The AM Forum

How many of us are broadcast engineers? Just curious wondering how many do this thing professionally and then want to go home and play around with AM transmitters in there spare time. And on the same subject how many are under fifty? I am fifty three myself and have noticed that many of the newer CE in broadcasting are from the IT side then from the RF side and have little interest in transmitters beyond just wanting them to work and knowing the reliability of modern transmitters don’t blame them knowing that they spend the majority of there time resolving problems with the keyboard as opposed to a soldering iron. Don’t get me wrong being that I work almost entirely with the RF side of the plant that’s job security but can imagine a day where terrestrial broadcasting as we know it will be gone. May just be that I am still depressed about having to give up my analog 60 kW Comark that took some level of skill to use for a 5 kW digital where all you do is push the on button, then hear about the ideas of freeing up more bandwidth by consolidating all the television in a market to one channel it just don’t look good for terrestrial television broadcasters. If it weren’t for the fact that Direct TV and Dish pick up our signals off air sometimes think I can turn off the ATSC transmitters and no one would notice. Good thing the transmitter stuff is only a part time thing and I have a full time job at a university because we have not been running out of kids yet, matter of fact we have been getting more and more of them from China and they pay!

I'm not a broadcast engineer but that is the field I would like to get in to when I'm out of college (even if it's only part time). I'm actually going for an IT degree, but that's not the part that really interests me. I like working with RF a lot more than computers, it's easier to understand.

I did broadcast eng for 42 years and retired.  Now I run my own consulting firm doing facility construction and upgrades.

The good thing is most of my work is still RF based.  The young turks can have the studios and HD stuff.

73DG

The OP questions transcends the type of work.

When I went from applications engineering to technical marketing, I did more hands-on hobby work at home.
Now having returned to application engineering I again do somewhat less hands-on hobby work.
It's not so attractive to go to the home workbench after slaving at work all day over a hot modem.
When the job work was not as much hands-on, those days I am more likely to go out to the workshop in the evening if time allows.

My primary field was entertainment radio receiver design and development,  Mostly from the RF/IF standpoint. 

However I did part-time broadcast engineering in TV (mid-60's) and directional AM (late 70's). By today's technologies, this was in the stone age, I'm sure.

I did it for 4 or 5 years then went into computer systems engineering after that when things became disposable. Haven't looked back.

I once helped the young folks at KABN radio, Big Lake, Alaska get their transmitter back on the air after the jury rigged power supply melted down........got it running in time for the Bluegrass show and they asked me to stay on and play tapes until they could round up a DJ......I also repaired the hot plate so I could have some coffee....Short but satisfying career in broadcasting...

I was a broadcast chief engineer for many years, and also designed broadcast equipment (transmitters) for a start-up company that went belly up during the 1987 stock market "crash".

Still designing similar stuff today  ;)

I've been a broadcast engineer/on-air personality since the early 60's.  And with the combination of both on-air and engineering I have managed to stay employed for almost 50 years.   The experience in amateur radio greatly assisted in getting my First Phone while still in high school, and that opened the door.  I am still, fortunately, "overemployed" at my tender age of 66, doing one full time and several part time broadcast related jobs.  I do want to retire in another year or two, though.  But playing with RF will be something I'll do for as long as I walk the good earth.

73 and Happy New Year
Ted  W8IXY

33 years in radio engineering and now doing related design and manufacturing.  The industry has changed a lot during my career.

Chris

In 1977, as a H.S. student I worked at WJEF-FM. Having my
2nd Phone at the time, my "supervisor" with his 1st Phone was also a ham
(I forget his call at the moment!)
By 1978 I was also working at WXUS-FM in the studio...mainly repairing
cables, the board, setting up processing, etc...then
came my "BIG" break, I started at WBAA-AM, a 5KW NPR Station at
Purdue University. Still with the 2nd, I only got to work out at
the remote TX site a few times, as they kept me at the studios
in the basement of ELLIOT HALL of MUSIC most of the time.

The "back-up" tx was a Collin 21A though! I got the opportunity
to see her on the air a couple of times in the 2 years I worked there, it
was a beauty. I am sure she is in a land-fill now, sigh...
The installation at WBAA-AM is a 3 bay directional, reduced power at nite...
At the time of my employment, our primary tx was a Harris box...is was about
1/8 th the size of the 21A!

I left BC in '81 for the CATV industry. It was a fun time...lots less stress,
but a lot less money too...
73
Steve w8tow

Gosh, I feel like the only illegimate child at a family reunion, no broadcast experience here.  I have been a sign painter for the  past 42 years and plan to be around doing it for a while to come.  
My technical knowledge and experience in radio is purely a hobby that has been an obsession since junior high school.  
The age is 68.
Almost forgot, I did work for a TV station for 6 years doing photography and graphic arts, if that counts as broadcast experience and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.

Was as still am chief engineer for KOZY-AM and KMFY-FM in Grand Rapids, MN. Been here 25 years.  I'm probably the last show host/engineer combo guy still doing that, as the real money is in engineering. 5K AM three tower directional array with a Harris MW-5 (and a Collins 1000 watt back up transmitter!) and an RCA transmitter for the 100,000 watt FM. (With a Wilkinson backup!) Have also hosted the morning show for those 25 years -- still do -- every morning! I'm 54 now, built my first ham transmitter when I was 11 years old.

Tim in Bovey
kc0jez

Ray, my hobby of playing with AM transmitters spawned time as a broadcast engineer, but only because the hardware at work was so similar to what I had at home.  

My main line of work is broadcast journalism, but I got called upon early in my career to be an "assistant" engineer at a low budget kilowatt daytime-only AM station.  Tube transmitter (main and backup), tube boards, and the kind of multi-band audio processing I later put in place here at home.

But I don't think I'd want to have a primary job as an RF guy, broadcast transmitter technician, because work and play would tend to merge.

Others have done that, very successfully, with Dave W2VW being an example I like to point out.

My "success" was limited to scoring some pulls from the transmitters, being able to mix music tapes after signoff, and (occasionally) to pump a 32V2 into one of the 300' towers with their ground field in a swamp.  This time of year, signoff was mandated at 4:45pm, before the end of evening drive time!

These activities are not generally part of "air talent" responsibilities, and as you can see, when it was time to do the news it was completely formal and structured.

After 31 years in TV studio equipment design at RCA I retired early, just in time to avoid the final self-inflicted collapse of the Corporation. Then went to a network for nine years, which is what I should have done at least twenty years sooner! Had something on the drawing board or bench at home during a good part of that time. Looking back I am convinced I got out just in time, as do most of my ex-B/C station cohorts who also have retired.

There has been a sea change in the business and there is a lot of truth in the comment about shutting off ATSC transmitters without making much difference, particularly with streaming video now well above the horizon. AM and FM broadcasting should have good futures, given increasing numbers of mouths on AM and latest fad formats on FM.

Bob

Great to see others stories and how the two things interact. Think I was a Ham before working in broadcasting but started both about the time I was in high school. Ham radio and broadcast engineering do kind of compliment each other although have not had much success getting others I know in broadcasting to get there ham ticket, have drug one or two Hams into broadcasting. Also have to think about the idea that maybe its true twenty or so years ago when I use to do a lot more bench work and dragging around cables and the like that maybe did not have the desire to then go home and beat on some vacuum tube something or the other but thinking about it have always had some junky old Motorola or military junk that I was playing around with on two meters and if it were not for the reduction or what ever that allowed Tech + to become general class I would still be doing VHF and not playing around on 160 AM  The RCA Broadcast things is something that always amazed me, how can a company that had so many first and that dominated the market for so long go out of business over night? Think of all the TK-44 and TK-76 cameras they sold, I wasted many a hour doing alignment and replacing plums in the TK-76 and had three TK-44 in the studio that always needed attention just before air.

Most people here don't have broadcast experience, so I wouldn't give it a 2nd thought  ;)

Although the end of RCA came suddenly the journey to the end began in the late 'sixties when Bobby Sarnoff suceeded his late father with devastating reckless business decisions made by his and subsequent inept administrations. Not the least of those was dissipation of financial resources during the "diversification era" when Radio Corporation management thought they could be successful renting Hertz cars, making Coronet Carpets, selling NY real estate as Cushman and Wakefield, and selling frozen dinners, not to mention a disaster in the computer business. At that time Broadcast and Home Instruments Divisions were making tons of money and it was thrown away in non-electronic businesses where RCA had no expertise.

Closer to broadcasting, B/C Engineering was dominated by the Marketing Department, comprised of individuals with limited business credentials, and certainly none in engineering. Yet these people dictated what products we would make. how much time we had to design and debug them, and were the only interface between designers and customers. No wonsder isolated engineers at RCA made clangers in operational aspects of product design! It wasn't until I got to the network and found how accessible and responsive Japanese companies are to customer's concerns that I saw how woefully detached RCA had become. The NIH philosophy blinded RCA to the advantages of Plumbicns, triax camera cable and later, to 1" helical-scan VTRs until it became too late to catch up.

Beginning in the 'seventies, Division Managers were sent on sabbaticals to the Harvard Business School, returning with a mantra that seemed to be, "Don't worry about the future, just concentrate on improving today's stock value." That resulted in an enginering budget at RCA Broadcast far below other U.S. companies and vastly less than the Japanese were investing in product design and applied research. We had 3-year business plans that lasted only one year while Japanese were working to a 10-year business plan. (Top management at Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic) were engineers.) There was a delusion pervading RCA Broadcast, after about 1960, that it was more profitable to be Second than First, ignoring the reality of ultimate failure in that philosophy. So we warmed over stale designs and constantly followed competitors. The results speak for themselves.

Bob - NE

Not quite anymore, but close enough.  I still consider myself to be a broadcast engineer with 35-years experience, but I left radio because I didn't see a future in being a radio broadcast engineer.  That was in 1993 just before the big wave of consolidation and deregulation hit the radio industry.  I worked for dozens of call letter stations eventually ending up at WFAN, New York and my last hurrah in radio was building the new studios and transmitter site of WTEM Bethesda, MD. I briefly worked as a TV chief, but quickly shifted to project engineering at PBS, Fox, and Discovery. I now work for a systems integrator in DC area. I still wistfully look at very tall towers on mountaintops and in cow pastures, but don't miss my pager and enjoy having a life.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

I started my career in transmitter work with broadcast engineering at 3 small AMs and 2 FMs in the southeast. After EE degree, I transitioned into RF equipment design, for several B/C equip. manufacturers, then getting out of the broadcast (except for occasional moonlighters) biz in 1985 to get into industrial and later scientific RF. Money and benefits got a lot better. It was from a start in ham radio as a kid that got me interested, not the other way around. For the past 21 years, have been doing high power RF engineering for a large scientific facility where we have not one transmitter but 48 of them running 24/7, average power being a megawatt each (pulsed). We still use tubes for HPAs, so it all just scaled from ham 'linyeers". I finally got rid of my pager a few years back, as newbies are handling the call-ins, while the old man gets to develop and install the replacement systems. Unfortunately, working with RF transmitters daily for so long has spoiled my own interest in getting on the air, although I like to participate in the forum and discussions on AM with my fellow hams. Maybe when I retire from the salt mine.... 

It wasn't over night. It was a long and slow decline as W3NE well detailed. You also have to remember that RCA was a creation of the US government after WWI to keep foreign entities like Marconi from dominating the USA telecom market. Patents from many different companies were taken and used to form the IP of RCA, creating a monopoly or nearly so in some areas. From that start, RCA never learned how to compete. When it actually had to compete later, it was unable to do so.

Yeah, Steve,
Interesting, the rise and fall of another crony govt./biz corporation.  Some time I'll write of one in my business, oil and gas.  Suffice to say that Pres. Roosevelt commandeered all the surveys, leases and rights of way of one company that planned and layed out the original long line natural gas transmission of Texas producted gas to New York state and gave them to his brother who started a new co., Tennesse Natural Gas.  War Powers Act authorization, I suppose.

But outside of govt. inefficiency, now I wonder about the whole Rochester spectrum,- Kodiak, Zerox and B.& L., etc.  Guess they had a lot of govt. contracts for cash cows.

Well, Kodiak still lives in concept, the sale of below cost printers so you'll buy the very expensive cartridges.  This is the "Brownie" camera/film concept on steroids. 

Sorry to digress from orig. thread.
I do envy a lot of the careers illustrated; sounds like a lot of fun.  Through much of my career, regardless of positon or how high up, I hung around the comm., measurement  and two way guys as much as I could.  Kind of like Paul I "got some pulls" too including a lot of big Link stuff.

Paul, VJB, your broadcast writing experience explains a lot of stuff too....    ;D
Fascinating.  I enjoyed your pix with the van.  Was that really you?

RCA certainly knew how to compete from the get go! RCA-Victor phonograph records did pretty well even after the 45 rpm escapade. RCA was competitive in commercial overseas communications while SW RF transmission was the preferred mode. Remember also that it was David Sarnoff's NBC that was, to say the least, a major player in broadcasting. After the war RCA dominated the FM/TV antenna market (even to the end) and was leader until the mid-'50s in most aspects of broadcast equipment manufacture, sales and service.
 
Has anyone heard of RCA tubes? Were they competitive? They dominated the consumer, industrial, and military markets until the rise of solid state devices, and then RCA competed well in CMOS. The 807, 813 and a raft of competitive pre-war tubes drove Taylor and other manufacturers right out of business.

The 630TS was the monochrome receiver of choice in the early post war years of television, many manufacturers buying drawings, components or complete kits from RCA. The Corporation competed very well in home instruments, especially in color TV from the introduction of the RCA Color System under NTSC Specifications, until the end of the Sarnoff era. RCA did not just lie down when the FCC imprudently approved the incompatible CBS sequential color system. A huge investment was made in a compatible system that became adopted in similar forms by civilized countries around the world. Until that time 44BX and 70D mikes had a pretty exlusive track record, even against W,E,Co.

It was at the end of the David Sarnoff era that RCA began to falter for all the reasons previously described. Until then, however, RCA quite definitely knew how to compete in an industry where there were many other strong participants, e.g., GE, CBS, Sylvania, Zenith. Let's not hang the demise of the Corporation on the managers of its first thirty years of successful business!

Bob - NE

Have GROL will travel.  ;D

I received my 1st Class Commercial in 12/69 with Radar Endorsement and did a lot of AM/FM broadcast work and tugboat radar work in St. Louis in the 70's, and Kansas in the 90's.

In Kansas I did engineering work for mostly AM and FM stations which had both tube and solid state transmitters. I installed one of the first C-Quam AM stereo exciters in Kansas, a 10KW day/1kW nights country station.

Regarding RCA's CMOS technology: While at an aerospace company in St. Louis during the 80's (after receiving an additonal degree), I was on a team that developed radiation hardened military IC's based on RCA's CMOS-on-Saphire technology, which was very successful.


I enjoy reviving AM boatanchors and homebrewing. Currently restoring a Knight T-150, Knight R-100, and Eico 753.

Phil - AC0OB

My involvement with the broadcast industry was not directly as a broadcast engineer, but as a telecom engineer.  I worked for GTE, which later became Verizon.  I was the radio and video engineer for the GTE-Indiana company.  I was very closely involved with broadcasters in providing network feeds and remote pick-up services, as well as audio program circuits and studio to transmitter links.  I spent many hours in radio and TV stations, as well as at remote pick-up sites working closely with broadcast engineers.

Back in the day before satellites,  we provided video pick-ups via portable 6 GHz and 11 GHz microwave links to the nearest network node (usually AT&T tower locations).

One of our most interesting assignments was our annual provision of a video (microwave) pick-up from Terre Haute, IN covering the Tony Hulman dirt track races from the Vigo County fairgrounds for ABC-TV.  Tony Hulman, who was the owner of the Indy 500 Speedway, required that ABC carry these races as a condition of carrying the Indy 500.  We had to erect a 100 ft. tower at the race track and provide a portable microwave video link back to the AT&T tower in downtown Terre Haute.  Unfortunately, on one occasion a few days before the race, the contractor dropped the tower while erecting it and did considerable damage to the tower itself and some surrounding structures.  Boy, what a crisis!  Somehow we were able to locate another tower and get everything up and running before the race.  It was a blessing that no one was hurt and we were able to provide the network TV pick-up successfully.

We provided national network TV pick-ups from many locations throughout the state of Indiana, including most of the home football and basketball games at Purdue University, some nationally broadcast golf tournaments and other major events.  It was an exciting time.

Most of these pick-ups are now provided by satellite-TV trucks and also fiber optic cables and are relatively routine compared to the "good old days".

73,  Jack, W9GT

Jack that's a great illustration of how broadcast engineers get things done in the worst circumstances. In many instances it was/is a broadcast engineer's background in ham radio that assists him in, to some extent, surmounting emergency situations. The crucial role of local and regional support for network shows is seldom appreciated by anyone not at the site.

Bob - NE

Like many high school aged Hams,  my first paying real job was at a local AM BC station.  It was a fun job at a 250 watt small-town station.

Later,  when in college,  got the First Phone with Radar endorsement,  which allowed me to easily get a coveted Union job at KHQ TV - AM - FM,  the NBC affilliate in Spokane,  WA.  This was a show station owned by the local newspaper magnate.  Everything was top-drawer,  and of course,  all RCA,  as this was in the mid 1960s.  Another fun job that paid well.  Was part time,  so the contract specified that a kid like myself got paid a premium over all others who really knew what they were doing,  as PT work was discouraged.

Was able to pay my way through college with 16-20 hours of work per week,  and full time in the Summers for vacation releif.

Later when transferring schools,  was able to get a job at KIRO,  another nice gig.

Left broadcast in 1970 for engineering work in Silicon Valley,  which was fun,  too.

Assume that were it not for my High School having a Science teacher who was a Ham,  and formed a Club Hammie station at the HS,  might not have become a Ham.  And perhaps if not a Ham,  might not have gone into electronics.  So,  Hammie Radio has been very good to me.  AND,  the FCC,  with its requirement for a First Phone ticket to do real,  well paying work at Broadcast stations,  blessed me with a great career that was fun,  too.  Am glad that I left BC engineering when I did,  however.

Feel for the younger folks out there today,  where it is much more difficult in general,  to find good work that pays well,  with some prospect of it lasting for more than  6-12 months.  Great jobs still exist,  just not as many of them as in years past.   Opinions.  HNY  Vic

I was Chief Engineer at WOCB, built WSDH, KOTZ (in the Arctic) Manager, WNAC-TV, WQRC, built WSDH

Hi Bill,

Well, I don't know if I am really the best person to answer your questions.  I have been away from the microwave business for 20 years, or so.  I have not pursued microwave operation in amateur radio.

1.  Yes, there is a certain amount of surplus commercial and military microwave gear kicking around, but much of it is difficult to convert for use in amateur bands.  I had a scrapped Lenkurt 76A 6 GHz terminal which consisted of a receiver and a transmitter and some waveguide plumbing, but I ended-up selling it some years ago.  Many commercial users are hesistant to allow hams or other possibly "un-educated" experimenters to get their surplus equipment for fear of injury from misuse.  Some, less than brilliant people have been known to stare down the end of an open waveguide of an operating microwave transmitter.
2. I suppose you could use old analog microwave to carry some digital traffic if you had the necessary digital codecs/multiplexers.  GE and others produced inexpensive 23 GHz digital systems that would handle one or two T-1s.  There are probably a few of those kicking around the surplus market.
3. I have also seen the little GunnPlexer rigs...I do not have any experience with them, but they could provide a cheap and easy way to get a point to point link working for emcomm or any purpose.
4. I have no experience with satellites.

73,  Jack, W9GT

I worked in both radio and TV broadcast engineering for nearly 40 years. My latest gig was chief engineer for the Citadel cluster of AM and FM stations in Wilkes-Barre, PA, where I rebuilt their 40 year old Gates AM transmitter after it decided to self-immolate one spring morning. After eight years of service there, I was laid off in November, 2011, after Citadel was acquired by Cumulus Media. I am still looking for a job. I have a temporary clerical job with the Commonwealth of PA, but the pay sucks, there are no benefits, and I am not making enough money to live on. I don't go hungry...I have some chickens in a pen in the back yard and they provide me with plenty of eggs. I eat a lot of them every day. The bright side for the rest of you on this board: If I lose my home, there will be LOTS of AM broadcast gear up for grabs when I dismantle my station. There was no damage from Hurricane Sandy and everything still works.

Deregulation and consolidation have killed broadcasting as a career choice, as a handful of companies now own everything. But I want to get back into that field...it gets into your blood.

Phil K2PG

As Dinah Washington used to sing, "what a difference a day makes"! I now have two job possibilities in broadcast engineering for mid-January. Wish me luck!

Broadcast engineering is what got me back into AM on the amateur bands after a long hiatus. I used to be active on 2 meter AM from 1969 through the seventies. 145.1 was a hot frequency in the New York metropolitan area and I would chat there for hours. When the FCC expanded the FM repeater subband, that killed the AM activity on 2.

In 1997, I was working for a group of broadcast stations in NJ. The director of engineering asked me if I wanted a large Collins transmitter. It was a 20V, then used as the backup at WNNJ in Newton. I took a ride up there, immediately said "YES!", and, with the help of that station's chief engineer, painstakingly loaded the transmitter into the back of a Dodge pickup truck. Before doing that, I was removing the tubes and wrapping them in paper, the way I would wrap Christmas ornaments when taking the tree down. I ordered a crystal for 1885 and was soon on AM. I have been there ever since.

Phil K2PG

Great news, Phil!! 2013 should be a good year for me. I just turned 59 1/2. I remember just after the 2m sub-band expansion, a friend of mine was active on SSB and FM on 2m. One night, he got called by a station in Little Rock, AR who had a kW on 2m AM.I can't remember the call of the guy in AR( we were in north AL at the time).I wonde how many 2m kW stations are still around.I hink this guy's station was all homebrew.

When were you in Kotzebue Burt?   I worked out of there in the early 80's building schools and cold storage plants in the interior...KOTZ was the AM station to listen to..(sometimes the only) ...

One more for the count.  Just turned double-nickels a few weeks ago.  Currently I'm a field engineer for EMF Broadcasting (K-Love and Air-1 Christian music networks) covering WI, MN and the eastern Dakotas.  Even though I'm doing all FM work now, my previous job was three AMs- two directionals and a diplex and I still consider myself very much an AM guy.  Got the ham ticket when I was attending Northwestern Electronics Institute and working at the KSTP (AM) transmitter part time (back when larger stations still had attended sites for improved reliability) back in 1980.

That is great news Phil.  Good Luck - HNY.  73   Vic

My late father-in-law (now SK) was at RCA from about '61 until early 70's. First in southern
Ohio, then Camden, N.J. and leaving them after a stint in Indianapolis.
While at RCA, he acquired a few noteworthy patents, one for the 8-Track Tape player,
a Quadrophonic Phono Cartridge and then a speaker design...when cleaning out his
office last year, I ran across the patents, a 8-track player proto-type and a cartridge
proto-type!
He liked some of his work at RCA but left due to frustrations surrounding poor end-design.
"Pete" shared that their final designs were not very service-man friendly, and suffered
from QC...I guess that sums it up for RCA...I did also find an RCA CB radio!!! Probably should
put it on 10m AM :)

I was there in 1978 was Chief Engineer and manager. I visited there in 2003, saw Brad Reeve and Ernie Norton. I also taught at Kotzebue High School for the Northwest Arctic school district

I dabbled in broadcasting some in college in the frozen north country of Potsdam in the 70's. i started out as a weekend DJ for the FM station on campus WTSC, then got involved in the tech support for the carrier current station WNTC. Got my 2nd class and became a transmitter engineer with the privilege of XC skiing out to the transmitter shack a few times a week to take transmitter readings.  ;D  Later I got my first and radar endorsement. Having been a ham for about 7+ years at that point, I had more working knowledge of the hardware than many of the more senior folks at the station.

Some of those carrier current transmitters in the basements of the dorms over at the SUNY school in town would have made great AM rigs. I recall sets of 811's being modulated by 810's or some such and at least one that had an 813 in it. I think we had about 500 watts of carrier power out of some of them. We basically had one of those in each of the tower dorms on that campus and a number of minor ones scattered around town all tied together with phone lines.

There was a minor FCC flap a couple of years before I got there where 'somehow' one of the distribution feeds for a building accidentally managed to get coupled to a couple of acres of copper roofing on the old main building complex, which markedly improved the coverage. Apparently the FCC heard about it when someone about 150 miles away in the Hudson valley complained of interference with a local AM station. They were said to not be amused... :D

While I was in college I also worked for a manufacturer of land mobile radio equipment during the summers and all breaks and got to prototype handheld radio modules, mobile radios, and pagers and do most of the first article testing as an engineering tech as well as run our home brewed antenna test range. I also got to design test fixtures for the first major run of an electronic video game, Coleco's 'Pong' game on the run up to Christmas in 1975 or so. We built a zillion of those. I think I still have one of the pc boards in my junque pile. 

The engineers I worked with there passed on their knowledge and combined with my ham radio Elmers, equipped me with a working education in how radio and electronics worked which led to a career in electronics. My college courses were much less useful!

That career has involved VHF/UHF land mobile,  HF radio system engineering and construction, then a stint in specialty computer hardware, 10 years as a programmer for automated testing systems, then s shift into network video engineering including video conference systems and an early deployment of an IPTV system and now a focus on wireless networking at a large university.

A lot of my focus in the last 20 years has been to support in house production or capture of video for distribution on campus, though that has been spun off into another group now. But I'm often involved in engineering solutions that support things such as getting feeds out for campus sporting events, other special events, and any other special requirements such as a network feed for our 'hawk cam', including anything that involves RF (such as cellular DAS systems), up to 60 Ghz so far.  ;D

On the side I kept my hand in with some of the broadcast gear with a friend who was heavily involved supporting a local FM station, and working on the local club repeaters. Plus helping an ISP get started in wireless networking and building some of their longer wireless links.

All that early exposure to broadcasting and AM probably contributed to my interest in the AM segment of the hobby, although a lot of it comes from listening and talking to folks who actually know what goes on inside the boxes! And a lot of it comes from the magic of listening to AM radio, especially some of the clear channel stations on long winter drives to and from college. Though I dabbled for a while listening to FM in my rock and roll era, AM has always been the companion on the road.

And even though I've been captured lately by the 'smug' radios, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the warm glow and sound of tubes.

 

Wow, I never knew they ran that sort of power? I have a carrier current transmitter mfg by LPB and it puts out about 30 watts. I have hooked it up to a computer for audio feed and I can make it sound better than local BC stations. I need a matching network to drive the neutral line in the house. Some say your supposed to drive the "HOT" leg of the line?

During my first year at Penn State, all freshman had to stay in the dorms.   Since this was 1962, there were not many FM stations or FM receivers.   The dorms had lousy reception for AM, you could receive the one and only AM station broadcasting at night, and they didn't have the programming to satisfy our ages craving for rock music.     I converted an AM radio to an AM transmitter, cathode modulated the local oscillator with the receiver's audio stage.   We coupled it to the power line and were "on the air" throughout the half of the dorm building that was fed the power line.   PSU had a rule about not having transmitters in the dorms, but this was OK.    A few of us decided to go "nation wide", we set up a wire antenna, and built a tuner for the transmitter.   One cohort had every 45 that was popular at the time, his clothes closet was full of 45 rpm records and his clothes was piled up all over the rest of the dorm room.    He also had a good audio setup, and we added a microphone to the setup.    We used the call WBTW, the initials stood for an obscene phrase that was popular at the time.   We went on the air every evening and set up a request line.   We usually had whatever was requested.   Apparently we were heard all over a good part of the campus, that local oscillator must have been powerful.  Of course it was AM and FM at the same time.    After about a week of broadcasting,  three Penn State officials came in and put us off the air.    I was put on probation for the term and that ended my career in AM broadcasting.

Most LBP transmitters are designed to connect directly to the power line. 

Those that do have their own internal matching network, so there ought to be three 3AG fuses and a terminal strip inside.

One hot leg to each (120 or 240 or three-phase 208) and ground or neutral.

If you TX has just the 50Z output, you can get data from LPB on what they have in their external matching networks. 

They use toroids and fixed SM caps with a decade selector switch and SWR meter.

73DG

In 1974 I got my Advanced ham ticket, and 1st phone within a week of each other. I went in for the Phone 3rd class, part of my high school broadcasting class. So it was only a couple of dollars more to go for the 1st, so what the hell...I took that test cold...and passed! All those questions about towers and light regulations...had no idea, but eanie meanie miney mho worked well for me...Then as a Freshmen in college (Ferris State) I became the assistant chief engineer of WFRS, a carrier current station with 17 transmitters; one in each dorm boiler room.

These were mostly 5 watt LPB transmitters coupled into the dorm 3 phase grid. The LPB's had a pair of 6AD10's inside, and worked pretty well. There was a couple of home made rigs though with an 807 modulated by a pair of 6L6's. These were throttled back to 5 watts as well. Over Christmas break, I took one of those home, bridged the power supply, and made it a 50 watt (INPUT) transmitter. Added a little audio negative feedback, and the thing rocked at Kramer Hall (11 story dorm). I made a mistake though, and the output matching network had a 'Q' that was too high. The load varied from day to night, so dipping the plate was best done at dinner time. I remember going into the boiler room, and without turning on the light, I could see that red plate 807. I'd walk over there, and dip the plate for minimum red (no meter), and head out. I wonder what ever became of that rig over the year following my graduation....807's are tough, but not that tough.  ;D

I had a LP FM station as well my second year. Amazing how a transistorized modulated oscillator + PA (maybe 100mw input) got full campus coverage with a ground plane antenna on the dorm roof. The quality was decent too considering. This went on for a couple of months, taking calls through the dorm desk, and broadcasting every Saturday night. We called ourselves, WRFP "Radio Free Puterbaugh".

Jim
WD5JKO

I'm curious: did you find out what caused that?

Bill, W1AC

Yeah, the modern units all run around the power range and there's a lot more knowledge about how to build a good matching network for the line feed. The folks who had homebrewed those old carrier current systems in the late 60's or early 70's were using link coupling and a series cap as I recall - probably not very well matched, so add power! ("Antennas by Eimac" was a popular phrase back then) 

The big transmitters were only used in the major dorm towers. I think there were two or three of these big dormitory buildings on the SUNY campus, about 11 or 13 stories tall, with hundreds of rooms, so we needed a lot of drive to be heard well on the upper floors. For more normal residence halls, we had smaller transmitters with an 807 or 6146 in the final, probably running 50 watts or less.

It was a real kludge of a system that had grown organically through the years with various temporary staffers cycling through the school for a year or two till they lost interest and the next guys came along. I doubt by the time I was there that anyone had a system diagram of what was where. But it worked, and good enough is the enemy of better.   ;)

Since the load was the local grid, any and all devices on it varied the reactive component. 

As night fell, lighting loads changed and industrial equipment went offline.

All this played hob with trying to keep a match, so most CC units were designed to handle substantial VSWR.

73DG

Yes all those incandescent light bulbs, space heaters, etc. that came on in the evening changed the load as seen by the transmitter looking into the 3 phase building power.

Jim
WD5JKO

I did carrier current stuff back when I when I was in college, lots of dry pair phone lines to dorms and at that time we were using all solid state LPB transmitters and couplers in the dorms that were all in the boiler rooms connected to the big three phase panels. They were always connected to the high side of the lines and the grounds connected to the neutral or ground of the system. 20 and 50 watt transmitters were most common. Years later when I left full time broadcasting and started working full time for a university they at first had a carrier current system but they went to a LPFM and that works way better then the old carrier current systems ever did, now twenty years later do not think any of the kids today have any idea what or how to receive AM radio or maybe FM too. Although where I am working we have a 50 kW and  25kW NPR stations and a 100 w student run station all on FM think most kids today don’t listen to radio. In my other job for the Evil Empire I have an old LPB 50 watt transmitter that we have for a daytime only AM station (WJDY) as a backup transmitter. That station runs 5 kW daytime and a whopping 49 watts at night.  On this subject I have a technical question on something I cannot understand. Why is it on the old tube broadcast AM transmitters that they would always design such a stupid system for reduced power operation of switching in additional resistance into the output of the plate supply for operation in your nighttime or low power mode?  Example: you have a RCA 1 kW daytime transmitter and have to go to 250 watts at night so they would have a relay that dumps a huge amount of resistance in series with the output of the HV supply to reduce voltage to the PA and modulator. The transmitter still consumes the same amount of AC power and now produces a lower power output and a lot more heat output. I have a RCA BTA-1 that’s on 1.885 and wanted to run reduced power. The book tells you to stuff a bunch of resistance in series with the output of the HV supply but I did not want to do something like that so what I did was put a autotransformer on the input of the HV transformer and vary the HV that way with out dissipating lots of heat and wasted energy but often wondered why that was never the approach for broadcast service?

"The book tells you to stuff a bunch of resistance in series with the output of the HV supply but I did not want to do something like that so what I did was put a autotransformer on the input of the HV transformer and vary the HV that way with out dissipating lots of heat and wasted energy but often wondered why that was never the approach for broadcast service? "

Simple...it still had to make the distortion & noise specs called for by the FCC.

Really tough to pull a big, plate modulated rig down in power to 1/4 and make the operation still 'linear'.  It was found far simpler to just let the power supply run normal, drop it thru Ohms, and move the bias a bit on the modulators.

73DG

I grew up in Potsdam and Canton. My best friend's dad was Dave Cady the main DJ at WPDM. His son WN2VJZ now KK4DDT and I got our novices at the same time in the early 70's. He now has a DX station just outside Atlanta but we still do CW on 80M and he is still using an ARC-5 (like we had as novices) when we do QSO for nostalgia. I got my second class and actually thought of using it at WPDM or KSLU back when I was at ATC but never did go that way. Did you know Dave Chavaustie (a ham from Binghamton) or Lamar Bliss? both were at KSLU. 

Mike WU2D

I did a lot of broadcast work in the 1970's (high school) and through the early 1990's while with Motorola on the AM stereo project.  I have visited close to 500 broadcast facilities over my 35+ years worldwide and have worked on just baout everythign out there from a 10w shortwave transmitter in Canada to a 1MW water cooled composite linear in Hangzhou, China.  I am part owner of a small AM in central WI (now with a FM translator). 

I also worked on the NRSC committee in the 1980's; I proposed the NRSC pre-emphasis curve (modified 75uS) and the modified RF emissions mask that was adopted and is part of the current FCC rules 73.44 and 73.128.

Partial list of transmitters worked on:  Gates/Harris MW50 (various flavors), MW5/10, BC5P, BC10P, 250GY, 500, 1H, 1T (many more "1's), MW1, SX1, 2.5, and 5, Vangard (1kW linear), VP50, VP100, DX10, DX50, 3DX50; RCA BTA1R/1R1/1R2 / 1R3/ 1S, BTA5H, J, T, BTA50F (one of my favorites), 5, 10, and 50kW Ampliphase, the ill-fated BTA5SS; BTA250K, 250L, 250M, 500MX, Collins 20V/V1/V2/V3, 300G, 300J, 21E/M, 820D, 820E/F, Continental 828/314R, 316E/F (Grid modulated Doherty), 317B (Weldon Doherty), 317C/C1/C2/C3 (Sainton screen modulated Doherty - another favorite of mine), 318, 318.5,Bauer and copies at 1kW, 5kW (including a beast that had 4-1000s in mod and PA), a screen-modulated quad 4-400 1kW box from the early 1960's (forget the model number), Nautels of all flavors from the P400 up to the big 50kW's (love the P-400; wish i could find one to purchase), other odd-balls like McMartin 1 and 5kW, AEL 50kW in Sundbury, Ont., Raytheon RA250 and RA1000, Western Electric water and air-cooled rigs, Westinghouse 50kW, and many many more. 

This was a unique chance that I am forever greatful for.  The project was mildly successful for a while but it gave me the chance to meet and work with some of tehfinest in broadcasting:  Bob Orban or Orban Associates, Ron JOnes and Gary Clarkson of CRL, and Mike Dorrough of course.  I learned audio from some of those greats as well as golden ears like Gregg Oganowski, Ed Butterbaugh, and many more.  On the trasnmitter side, I worked and traveled with Joe Sainton and Jimmy Weldon at Continental, Jack Sellmeyer, formerly of Collins and Cintinental Electronics, Hilmer Swanson at Harris, J Fred Reily and Dave Hirshburger of Harris and CE fame, and my mentors form Motorola:  Frank Hilbert and Norman Parker.  I also was able to meet Leonard Kahn - not always int eh best light, but I certainly met him!  There are so manhy other broadcast people that I met and worked with - so many of them were mentors to me.

I also must mention others also still with us:  Stand Salek of Hammett and Edison and Jim Carollo of WGN radio in Chicago. 

So...did I ever work as a CE for a radio station?  Other than the one I have shares in, no.  But, I certanly had the experiences of a CE!

Greg, in all your travels, did you ever come across a Friese Audio Pilot?  If so, I'd like for you to comment on what you thought of it and how well it worked given its time in history.  Hope you have more stuff for sale at Dayton.  tnx

Rob

Do tell !

I've been involved with a handful of them, from Ser. No. 22 through Ser. No. 147.

Stories?   I mean, besides burnt-out tuning motors and broken tape measure pushrods.

: )

Shown here, configured as a boat anchor.

(http://amwindow.org/pix/jpg/300gmmobile.jpg)

Nice picture. That transmitter looks awfully familiar! WUST didn't care about it enough to buy new tubes for it, though -- I bet it sounds better now than it did when the Voodoo Healing Hour was being transmitted through it. (By the way, what rig were you on last night on 75 meters? It didn't sound like the 300G.)

I began my broadcast career in 1975 by hanging out at Washington-area Top-40 legend 1390 WEAM with Morgan Burrow, WB4BSI, who was then the CE. He had replaced Ed Buterbaugh, and in 1978 I would replace him. I really loved the RCA BTA-10U2 main transmitter there. A custom-ordered 10,000 Watt unit running at half power, it had tons of clean audio -- it could modulate about 200 per cent. positive effortlessly.

I also did several stints at the competition on the other side of town, WPGC AM and FM Morningside.

Later I did independent consulting and eventually became senior engineer at Multiphase Consulting. I doubt I can remember all the stations I did work for! WMJR 107.7, WHFS 99.1, WMET 1050, Radio Marti, WUST, WYCB, WEEL 1310, WNAV 1430, WYRE 810, WETA 90.9, WGTB 90.1, WPFW 89.3, WANN 1190, WKDW 900, WUSQ 610 and 102.5, WLMD 900, WPIK 730, WRQX 107.3, WAVA 780 and 105.1, WCXR 105.9, WEZR 106.7, WLTE 94.7, WBZE 1030, are just a few that come to mind.

If it weren't for the influence of the hi-fi AM gang on 75 meters, I never would have entered the field, had all those experiences, or learned all that radio and audio science and magic.

Here's a picture of me taken in the WEAM studio in May 1984. I'm the one who looks like a young kid (I was 27).

Time passes!

73,

Kevin, WB4AIO.

I have enjoyed reading the remarks in this thread - thank you for sharing.

Since the thread has morphed somewhat into nonengineering radio types, I'll note that I put some time in on the air side of things starting as a DJ at KMCD 1570 AM in Fairfield, Iowa and when the newsman quit I was asked to take his spot. I was newsman at KBIZ 1240 AM Ottumwa, Iowa, anchor/reporter for Missourinet, a statewide commercial news network based in Jeff City, Missouri owned by Learfield Communications.  It was a privilege to know the Learfield engineers. They were very knowledgeable, capable, and when I was there in the 90s they were all hams. I also worked as an anchor/reporter for WDEL AM Wilmington, Delaware, anchor for CNN Radio in Atlanta, and finally anchor for ABC Radio Networks. I anchored from the Washington, DC bureau on DeSales Street and occasionally from NYC on West End Avenue. The ABC engineers I knew were top notch. I was fortunate to leave ABC as the Citadel implosion loomed. Others were not so lucky, but I hope they landed on their feet.

A new engineer for KMCD in the 80s, Mark McVey, also climbed the tower. Mark had built several stations for a group owner.  One of his first tasks was to figure out how to tune the mistuned shunt fed grounded tower, a problem he discovered. If I recall correctly, he had to try different locations on the tower to find the right match.  He knew I was a ham so one day he took me to the tower site to show me the Gates AM transmitter. I don't remember what the FM transmitter was, but I do remember it was purchased used from Iowa State University. I recall being there another time when he climbed the tower to install an STL antenna so the station could get rid of the studio to transmitter phone lines. I think Mark reflects the great small market radio engineers - and what they don't know they figure out how to do the right way, sometimes facing tight budget constraints. He would make a great ham operator.

In my opinion, the "talent" side of broadcasting is the engineering side.

Heya Brad -- it's a wonder we haven't crossed paths !

Good to see ya.

(http://www.w4ava.org/nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/k4rt-17aug2012_Snapseed.jpg)

Greg, was it a Wilkinson, the 1 kW AM with 4-400As?

Kevin, I remember visiting WEAM in the late 1970s when I was working with John Bissett at Delta Electronics, and meeting you. You had some interesting telephone devices too.

Yes, we had a lot of fun in those days, and the sacred Bell System landlines were fodder for occasional experimentation too. The PBX in WEAM's basement "phone room" was the size of two BC-610s!

A few years later I would go on some C-QUAM AM stereo exciter install trips for Delta. John Bissett was one of the founders of Multiphase.

Nice to reconnect after all these decades, John.

With my best,


Kevin, WB4AIO.

Hi Paul - I got that Apache from Al W1UX.  I'm planning to use it in the upcoming AM Transmitter Rally - maybe we'll have a QSO!  I think my friend Dave WA3GIN recently mentioned your call sign - maybe you had a QSO with Dave.

73,
Brad

Heard Dave on 40 meters a few days ago working DX with his three element Yagi.

Dave has three full-size elements on that 40 yagi. I think he built it using parts from an old 20 meter monobander and irrigation tubing.

Yep. Very nice. The JAs have been coming through on the long path in the afternoons lately. Lots of fun.

OK...I'll chime in......

I am a broadcast engineer. Started in radio at Tulane when they were ending their carrier current days and moved to TV in the 1980s. Currently working for a large station in Boston, and it keeps me quite busy. It does make me a bit tired to work on ham radio, but the broadcast engineering field is getting farther away from any connection to traditional radio that I enjoy the older analog radio and audio.

Greg: good to see you here. You seem to have had a very interesting career. We should chat again about your audio processing work.

Good photos of Brad and Paul.

73,
Dan
W1DAN
Natick, MA

While it has been a BBlongggg time since I checked into AMfone I was delighted to see all of the comment about broadcash engineers on AM.
My interest started from the warm soft glow of the vacuuuuum toobs in the back of my mothers kitchen radio , A Zenith model , I borrowed the radio to study it and listen to it. I found radio programming of the time to be a bit dull and boring. Then I discovered rock and roll(1957 time frame) The music was relatively new at the time. I started to collect radios I would strip them for parts if they did not work. It was a few years later that I replace an electrolytic in an old RCA  all American 5 bakelite cabinet radio in 1959. That cured the hum. Wow Man!, I can actually FIX something for a change. I had that radio up until the fire of '92. I also knew what Ham radio was. I always wanted to be into an activity to meet up with others that shared my passion in radio. By the time 1964 rolled around I finally figured out how to make a transmitter. I used parts from old TV sets. The horizontal sweep tubes made great PA stages as well as modulators. I came up with a set of call letters,WTIM which I discovered had been assigned to a station in Taylorville,Ind. I changed the call letter to WXNZ. I consulted with Whites Radio long in a 1962 edition of Electronics Illustrated. I also found that 1200 Kc. was a clear channel here in the north east. I used that frequency for years on and off. Through High school I met a fellow student who had his own little pirate station in his bedroom. He was using a Lafayette radio broadcaster. It was a screen modulated 50BM8. I changed it to plate modulation. We soon built a studio in his parents basement. He built the 4 channel mixing board and an audio amplifier that ended up with a pair of 6L6s in the outpoot. All schematics adapted from the RCA receiving tube manual. I built the transmitter. A 5881 oscillator driving a 6146. The modulator was the 6L6 audio amp. The radio"BUG" had really bitten me. There was a ham on the street corner near where my friend lived. I eventually knocked on the door of his hamshack. The gruff old buzzard seem annoyed . When he saw that I was interested . he showed me around. I guess you could say he became my"Elmer" He was a staunch AMer. Yep , Old Buzzard Dana, K1EAM . In the Summer of 1966 I took my broadcast call of WXNZ added a W1 transposed the letters a bit and came on 75 meter AM under the call sign of W1NXZ.I took the transmitter I had built from old TV set parts changed the tank components  to a multiband HF transmitter and I was on the air with the "Crapbox 40" It was painfully obvious to some people that I was a"boot" . I slid up to 40 meters where the whole mentality was different. I got away with it for a while. I knew I would have to  buckle down and learn CW. After being on 75 in Sept of '66 I was talking to an old buzzard. Cleo, K1ZJK. He seem innocuous and laid back. He did want to call me to call him on the phonium. He said he knew I was a boot and wanted to help me get my ticket. He taught code and theory classes at his home. Cleo was and old Navy guy. He came over to the house with a reel to reel tape machine with code practice tapes. I had a reel to reel machine as well. I made a copy of his tape. I practiced dilligently. In Feb of 1967 the call sign of WN1HLR was assigned. It sure was a stretch learning the ins and outs of CW operation. The "Crapbox 40" using cathode keying worked well. By Sept'67 I finally passed the general and got on 75 and joined the ranks. Being in high school one ponders what one is going to do when they graduate. I thought seriously of enetring the field of broadcash engineering. My Elmer Old Buzzard Dana suffered a stroke and was taking time off from work. I would visit with him frequently on my way to the train station. The last two years of my schooling was at a prep school in Boston. Old buzzard Dana had a re-occurrence of his stroke He passed away,,,sitting on the crapper. I helped with the disbursement of his equipment and parts. I wound up with one of his books. The  Rider manual for the FCC commercial exams. I studied all aspects of the theory and practice of the text.
In 1970 I was living in Allston,near Boston. I took public transportation to the Customs house Went up to room 1600, home of the Boston office of the FCC and took my test. There were a few false starts but I passed it. The FCC was well aware of my hell raising on ham radio. In the waiting room many people were waiting for their verdicts, Pass or Fail. A pall of smoke from people smoking cancer sticks hung in the air. The secretary calls out my name and tells me that the Engineer in charge wanted to see me. Everybody looks at me while I got up from my chair and head into into his office. I expected to get chewed out again. Instead I was greeted by a handshake and a congratulations on passing my First Class Radio Telephone License. I was so happy!. He also said that If I needed a job he might be able to help out. I was honored . As it was a friend of mine had a part time shift job at WMEX at their transmitter site in Quincy ,Ma. Back then many site were still manned. He got me a part time job which later turned into a full time job. I lasted about a year and 3 months The owner of the station passed away. The Chief Engineer became in full control of hiring and firing. He was not too enamored by my style ,,,so I was removed from the gene pool. After collecting unemployment and later entering the electronics industry working for H.H.Scott in Maynard Ma. It lasted about 3 months , Then the company went bankrupt. I hated it. As my life had changed and I had a woman in my life and the unemployment candle was burning low I went on a job search. I wound up becoming CE at WMLO in Danvers ,Ma. 1973. The transmitter was a Gates BC500 -T It was a 2 tower directional array day only. I did bring over a transmitter and load up one of the towers. I used the main studio and the audio processing equipment to feed the audio driver. I was on the air on 75. I was quite effective. I do emember talking to Paul WA3VJB using his 32-V transmitter. I lasted there 1 year and 7 months. The general manager and I always seemed to be at war. Having a licensed first phone operator was crucial to his operation. The FCC required it. I performed may different tasks from running proof of performance measurements to paperwork trying to keep track of operating and maint .logs a big hassle for me. I even mowed the lawn, Fixed the clogged terlit that the GM clogged up. I started covering the board after 6Pm when daylight hours were extended in Feb of 74. The Arab oil embargo hit. The GM said "Play some jazz" I had 10 minutes to fill from the tail end of Mutual news til sign off. I place an Emerson ,Lake ,and Palmer disc on the turn table. The GM came storming in. I told him ELP is jazz/rock it is instrumental music . He told me to take it off. I told him to take a hike. If I was going to be on the air I am going to do what I want. I started walking for the door. He said OK,All right. The TimTron Radio Show was born. I figured I had something more to do with my life other than just engineering and janitorial services. There are many more tales from this crypt. I got the can in Feb 1975. They hired another guy. Within a couple of months all of the equipment started breaking down including the transmitter. They were off the air and the yahoo the hired could not fix any of it. Poetic justice. Back to the unemployment line I went. I took a year sabbatical. I found employment in Maine with a group of stations WSKW, WTOS, and eventually,WPNO. The word stared getting around that there was the new young "hippie" engineer who has unconventional ways and methods of making thing work and run reliably for little money . I had much work. I had move to Mechanic Falls in the beginning. A year later I moved to Skowhegan,Maine.This is my current place of being. I have been involved with the group of stations in the area on and off for years.Still am even though I am semi-retired. In 1990 I built WHQO a class A fmat my property. The CP was not mine, I wish it was. !n 1991 I started doing consulting engineering for Armstrong transmitter near Syracuse N.Y. Gary W2INR lived down the road and worked there part time . The owner of the company was over at Gary's hamshack . I was on the air with my 4-1000 transmitter. The question put to Gary was" Can this man fix transmitters?" I got a phonium call. I started work out there. I resserected  transmitters of all makes and models. My specialty became converting 50Kw AM broadcast transmitters to short wave broadcash service. These were bought by various Bible Beaters to broadcash their point of view. I traveled much. I did many transmitter installations as well a fix problems that others could not. It was quite the learning and hands on and doing experience.By 1999 the business was winding down. Broadcashers wanted solid state transmitters. Armstrong Transmitter went into the direction of selling new equipment. At that time I had gotten involved with helping Allan Weiner who had a construction permit to build WBCQ. I got his modified  MW 50 to work on 7415. Allan kept banging on me to come and work for him and help him run the station. I got free airtime as well. In Oct of 1999 Radio Timtron Worldwide started broadcashing. I did what I wanted and NO BODY had any say over what I did. I shortly phased out of Armstrong Transmitter and semi retired except for working for Allan on a part time basis. And now thanks to computer control the station does not need the intensive labor to run it. So here I sit mostly retired doing my thing. No, broadcash engineering has not made me much money 'unless I am in the consulting mode'  I look back through the years and I am very grateful for the direction that my life has taken me. The melding of Amateur radio. Building transmitters  and working in the broadcash industry. When I passed my First 'fone license I considered it my college diploma. In the spirit of de regulation in 1984 it became no longer necessary   to hold the license. Renewal for it was a month away from when the requirement was deleted . I just said "Screw it!" I was disappointed. As it is I see many changes afoot. Radio Broadcash services are on the decline. There are many new avenues to listen to music and news and other audio services. Radio has shot itself in the foot with the big conglomerations. The homoginization of playlists Music formats boiled down to the lowest common denominator. Too many commercials punctuate the mix. If radio is to survive it has to re-invent itself. The knowledge posessed by today's radio amateur radio operator and skill set are all the further removed from broadcash engineering. The emphasis is on digital theory. The people that are out there that can do broadcash engineering are much fewer and far between. The money is just not there anymore.
Tim WA1HnyLR

I had this weird text-to-voice conversion going on in my head while reading that, Timmy.

REALLY enjoyed the story and that you took the time

rrrawwwk

Wow, what a story, Tim -- thank you.

You said: "When I passed my First 'fone license I considered it my college diploma. In the spirit of deregulation in 1984 it became no longer necessary to hold the license. Renewal for it was a month away from when the requirement was deleted. I just said 'Screw it!' I was disappointed."

I felt the same way. Regardless of the fact that the dumbed-down System doesn't even allow it to be renewed anymore, I still hold P1-24-11461, and it still means what it always did, no matter what they say.

73,

Kevin, WB4AIO.

Fantastic story Tim.  I knew some of it but the extra details filled in the blanks for me!  I will never forget that visit to GMS Radio when I was just a JN back in 67! 

Thanks for taking the time to document your walk through life! 

Joe, GMS

Thats quite a message.


I'm still wondering about the "p**s into the mine shaft" recording/effect from the70s'.

klc

Yes,   great stories,  all.

Thanks Tim for the detail --  quite a life.

The First Phone sure was my Ticket to Ride!  Thanks,  Vic

I started out in broadcasting in 1970 and have worked as talent and engineer/chief engineer across the US.
On-air talent in OKC, Denver, KC, Chicago, Dallas and many more. Chief (or was that cheap) Engineer in pretty much the same markets.
My AM transmitter experience ranges from Collins 20E, General Electric XT-1A, Collins "Power Rock", Collins 317C, Gates MW-5, Harris DX-50,DAX-50 and Nautel NX-50. Directional antenna systems from basic 4 tower up through the "legendary" 12 tower monster at ex-KLIF 1190 in Dallas.

Recent hobby work/restorations include Western Electric 451A, Gates BC1t/g and H. RCA 250m, 1R, 1R3, 1L and a couple of more. I enjoy the "quality" warmth you get when using tube consoles (RCA/GATES) vintage tube processing (RCA/GATES) followed by a vintage tube transmitter..
73

Paul...That picture of the Van and the guy sitting out in the open needs an explanation...Please?

That was taken a few years ago.  The van is the "Mini Mobile Music Maker" that the radio station would park at an event. The DJs would do their show live from there, playing records & commercials and sometimes also having someone like me doing the news "on location."

These days a remote broadcast might consist only of a DJ phoning in their promotion of the client's event, with the rest of the show coming from the main studio.

The guy in the shot is me.

On this particular day, it was nice out and the morning DJ and I thought it would be a great idea to power up the van and have class outside.  We are right near the main station house, with an extension cord for power coming out the back door, and an audio line dropped back to an input on the station's main board.

So he did his show and I did the news, with the sound of birds and tree frogs authenticating the broadcast when the mics were open.

Next to my right foot is an air monitor, a battery powered Potomac Instruments unit that the engineering department would ordinarily use to measure field strength.  

The car is a 1970 Datsun Roadster 2000, the first one I had of the overhead cam, 135hp variety. Here, it has a removable hardtop on it. Car/top long gone. That's my first Datsun, a 1968 1600. I didn't remember having the hardtop on it at any time, but there it is.  Later put it on the 2000, which was missing its convertible top frame. Went back to another example (1969) of the roadster 1600 overhead valve in 1984 and still have it, only with the drop top.

A rather interesting car for a news cruise.

Last month I thought of that car when I was on stakeout at the home of Edward Snowden's mother. She lives in what would have been WLMD's broadcast area, very close to an intersection where I "sold" air time to the owner of a gas station.  My supervisor said if I could sell advertising time in exchange for gasoline, I could use the gas to fill my car for newsgathering.  

Imagine, years later, here I am on stakeout, happening to be in my own car (again), and seeing that corner where I used to fill up a news cruiser from an earlier time (like, before Snowden was born).

Hey Kevin, just chattering away here on this resurrected thread.
Kevin were you at WEAM when Johnny Dark did remotes at the Tops drive-ins? "Tops Telequest time" The music came from the studio.
And you say you were also at WPGC, the loudest ( worst audio) AM/FM station on the B'cast bands. Did you maintain that secret? or did they do away with those daisy-chained processors??

Fred

Ha, no... I was a WEAM listener then, though. I'd estimate that time period as 1964-1968, when I was nine to twelve years old. I first walked in the door at WEAM in 1975 and became chief engineer in 1978.





I was at WPGC from 1976 to 1978 under the great long-haired, wild-eyed, and Jaguar-XKE-driving Milford K. Smith.

When I first arrived the FM was running (and slamming) a pair of the legendary Teletronix LA-2 optical limiters into a modified stereo Volumax and CCA tube-type exciter. Later they went to hot-rodded Dorrough 310s into a modified Orban 8000. The AM side ran a modified DAP into a Urei EQ, BL-40 Modulimiter, and Harris "Modulation Enhancer" clipper. Both AM and FM shared a massive EMT plate reverb mounted behind the transmitters.

They had a unique sound. It was cleaner than you'd expect for the huge amount of processing they used, and pleasant in its own way. I admit they didn't sound "high fidelity," but they were, well... awesome.

At WEAM, I used an LA-2 into a Lang PEQ equalizer and heavily modified Solid Statesman limiter into our amazing RCA BTA-10U2 10kW transmitter running at 5kW. Later the LA-2 was replaced by an LA-3 and I added a modified Dorrough 310. For a microphone processor, I used a hot-rodded tube-type CBS Labs Audimax to which I had added an RCA tone control circuit right out of the RCA vacuum tube handbook. I never stopped using the Solid Statesman limiter; liked it a lot. What fun.

73,

Kevin, WB4AIO.