Live Truck Part 2

So after Wendy's meltdown over the live shot I couldn't do because I hadn't been trained on the microwave van, CP Rick decided it was time to finally get my training out of the way. He had me scheduled for a couple of dayside shifts so that we could go over it.

For those who might not understand what a microwave van is, it's one of the vehicles a television station might use to get a live picture on the air from a remote location. It's usually a van or truck with a telescopic mast that extends 40 feet or more through the top of the vehicle. On top of the mast is a dish that sends a microwave signal carrying the live video back to the station. The van operator has to move that dish around to tune the signal. We usually plug a camera into a cable connected to the side of the van to get a live shot from a scene, and we also feed back video we have edited from editing machines inside the van.

Our van was actually bought second-hand. The previous owners had stripped everything out of it, including the mast, and our engineers turned it back into a live truck themselves using spare and second-hand parts. There are some interesting homemade assemblages in there I don't completely understand. I learned that much of it was put together by an engineer named Jake, who is a master of just rigging stuff up to work (at least temporarily). Jake loves cars and engines and maintains the station's generator, so they figured the live van should be his project.

It was raining the day I learned the van, but since there weren't any thunderstorms forecast for us Rick decided to go ahead with the training. The first thing that I noticed is that the van leaks. Rick says the water inside came from the hole through which the mast extends, where the engineers didn't properly seal it up. It's a problem, because water runs right down to the floor and gets the photographer's equipment wet.

The first thing Rick told me to remember is "Look Up and Live." He said I should say that to myself whenever I get out of the van to raise the mast. Most people never think about this, but if you're extending something up in the air, you have to make sure you aren't going to hit power lines. The first thing a microwave van operator is supposed to do before extending the mast is look above the van to make sure there are no power lines there.

"'Look Up and Live' should be your mantra," he said.

I won't bore you with all the technical details of my training. Basically the operator just sends up the mast, calls into the newsroom, turns on the transmitter and moves the dish around at the direction of someone back at the newsroom. Rick told me at some stations an engineer tunes the shot in back at the station by looking at a meter. At our station, however, the tuning is done by a producer or AP who simply observes the picture and audio on a monitor in the newsroom and tells us when it clears up. Rick said this isn't the best way to do it, but that our engineers are too busy with other stuff to tune live shots every day.

"Sometimes it ain't pretty," he said, "But it's good enough for the thirty seconds we actually use the shot."

Rick had me call into the newsroom and tune in a shot myself. It really wasn't that hard. Then we went over all the systems in the truck. That afternoon he gave me a written test on what I had learned, and I passed pretty easily.

But that was only day one.

The next afternoon Rick sent me out in the truck with Al (the photographer) and Mark (the reporter). Their story took us into a low-lying area on the edge of town, down a gravel road to a construction site for an industrial building from which somebody had stolen some concrete samples. When the construction workers had poured the concrete for the building's foundation, they had poured some samples into cylinders nearby to be crushed to test the strength of the concrete once it set. The cylinders are actually pretty cool and would make good supports for homemade shelving, and evidently someone else felt the same way. The problem is that without those cylinders, the construction company can't prove the building foundation is up to code, and they may have to scrap the work so far and start over.

Al was supposed to let me run the microwave van myself and stand by to help. I set up everything as I had been taught. I looked up (and lived), then sent the mast up. I called in to tune the shot, and...

"No good," said the AP on the other end. "I can see your bars, but it's barely there."

"What do I do?" I asked Al.

"Bring down the mast and move the truck," he said.

I had been given plenty of time to tune the shot before the afternoon show, IF there were no major problems. Unfortunately, bringing down the mast, moving the truck and sending the mast back up would take several minutes. But I had no choice, so I did it.

"Still no good," said the AP when I called back. "You must be in a bad area."

I turned to Al. "Still no good," I said.

"Let me try," he said, taking the phone. He went through the whole tuning procedure himself without success.

"Fuck this. I don't have time for this," he said. "I'll call you back in a minute."

He went around and jumped in the drivers seat of the van, leaving the door open. He grabbed the phone mounted in the front of the van and called back into the newsroom.

"Okay," he said. "Tell me if it gets good enough to use."

Suddenly a very loud alarm sounded and red lights in the dash began flashing as Al put the van in gear with the mast still up. I stood nearby and watched him slowly begin driving the van down the road as he hung out the drivers side door looking up at the mast, while holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and the phone with the other. I thought he was going to fall out any minute. He stopped a couple of times, backed up, moved forward, backed down the street past where he started, drove forward again and finally came to a stop.

"That's good?" he asked... "But is it usable? Okay, I'll leave it here." And the shot was tuned.

He was in a hurry then to get his video fed. I set up his camera for him while he finished his editing, and we got everything done just in time. I didn't get a chance to ask him about his unexpected tuning technique until we were on our way back to the station after everything was over.

"You did a good job with the truck," he said. "We were in a dead spot, so there wasn't much more you could have done to get the shot."

"What about driving with the mast up?" I asked. "Is it okay to do that?"

"YOU probably shouldn't do it," he said. "But I've been running this truck for a long time, and sometimes you have to bend the rules a little."

"I thought you were going to fall out a couple of times," I said.

"Yeah, I don't like hanging out like that, but you gotta look up. 'Look Up and Live,' you know."

Yes, Look Up and Live. It's my mantra. Later, CP Rick asked me how it went.

"Fine," I said, "But I couldn't get the shot tuned in. Al had to tune it by moving the truck with mast up. Is that really okay?"

His face turned serious. For a moment I thought I had gotten Al in trouble, but I felt like I really needed to know if that's what's expected of me.

"Listen," he said. "Al's been doing this a long time. He knows when it's okay to bend the rules a little. But I don't want to ever hear about you trying to do that, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"The seals on that mast are already screwed up. The last thing I need is people bouncing down the road with the mast up to wreck 'em completely. Plus, it's dangerous to do it for your live shots at night, because you can't always see the power lines."

And thus, I am now officially trained and "certified" on our live truck. I can run Wendy's live shots now, so long as it doesn't require moving the truck with mast up.

P. S. Yes, before I get crazy hate mail over this, I know there's something wrong with this picture.