The AM Forum

I took a Bucket list trip out to Montauck yesterday, on my way to pick up my eldest from a year in China at JFK at 5 am this morning.

I saw this huge deserted tower and transmitter building on the way out in  Napeague Meadow East Hampton, NY 11937 coordinates 40.998329, -72.052070

Anybody know what this was for?

Carl
WA1KPD

WEGB a religious fm station is the only license I could find for that area.

Not sure if they are defunct or not,  though


--Shane
KD6VXI

This one looks very deserted....
The windows in the transmitter building, on a swamp, are all busted out.

A quick Google found this:
The Mackay Radio Tower is the last of two towers (originally 300 feet (91 m) high and 1,000 feet (300 m) apart) that were used to transmit international point-to-point radio communications starting in 1927. At the height of World War II the tower was used for responding to upwards of ten SOS calls a day from ships at sea. The tower had somebody on site 24 hours a day, but the actual transmissions were keyed from Southampton. The towers toppled during the Great 1938 Hurricane.

The Mackay towers were decommissioned in 1984, and its underlying land is now part of Napeague State Park. One of the towers was torn down. The remaining tower is used for communication purposes by the New York State Police. Its flashing white lights are visible throughout coastal areas of East Hampton.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Napeague-tower.jpg/375px-Napeague-tower.jpg)

and then there's this guy that is several miles to the east.  

http://tinyurl.com/jcpnhkf

The wife and I were out there cruising around and I saw this in the distance. It's an old SAGE radar sight in Hero state park. One can see the antenna for miles around.  

Come to a Jersey hamfest and you can stand under this baby:

(http://www.arrl.org/images/view/News/TLM-18%20Dish.jpg)

and sell under it too:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9-HqV8JzNBc/UZgHQwy9l_I/AAAAAAAAEwE/QeG07syqGSc/s1600/OMARC2.jpg)

Pete, Where is that antenna located?

Looks to me like the one in Wall, NJ...

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=wall%20nj%20radio%20dish&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:2&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=40185163,-74057363,187&tbm=lcl&rlfi=hd:;si:8732556164856713146

Science Museum 2201 Marconi Rd, Wall Township, NJ 07719

That was used for tracking satellites in the late 50s and early 60s, including TIROS.

I've seen the huge dish antenna in motion. Cool stuff if you're into VHF/UHF stuff. The antenna was on the air January 9 and 10, 2016 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Project Diana.

Project Diana made the first EME contact in 1946. This was the original antenna. The concrete base is still at the location.

(http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/Images/CS07/cs07p28al.jpg)

Here are two You Tube videos commemorating the event. You might even see faces you know:

An Intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdrtnFlIKRI

The Special Event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEYAz2_Rz0c

We got a lot of cool stuff in Jersey  :D

Ah, a little one. I see ones larger than that every day.

If you look closely on the legs of that tower there is a small sign:

"Connect Shunt Feed Here"


         ;D

                 _-_-bear

Remember the days of parametric amplifiers?
Long live the dewar, et. al.

Visited The Big Ear array north of Columbus on a physics field trip from Marietta College in 1963.  Also went to Perkins Observatory, but the big 60 in.scope was gone, been moved out west, I believe to Lowell Obs., Flagstaff. All that was left in that huge dome was a little 30 inch reflector, photometric only as the mirror figure was too coarse for decent imaging.

Also toured OSU's cryogenic lab on that trip. They were investigating absolute zero attainment by using nuclear magnetic resonance of paramagnetic salts.

There you are, "para" as a useful prefix twice.
Oh to be young again. ;)

Carl, I think Joe/PJP use to work there at one point maintaining SP-600s and other goodies. He doesn't get on here as much anymore with the two little ones taking up his time, but I'll ask him about it. I bet he can shed some light on it. If it's the same place, I can recall one story about the day the scrappers pulled all the SP-600s and threw them into a dump truck. Ouch.

Hi Rich,
I worked on parametric amplifiers systems back in the early 70's at Comtech Labs on Long Island NY. I would think these are still in use on some systems. One of ones I worked on was for NRAO in Greenbank WV. It was a 14-15 GHZ system for there large radio telescope.

Steve
WA2TTP

I also worked with parametric amplifiers in the 1960's, some cryogenically cooled, some with thermoelectrics, and some room temperature. I was with Collins Radio and we dealt with AIL, Comtech, LNR, Sperry, and a couple of others that I cannot recall at the moment.

Steve, we probably missed each other by a year or so, or maybe not.

Jim W5COA
in Texas