needed engineers knowledgeable in transmitter and tower operations, and that was most important if the station was an AM directional, with a critically designed signal. The operation of a high-powered FM transmitter also required special knowledge. And there was still satellite transmission and reception to consider.
2. IT -- they needed engineers with a very specific skill set, who could trace and identify computer and software problems and assist the programming people in getting it to work. This included high-speed internet connection for the transmission and reception of programming elements and streaming programming. In many cases, this included the creation and maintenance of the station's website.
3. Maintenance -- they needed somebody to fix broken stuff. A monkey could do it, the consolidators say, but there still has to be a monkey in place, with a wrench, a screwdriver and a multi-meter and certain skills.
So they developed a three-person engineering department. Just like we had 40 years ago.
Now, as we enter the second decade of the New Millenium, these companies are dumping the most valuable parts of their engineering team. Just as one Programming type now handles the responsibilities for the entire market, one Engineering guy is expected to take on all the challenges for several stations.
I am SO glad I'm retired.
And my thanks to all the wonderful engineers who board opped for me over the years, tweaked my gear to make it sound better, read my xmtr meters, fixed my cart machines and made sure that "that listener" never missed a show.
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