fresh dead air

i am fascinated by dead air. it rarely happens anymore because radio stations, like everything else, are nearly completely automated. one song just clicks right into another from a satellite feed. even if you personally do not have satellite radio, chances are you're listening to radio via satellite.

off-the-air can happen through mechanical failure of some sort, such as a lightning strike to the radio transmitter, or perhaps these days a computer glitch will knock a station off the air. when you are off the air, it means you cannot transmit for whatever reason.

dead air is different. dead air is on-the-air silence. you CAN transmit, in fact, you ARE transmitting, but what you are transmitting is silence. dead air is generally caused by human failure. specifically, the dj is not present in the booth at a crucial moment -- when a song is over, when the commercial finishes, when the handoff comes from the network station.

last night i was listening to NPR. it was 19:00 and the news update that runs before 'fresh air' was running. blah blah blah news news.... then the newsreader clearly finished. i don't remember precisely, but i know he definitely gave a sign-off of some sort because i mentally tuned back in for the brief local news that runs after the national update and before terri gross takes over. it was 19:06 when he signed off. and... that was it. we fell into dead air.

i'm imagining the local guy isn't in the booth because he's off having some gastrointestinal disorder in the station's restroom where there are speakers casting the station's programming, and he's in there listening to the national news, wishing his guts would hurry up and sort themselves, knowing what's about to happen... and then he hears it: nothing. dead air!

i'm thinking that's pretty funny and that 'fresh air' will pick up again at 19:10 but 19:10 comes and goes with no 'fresh air'. huh. i kept listening, but eventually i was home and it was 19:17 and still nothing. so that's 11 mins and counting, but as fascinated as i am with dead air, it's exceedingly difficult to explain to anyone why i would sit in the garage and listen to it. i mean, i know that YOU understand, but i am talking about the rest of the world.

so i switched off the car and left the dead air to its own devices. this morning when i switched on the poor little bunged-up slingshot, click & clack were merrily cackling over some odd woman's fuel pump. sometime in the night, the dead air had been resolved.

wished i'd been there to hear them come back on.