Yesterday Kim Napier dobbed herself in for what she wondered might be the dumbest thing a jock could do with technical equipment… spill coffee in the studio desk.

Rest easy Kim, a few Techs have spilled the beans on some much dumber things that have happened to studio equipment through ‘misguided’ behaviour from radio jocks.

No names, no pack drill, but how’s this for some great examples of what not to do in a radio station from some of the anonymous techs who commented on Kim’s story:
 

• Riding a VESPA in an On Air studio… Had no concept of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.  Not to mention the lingering smell of two stroke exhaust fumes permeating through the whole studio air-conditioning system!

• A full on BBQ in an On Air studio…  At first, I thought the sounds of a sausage sizzling on the radio was a SFX cart! Once I realised it was a real BBQ, the talent were asked to cease and desist. They were threatened with dismissal if they were to ever do it again. They never understood what they were doing was wrong to this very day.

• You’ve heard of the usual trick played on new news readers in radio newsrooms… rush in a last minute urgent printed story, then light the bottom of the paper and watch the announcer try and read it before it burns their fingers. Good joke… EXCEPT that the airconditioner fills with smoke, the fire extinguishers go off, the ashes fall into the desk and generally there is disruption and pandemonium for days afterwards.

• Trying to demonstrate how tough an Ericsson GSM Tradie phone was by putting it in a microwave oven.  The station was promoting the phone at the time. The talent could not understand why the duty Engineer shut off power to the kitchen, the General Manager accused the techs of being “Kill Joys” as the premise was great “Theatre of the Mind.” What they didn’t realise is that Nickel Metal Hydride batteries have a horrible tendency to explode after being overheated. They ended up playing outdoor cricket with it!  (Destroyed the phone by the way)

• Me in an early shift as a spotty 18-year-old. Remember the old Spotmaster cart machines?  The ones with the neon lights in the buttons, which come on only when you put about 110volts through them.  So I was working at a country station which had ONE cart machine in the studio.  One. Out of a talk break, I hit the play button, but instead of play it flew back out of the socket across the floor.  So nothing on the turntables, no other cart machine and an open mike.  Thinks;  I can put my finger in the hole and press the button, and the 110 volts will only be on for a few seconds before my finger gets blown out of the hole.   A smart person would have tolerated the few seconds of dead air it took to find the button.  The radio professional protects the listeners from dead air by blowing up a finger.   And I’m a professional?

   

• I was given an anecdotal story about a team of idiot presenters who took the OB van down to the snow, towing a 2.5 tonne trailer behind a 1.3 llitre Suzuki Sierra. Lesson: Small cars can’t tow big trailers, especially in SNOW!

And some more via facebook:

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