[NJARC] Interesting story: a troubleshooting project for our next clinic?

[john ruccolo]

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) _ Sometimes music seems like it's
everywhere in this college town that's been almost
synonymous with independent rock since the 1980s. But
a popular campus radio station is off the air during
most daylight hours this summer because its signal was
blasting into sensitive equipment in the University of
Georgia's chemistry lab.

   WUOG-FM, the station that helped launch the careers
of local bands like R.E.M., The B-52s and Widespread
Panic, scaled back its broadcast hours this week _
staying off the air until 4 p.m. because of
interference with a spectrometer in the lab that is
being used for NASA-related research project.

   Researchers say they began having problems in May
with the piece of equipment, which studies the way
space gases interact by counting the number of charged
molecules _ or ions _ they create.

The disruption threatened to ruin the project.

   ``It would go from about 300 ion counts per second
to about 300,000,'' said Doug Jackson, a senior
chemistry major working on the project, which is being
funded by a grant from NASA.

   By last month, the researchers figured out the
disruption was happening at 90.5 megahertz on the dial
_ the frequency at which WUOG broadcasts.

   What caused the problem remains a mystery. Both the
radio station and the chemistry crew say they didn't
start doing anything differently when the problems
started. The lab had been using the spectrometer for
years without any disruptions and the station, which
has been on the air since 1972, hadn't adjusted its
26,000-watt signal.

   ``The running joke has been that somebody moved a
metal filing cabinet that has reflected a magnetic
field,'' said Ed Mirecki, the school's director of
student activities and an adviser to the radio
station.

   Chemistry professor Nigel Adams, who is overseeing
the research, said it's more likely that construction
on campus, or something as simple as a new sprinkler
system installed in several buildings, was enough to
bounce the radio station's signal into the machine.

   When radio managers found out what was happening,
they volunteered to go off the air between 7 a.m. and
4 p.m. on weekdays for the next few weeks, until a
filter for the machine arrives from a manufacturer.

   While the chemists would have preferred more
radio-free time, both sides said they were satisfied
with the compromise _ which gets the station on the
air before the afternoon's peak listening hours while
still giving the lab a full work day without the
disruptions.

   Erin White, the station's general manager, said
WUOG _ which normally is on the air 24 hours a day _
had already scaled back for the summer, going on the
air at noon and broadcasting until at least midnight.
The station must stay on the air at least 12 hours
a day to maintain its license with the Federal
Communications Commission.

   Since starting the new schedule Monday, the station
has gotten calls and e-mails from listeners worried
the university's administration had kicked them off
the air. She's also had to shuffle the schedules of a
staff of DJs that reaches about 100during the school
year but is smaller during the summer.

   She even lost her own time slot _ a noon-2 p.m.
show on Mondays that's been replaced with a show from
midnight-3 a.m. on Saturdays, when the station still
broadcasts around the clock.

   ``I miss it,'' said White, a senior journalism
major. ``It just becomes a part of your week, and I
know a lot of the other DJs are missing it, too.''

   Still, both the radio station and the chemistry
staff say they're pleased with the compromise.

   ``It could have turned out badly,'' White said.
``But everybody was really nice about it.''

   ___


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