MARTI was always a crap shoot... when it worked, it was still a PITA transport and setup... you always knew you had a 'green' intern with you when they had no fear of grabbing the yagi antenna while we were on air.. ouchies..
then when MARTI failed, it was always hit or miss. one Friday night we had local high school basketball game to air, and as luck would have it the reception at the studio end was horrible.. we were broadcasting from an enclosed high school gymnasium, below grade. tried stringing together as much coax as we had, and still no go..
it was either use some creativity to get on the air, or lose the game and the advertisers. I had just started working for this station, and my PD had taken notice that I had several radios in my car, including hand held business band radios, CB's scanners and a 10m ham rig.
time was getting tight before the game, and the engineering brain trust had already given up on the MARTI.. so, I made a suggestion to my boss... it was of the wall but It worked..
we used a business band HT on a power supply at courtside to do the play by play.. then used the scanner in the car, crossbanded to the dual band Yaesu rig, on a business frequency the radio station had a licence for.. then back at the radio station, they used another police scanner in the news room patched into the board in the AM studio, and we were on the air..
my car sat in the loading dock of the high school locked with the engine running most of the night to keep the battery up, and the mobile rig was keyed up but ran cool. and the best part was we got the game on the air, the spots ran as scheduled, and I was a hero to my boss. the sound quality was every bit as good as it would've been via MARTI and no one outside the station was ever the wiser that we had ever had a problem that night.
73 for now,
MP