More Felix Memories...this time from David

Thank you so much for the piece on Felix McDonald on
12/23. He is just the epitome of Renaissance Man, a
wonderful, warm, down-to-earth person with a
WELL-developed sense of humor.

Felix is widely regarded as one of the most
knowledgeable engineers in the country when it comes
to RF (for the uninitiated, that's Radio Frequency
energy; the stuff that comes off big metal towers to
carry the signal to your radio and which can cook your
skin if you get too close). During his time, when
anybody had a problem with their antenna array, Felix
was the man they called.

There's a legend at KAAY concerning the time that
Felix was called to Lin Broadcasting's sister station
KILT 610 in Houston to troubleshoot their directional
array. About the time he got started down there, the
KAAY transmitter developed a problem switching from
day to night mode. It became "stuck" between the two,
taking the station off the air.

Apparently, none of the other engineers had seen this
happen before; no one knew how to fix it. Pat Walsh
chartered a plane to Houston to pick up Felix so he
could set things right again.

According to the story, Felix picked up a big wooden
stick (about the size of a boat paddle) from a rack
behind the door, walked over to the "contactor" switch
assembly that nobody else could get to move, and
struck it a mighty blow. It immediately moved into its
proper position and Walsh's money machine was back in
business.

After that, some of the other engineers began a
protocol wherein the first order of business
concerning any balky equipment was to figure out where
to HIT it, marking the spot with a big "X."

The way I hear it, Felix is not in the best of health
these days, but he is never too busy to help young
engineers along.

My fondest memory of Felix is seeing him wearing a
pith helmet, driving a Ford tractor, towing a huge
round hay bale across the pasture that held the four
KLRA (1010, now defunct) towers. He always used these
"antenna farms" to graze his cattle!

I hope he lives a thousand years, for we will not see
the likes of him again.