'The Zone' Finally Off Injured Reserve

Knocked off the air by a lightning strike during Thursday afternoon's severe thunderstorms, Waitt Radio's KOZN (1620 AM) "The Zone" sports talk station resumed over-the-air broadcasting at 3:30 a.m. this morning.

KKAR Program Director Neil Nelkin said station engineers worked through the night to make repairs -- and even received some unexpected help to accomplish a formidable task.

"(Our engineers) had help from engineers at Waitt Radio Networks and from at least one of the other (radio) groups here in town," Nelkin said. "I really can't say enough about these guys. They were unbelievable."

Nelkin said virtually all Waitt's facilities at 50th & Capitol have been restored to normal or near-normal operations.

"There are still repairs to be made and replacement equipment to be installed, but everything is up and operating," he said at 7:15 this morning.

Waitt had taken steps to prevent the very incident that knocked several of itsstations off the air around 3:45 p.m. Thursday, Nelkin said. An emergency power generator worked perfectly and KOZN also remained available to listeners streaming over the Internet at www.1620thezone.com throughout the extended outage.

"Our facilities were designed and installed by one of the top radio engineering firms in the industry, with all the shielding, grounding and safeguards available," Nelkin said. "But when lightning strikes -- especially close by -- it can do amazing
things. Our guys busted their butts to get everything up and running and
our problems had nothing to do with a lack of planning."