This is a story I've told to try and not get a job. I was interviewing for a project I didn't want to do, but because it was in Palm Springs, my wife wanted me to do. It was told in response to the client asking, "What is the hardest thing you ever faced on the job." As I tell the story it seems outrageous to me as it was 30 years ago. The story is all true. They offered me the position anyway. I should have included some alien abductions and time travel. I was the assistant chief engineer at a CBS affiliate in Boise, Idaho when this story unfolded.

In broadcasting, not so much today, but 20 years ago, staff had to tend to most things in a broadcast facility. Devices like VTRs, transmitters, and even cameras into the 90s had mechanical parts. They needed periodic adjustments and replacements. Today, with all the processing power, equipment is much better at avoiding atrophy for a much longer time. Imagine designing a high–end color camera. You must use only 205 transistors. That's how many vacuum tubes the first color camera had. Compare that to the millions of transistor cells in today's myriad of complex ICs in use in today's cameras. With our use–it–and–toss–it mentality now, equipment becomes obsolete before it can wear out.

With so much to maintain, people specialized. Some focused their efforts on VTRs, cameras, or video processing equipment. There were even folks who specialized in nothing but the gear used by news departments. Some were jack of all trades. But most had their comfort zones. They would only tackle unfamiliar gear when required. Some concentrated on transmitters and the transmit site.

From my experience the type of people who drifted towards transmitters where often a bit introverted and liked working alone. Many liked to climb. I wasn't one of those. Again see the egg "It's Where?". Climbing usually wasn't expected; usually the ones who climbed and maintained the tower did it for a living as professional steeplejacks. I was never a "transmitter" person. But, I managed projects at transmit sites. So, I was comfortable in that environment.

80's vintage high power transmitter

Transmitter sites are by nature dangerous places. Forget about the tower climbing part. Until rather recently, many things required very high voltage to work. From cameras and monitors to transmitters and other miscellaneous equipment. Get across the high voltage in a monitor usually the worst that happens is you wrap your knuckle against the monitor case as a reflex. I've done that more than once. Get across the high voltage in a high–powered broadcast transmitter and you are in real trouble. High power means not only high voltage but lethal amounts of current as well. Today, voltages are much lower. But, current levels are now much higher, and they will weld anything they weren't meant to touch.

When people who have spent any time around transmitters and their environment gather like many professions the war stories come out. I have one that I'd like to submit for the gold. High voltage, height, and RF exposure pose dangers. You're sometimes alone in very remote places. Now, add a person with a gun who sees only darkness ahead.

High voltage power supplies for the transmitter shown above

Classic broadcast facilities usually have a studio and a separate transmitter. There might be additional news bureau sites and microwave receive sites which receive signals from "live" trucks or news vans.

There's an old adage in broadcasting. To get the best coverage, always take height over power. In the west especially, mountains are where the height is, to paraphrase Willie Sutton. From the Rockies on west, many transmit sites are atop mountains. Towers don’t have to be so tall. Again, find the egg "It's where?" to see an exception, and why FM & TV is so radically different in terms of how they transmit signals.




On top of a mountain they can be a couple hundred feet tall, not 1,500 or 2,000–foot towers for TV and FM transmission.

There's always an exception: This tower is high in the Sierra Mountains east of Fresno, Ca.
This tower is higher than most on mountain tops.
It is taller because it is behind a ridge between the site and the Fresno market it serves.

Another view of the same tower reaching up above the ridge line.


The "UFO" not noticed when I took this shot, most likely a weather balloon.

So this station in Boise had its transmitter on top of a mountain that was on top of the Bogus Basin ski area. Like many mountains in the west, even in the southern latitudes this mountain saw lots of snow. During the summer it was a 18 mile drive up a well maintained, but very twisty mountain road. When you got close you could take a "short cut" off the main road and take a very interesting logging road to the site. Like many sites with one broadcaster's transmit facility, there are often others. These clusters of towers are often referred to as antenna "farms."

Come winter, travel up to the site became more interesting and dicey at times. With many feet of snow during winter, the shortcut logging road was out. The only other way to get up "the hill" was to drive into the ski area's parking lot with a snowcat or snowmobile in tow. Although the station had both, neither proved reliable; they should have been retired years earlier. The other choice was to ride the chairlift up to the top. Ever get off a ski lift when it is running at normal speed without skis on? Usually results in some sort of tumble or an out–and–out face plant!

Look ma, no skis!

I had been up another transmit site on top of the Slide Mountain ski area southwest of Reno. When it was necessary to ride the chair lift up, the folks at the bottom would let the folks at the top know we were on our way. They would actually stop the lift for us when we arrived.

One other interesting fact about the transmitter building on Slide: it had two front doors. One on the first story of the building and another on the second story, as that is as high as the snow often got in winter.

Back to Bogus. The commute was so hard that, in winter, my station struck a deal with the local NBC affiliate. Their transmit site was nearby. We would share personnel at the transmitter. The NBC guy would spend half a week up at the site. Our guy the other half. Both buildings had full one–bed, kitchen, bathroom efficiencies. The stage is now set.

It was Tuesday February 1st, 1994, my wedding anniversary. I had gotten home from work, walked in the door, and was informed that the station was in a rush to contact me. This was a few years before cell phones became ubiquitous. My wife and I planned to go out that night. But, when I called back, the Chief Engineer said the transmitter was acting strange. Also, it was our guys' turn to watch both ours and the NBC affiliates' sites. The Chief had made many calls to the transmitter with no answer.

The "strange" portrayal of the situation was insufficient. The chief said they had lost all remote control of the rig (what many in the business call the transmitter). It was wandering off frequency and was now as much on channel three as it was on its assigned channel two. Even back then, it would take something disastrous to do that. He insisted I go "up the hill" with him.

My drive was about 20 minutes back to the station. In the time of my travel back to the station, the chief had called the county sheriff. Now Boise is in Ada County, and Bogus is in Boise County. Go figure. Boise County is a third larger in area than Rhode Island and had a population of about 8,000. In summer, the sheriff's office in Idaho City, 10 air miles from Bogus, was hard to reach. The path from his office was 25 miles of logging roads and jeep trails. In the winter, it was simply a no–go. The only reasonable path was to go around the mountain range 54 miles to Boise, and then the 18 miles up the front side of the mountain. An hour and a half trip on a good day.

The deep blue route was the shortest in the summer, but that path consisted mainly of logging roads and jeep trails. Not practical for winter travel.

The sheriff, who only had a couple of deputies available, told the chief he couldn't do that. He did offer to ask Ada County for mutual aid help. But he couldn't guarantee a response. The sheriff also offered to go up and have a look in the spring if we hadn't found our missing person by then. I got to the station and we headed north. The chief said he had called the Bogus ski patrol. He asked them to check on the two transmitter sites. The worry was that, in winter, the 80–yard gap between the two buildings could be dangerous for anyone trying to cross it, especially in heavy snow.


It was dark and snowing when we left. There was no thought of towing the cat or snowmobile. The thought was let's get up there and figure it out. The chief was driving and he was much braver on this winding road than I would have been. While the road was recently plowed, snow continued to stick to the road. About three–quarters of the way up, two Ada County Sheriff's vehicles passed us. All their lights were flashing. I was amazed by how swiftly they navigated the road. They went faster than we did in our vehicle. Our pickup truck, as their SUVs were all four–wheel drive.


We arrived at the Bogus parking lot. It was still early evening, so the ski lift was still running. We headed over to the lift to ride it without any skis. We had snowshoes. Obviously, something you don't want to be wearing when the lift ride comes to an end. The sea of emergency flashing lights in the parking lot was growing. As we approached the lift with shoes in hand, there was a deputy sheriff eyeing us. As we got close, he asked us where we were going. We showed him our station IDs. They would have granted us access to the lift under normal circumstances. We said we were going to the channel two transmit site. His response was, "No, you are not. It is a crime scene." He added that the ski patrol did indeed check on our missing transmit guy, and he had been shot dead.


We hung out in the lot for a couple of hours. The ski folks kindly kept the lift running for us, even though they had closed the slopes. The coroner cleared out, and we were allowed up.

Looking up the ski slope to the transmitters

From the lift it is a little over a football field's length to trek over to the station's transmit building. But it is an exposed ridge, and the wind was howling that night.

The front door to the site had been very forcibly opened by the ski patrol. We entered the building. Straight ahead, to the left, we saw a row of equipment racks full of gear. They faced a transmitter on the right.

RCA transmitter similar to the one in the story

The space reeked of burnt carbon. A sweet, pungent smell of ozone and overheated parts hung in the air. There was something else that warranted attention. The blowers, fans, motors, and pumps should have made the transmitter noisy. The silence was unsettling. It had scorched itself to total nonoperation. I was surprised that the halon fire suppression system failed to activate. Nothing was still smoldering. But, many circuit boards were blackened. The metal tuning plates were discolored from the heat. The final part of the transmitter fed the antenna with high power. It was clear that there had been a fire.


Back then, these transmitters had mechanical chains, pulleys, and sprockets for tuning purposes. They moved large metal plates that tuned them to the correct frequency. This made the beasts run at greatest efficiency.

As we approached farther, we saw something else. A large bloodstain marred the linoleum floor. It was between the racks facing the transmitter and the transmitter itself. I’m surprised we didn’t notice it as soon as we entered. As we got closer, we saw its was more than a stain, but a coagulated pool of blood. I didn't smell it with all the other odors in the air. But the chief detected a metallic smell, which he thought was from the blood. The first thing we had to do was scoop it up with a shovel, and we put it in plastic garbage bags we found at the site. The chief engineer did most of that. It wasn't fun to watch. So I occupied myself with assessing the damage to the transmitter. I wonder how those bags were disposed of. I think the station finally got a medical cleanup company up there after a few days. Idaho, at least at the time, had a more laissez–faire attitude towards human remains. Many places today would not have tolerated our initial disposal of the blood. The consensus was we had a mess in more than one way. One was how to scavenge the remnants of the transmitter.

We soon found out that this was a suicide. He put a bullet into the box that allowed control of the transmitter remotely. Even worse, he put a couple into the final cavity. If I remember correctly, he hit a sprocket in the chain drive that moved the large plates for tuning. Due to the damage to the chain drive, the plates collapsed inward. This caused a chain reaction. The cavity heated up and, eventually, the heat caused other systems to fail. When enough systems failed, the transmitter went "dark." Finally, he put a bullet in himself.

The guy had fought cancer earlier in his life, and it went into remission. We didn't know it then. But he had told close friends he couldn't face the battle again if the cancer returned. It came back. His wife was aware of his mindset and had planned an intervention when he came off his half–week shift. She waited one shift too long.


The transmit building was his home away from home. He had been a long–time employee of the company. The chief and I spent a few days cleaning out his belongings. Much of the food was past its expiration date. It was an unremarkable homestead, except for one massive thing. He had many guns and rifles and many hundreds of rounds of various ammo.

At the same time, we had to strive to either repair or replace the transmiter. Back then high power transmitters pretty much sold for round numbers. One million dollars. They've come down since then, but still are not cheap. Also, transmitters were generally only built when ordered. They could take a couple of months to arrive, even with expedited delivery.


That particular transmitter was no longer made. GE had bought RCA, the maker of the transmitter, and shut the whole operation down. Luckily it was an older transmitter that had many sold, and now retired examples. A cottage industry had grown up with ex–RCA service reps hanging shingles and going into business extending the life's of RCA gear in place. Early in my career I had a boss who would say "if RCA doesn't make it, we don't need it." From camera lens to transmit antenna, RCA made those, and everything in between. Others tried to rebuild what GE had knocked down. A high–end television vendor that was a soup–to–nuts provider. I worked for one who tried: Sony. There were others.


I mentioned earlier that this station and the local NBC affiliate took turns tending to both sites, half a week each. The other transmitter guy, who worked part–time at the station, was a Native American, a member of the Nez Perce tribe. After a few days, he showed up with a few of his tribal elders; one was a medicine man, I think. The transmitter guy said that for him to continue to work up there, the place would have to be rid of evil spirits. As I remember, it was still only the chief and I up there at that point. He asked if the elders could perform a ceremony to vanquish the evil. Given permission, they proceeded to start a fire right on the floor where the bloodstain was! While it wasn’t a large one, it was still a fire on the floor in the middle of the room. While this was going on, the chief moved toward the halon fire system's shutoff switch. They chanted for a while. When done, the medicine man, again I think that is what he was, declared that the evil spirits were still there. They left, and the guy called the station and quit.

Halon tanks suppress fires by disrupting the rapid oxidation process (aka: fire). It leaves no residue. So, it's often used in tech areas where a water-based sprinkler could do as much damage as the fire. It displaces oxygen and can cause asphyxiation. It causes skin reactions. Inhalation can harm the respiratory and nervous systems, and affect the heart.

It didn't quite end there. First off, the GM blamed us for the fact that their person quit. A temporary local person with transmitter experience was finally found. We finally got to a point where we weren't spending our total time atop the mountain. One day the chief came into my office with a box. He said he wanted me to keep it locked in my desk. Turns out it was a German Luger pistol.

It was the weapon used in the suicide. The widow had asked the chief to hold on to it. The chief worried that someone would steal it from his desk. Not because of its history, but because it was a German Luger. Idahoans I knew were into guns. I guess this was a prize for one's collection. That gun stayed in my desk until I left, which was a couple of months later, when I went to work for Sony. I don't know the history of the gun since then.




At the time I was there it was legal, outside of city limits, to pull over at the side of the road and commence target practice. Boise, geography–wise, reminds me of Reno. The desert surrounds it on three sides, and mountains face it on the fourth. I once had to make a trip out to a very historic AM transmit site, about 15 miles southwest of Boise. On the way out I passed what I thought was an ad hoc garbage dump. On the way back there were people there along the side of the road. It turns out people would haul old TVs and other electronic gear, along with furniture, and anything else that would be interesting to put bullet holes into. My son and I once started to hike a stretch of the Oregon trail east of town. It was a wide open space with few trees. After 20 minutes of walking, we felt unnerved. Gunshots were heard in all directions, though they were likely far off. So, we turned around.

I've only been through the city a couple of times since then. I'm sure it has changed over the last 30 years.