[TIAL]

I was just reading Radio 1's biography of Comedy Dave, and this is what I found:

"Dave's highlights at Radio 1 include taking the Simon Mayo show off air in a moment that nearly ended his career."

Anyone know what happened?

[Sidders]

He pressed the wrong button or something and took Simon Mayo off the air for about 15 minutes before the engineers managed to fix the problem.

[TIAL]

oo 'eck, so there was just dead air for 15 mins!

[Sidders]

Nah, I think the emergency DAT must have kicked in. Not sure though.

[David]

I'm sure Chris has retold that story again recently... he always tells it to embarrass Dave - the time he took the wrong lead out ...

[Uglybob]

wait a week and itll come up.

[jimmy g]

Or one of when the cleaner nudged down the fader but Dave was in the Cafe.

[Sheep]

If i did that and as nothing came of it (didnt get sacked) i dont think i would be embarrassed, i would laugh about it.
Other people may see that a different way i suppose

[Uglybob]

or how Dave got arrested for peeing on a shop window whilst bladdered.

[David]

Or one of when the cleaner nudged down the fader but Dave was in the Cafe.

yeah, thats a favorite of Chris' aswell... how the Mark and Lard breakfast show was really really quiet for about 5 minutes!

[MC]

I also seem to remember Greyhead playing a few unscheduled jingles into mark and lards show one time when messing with the desk...

[Funky Drummer]

I was just reading Radio 1's biography of Comedy Dave, and this is what I found:

"Dave's highlights at Radio 1 include taking the Simon Mayo show off air in a moment that nearly ended his career."

Anyone know what happened?

Fom what I remember being said about it in the past, Dave was doing something in the racks room (a small cupboard that you'll find in every radio station which houses the feeder quipment from each studio, the output equipment, the feeds to broadcasting house in the case of BBC Network radio, etc) and dave quite literally pulled out the wrong plug.

As far as the emergency DAT goes, it works as follows:

All BBC (certainly netional) stations go out via the control room at Broadcasting House. So in Yalding Houe (Radio 1's building, for example) Nemone may be on-air from Studio 2. Studio 2 would be set as the "live" studio and that would head through the racks room at Yalding House, down to Broadcasting House then out via the transmitter network. If there is a plug pulled (as in the case of Dave, mentioned above_) then you get what's known as "dead-air" and a complete electrical silence occurs. A small (fairly simple circuit) is in place on each network channel at Broadcasting House which monitors these electrical silences. Every time an electrical silence occurs it will start timing. As it may just be a pause in a record, as soon as the sound starts again the circuit "resets." If, however, the silence continues for a pre-set amount of time (reckon it must be about 90 seconds or something like that) it starts an emergency DAT [Digital Audio Tape] playing which will have on it pre-recorded music to fit the style of the station and will be updated every month or so.

This means that something in fitting with the station is going out on air (and preventing your listeners from switching off/over!) whilst the engineers can try and sort out the problem.

The BBC (and most other radio stations) fire procedure whereby pre-recorded music is played out, everything else cancelled, whilst the building is evacuated, etc. The only difference with this is that the pre-recorded music would be played from Radio 1 as oppsed from Broadcasting House. BH, however, would be aware of the incident so that they can take control of playing out music if the situation takes longer to control than expected, or to switch over and resume broadcasting from another studio, possibly even in another building.

Hope that explains it a bit for you!

[Ahh_Pathetic]

dont you love him folks?

dullard rules ok.

[Mcqueen_]

As far as the emergency DAT goes, it works as follows:

....

I may have glossed over it but did anyone actually ask how the emergency DAT works in this thread?

[kendra k]

perhaps it's charity work... or dullard's assertion as alpha geek of the board?

[Funky Drummer]

errr....yeah that's it of course kendra.

Or, alternatively, thought that Tial might simply have been interested??? No? Okay, never mind.

[Sidders]

I thought it was quite an interesting read actually, better than most of the shite on here. Not that I can't claim at least partial responsibility for that though...

[Funky Drummer]

Thanks Sidla.

I certainly didn't intend to pee anyone off with anything I wrote. From what I'd ghathered about Tial's post, he was interested to know what happened.

His follow-up:

oo 'eck, so there was just dead air for 15 mins!

went further into that so I just went into explaining hos there would not have been dead-air for 15 minutes.

[jc]

If, however, the silence continues for a pre-set amount of time (reckon it must be about 90 seconds or something like that) it starts an emergency DAT [Digital Audio Tape] playing

As I recall, the delay's a lot shorter than that. There've been many occasions where the DJs taunt the emergency DAT by fading everything down, and in every case I've heard they chicken out after about twelve seconds. That'd suggest a 15- or even 20-second period. - jc

[Dickie]

It's 15 seconds i believe.

I remember Chris and the team messing about with it at one point, seeing if they could get very close to activating the emergency DAT.

[David]

I remember Chris was trying to get Richard to speak once... and as Richard never spoke he just left the whole Emergency DAT in the hands of Richard.... however he thumped the desk or something creating a noise.

DL

[Funky Drummer]

*...waits for someone to jump in and proclaim me/everyone here all geeks and nominate this for dullest thread 2004....*

[jimmy g]

It must be longer for some stations than others as sometimes on Radio 3 you have about a minute of silence in the name of art and no crazy dat kicks in.

[Ahh_Pathetic]

ah but that is pure silence... the educated can tell.

sniff... now that is the smell of pure crap.

[MC]

It must be longer for some stations than others as sometimes on Radio 3 you have about a minute of silence in the name of art and no crazy dat kicks in.

BBC to broadcast silent orchestra

The BBC is to broadcast a live radio performance of an orchestra playing four-and-a-half minutes of silence. John Cage's seminal work 4'33" will be the highlight of a concert on Radio 3. The piece consists of four minutes and 33 seconds' worth of nothing. In readiness for the performance, Radio 3 bosses will have to switch off their emergency back-up system - designed to cut in when there is an unexpected silence on air. The work has never been performed by an orchestra or broadcast on national radio in the UK before. The BBC describe Cage's piece, written in 1953, as "ambient silence". It will be broadcast as part of the station's annual Composer Weekend at the Barbican on Friday. TV viewers will be able to tune into BBC Four an hour later and watch the orchestra "performing" the piece.

http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/st ... 55048.html