Power Blip

Yesterday I was sitting listening to and evaluating a very powerful new amplifier pair (one for each channel). My worst fear came true - a power blip. I call it a blip but it was actually a failure and restoration all within what I'd estimate to be a second. About as long as it takes to say BLIP. I had feared that these new amps would destroy my speakers or blow me out of the room as they were not on 'protection.' (Yes, there's a whole industry that offers electronic regulation and protection for exotic systems (and computers, etc.))

The blip took down my PREamplifier (control unit) as the it knocked its protection off line. (That's supposed to happen - the unit will sacrifice itself if necessary.)

The amps stayed on and there was no shotgun blast of speaker cones. In fact, no noise at all. Thankfully!

The computer in another room rebooted. The Fax machine (usually a pansy in these things) stayed on. The new coffee machine clock went boogidy boogidy.

This took me back to my first job in radio in Annapolis, Maryland. We had BAD power at this little AM radio station (810 WYRE - "The Voice of the Bay"). It was so small we didn't have an engineer; rather, a "contract engineer" who would come by once a month or when needed, to keep us legal or working. Well, I was on the air in afternoon 'drive' - a big deal (to me, in this, my first job) - and we went off the air due to a power failure. It came back after a short while but the transmitter didn't. And I couldn't get the door open to reset the circuit breaker inside. I pushed and SHOVED and banged and others came and we all PUSHED and PULLED and... no dice. We called the engineer, panicked. Dead air is the worst sin in radio and it feels like life is ending and time goes by real slowly. The man comes in what must have been 40 minutes later and points to a dent in the door - "See this dent?" We all nod. He says, "That's where Adam f****d Eve. This thing is that old!" He then pushed the door with just a little effort near the Adam and Eve LoveMark, and the door creaked open. We reset the breaker and went back on the air.