VOA

[TedN]

Had a short QSO with mike at VOA, Washington DC, 14.225Mhz, usb, 9:14pm cst. I had the radio on while doing other things and was in a hurry, but I believe he said that he is an intern at VOA and stumbled across their amateur station. Any one know what equipment the amateur station at VOA has? And Yes I know this is not a “sb” board, just thought the contact was a little nostalgic.

73

Ted / KC9LKE

[w3jn]

Riceboxes, IIRC.  The Department of State also has a ham club station - W3DOS.  We had a bunch of TenTec stuff donated by our communications guys, who had bought it for some reason, and gave it to us when their project ended.  Also have a bigassed HF log periodic up.

[k4kyv]

Do they still transmit from continental US?  I haven't heard them on the air for what seems like years.  And they just recently trashed the Delano, CA facility.

[Grant]

  Speaking of VOA, here is what happened to the Bethany, Ohio Relay Station north of Cincinnati in 1997. I was there the day the towers came crashing down and it was not a pretty sight. Many hams, traveling I-75 stopped to see the facility on their trips to and from the Dayton Hamvention in years past. I think WC8VOA has a website for history and current status of the property.

[k4kyv]

I can't see why they were in such a hurry to dismantle the towers after all those years.  They could have first tried to auction them off to anyone willing to take them down instead of crashing them.  The large structures might have been too much to attempt, and probably worth more as scrap metal than standing, but as I recall there were what looked like hundreds of short towers 200' high or less that would have been worthwhile to disassemble rather than just letting crash to the ground.

Where was Dale, VE3AAM when we needed him?

[John K5PRO]

When the guv'ment (congress) cuts funding for projects, say to move the funding to another program (like beefing up their internet streaming audio), sometimes they do very bizarre things. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they had those towers destroyed to prevent someone in VOA from somehow lobbying and getting HF comms back into the funded state.

This is a real phenomina! I have seen it happen and was flabbergasted when gov't had a facility disabled before they would fund the replacement facility. I am not certain this is what happened for VOA, but it wouldn't surprise me that it came from IBB this way. Another possibility was to remove them from liability, if someone were to later end up with one of the towers.

Gads, would love to have a curtain dipole array like that!
 

[k4kyv]

Another possibility was to remove them from liability, if someone were to later end up with one of the towers.

I had a wannabe AM'er call me on the phone about 15 years ago asking for ideas about finding a broadcast transmitter.  He told me he had located a decommissioned kilowatt transmitter somewhere in AZ or NM, with a pair of 833A's modulated by another pair.  He tried to acquire it, but the station manager was so worried about possible liability over PCB, that he wouldn't give it away or sell it at any price.  Instead, he planned to have a licensed hazmat disposal company come and remove the transmitter from the premises, and haul it to a hazardous waste landfill.  So the guy asked if he could strip the tubes and open-frame modulation, power and driver transformers from it before it was hauled off, but the manager said absolutely not.  There was no way to convince him that any component that had ever been mounted inside the transmitter cabinet wouldn't somehow be permanently contaminated with deadly PCB's, and he was concerned that the station might face liability years in the future if anyone took away any part of that transmitter.  Every transformer, tube, meter, screw and washer had to go to the landfill.

I suspect the station paid a pretty penny to have something as heavy as a broadcast transmitter hauled by licensed professionals to a hazmat disposal facility.

[John K5PRO]

If the station management was that flipped out over PCB-phobia, then they got what they deserved, from the haz-mat hauler.

When I lived in Delaware before 1992, I was one of the last houses on the block who hadn't removed my asbestos siding and replaced it with vinyl or metal. I went around to all the other 'remediated' homes, and asked for their scrap pieces, so that I could paint them and use them for my cracked or missing panels. To deal with the stuff, i ran a water hose on it while I sawed it, no dust. When I got quotes for new siding, I was SHOCKED. The siding installer wanted to wear white suits and masks, hire a special closed dumpster, and I think at the time it was to cost me $10K extra. I sold the house intact with the siding a few years later, not my problem anymore. I left them a nice collection of spare panels, that were perfectly usable if the old ones started falling off.

[Opcom]

I have asbestos. It's as best as anything else. It never goes bad..

[k4kyv]

They also used to make asbestos shingles for the roof.  Lasted much longer than the asphalt  crap most houses use to-day.

I re-roofed a little less than a year ago.  Went to metal.  The house is noticeably cooler this summer than I remember from before.  It's been getting into the 90's almost every day for the past month or so, and I have turned on the downstairs air conditioner twice.  As I recall in years past, I turned it on every day to make the temperature bearable.  I set the one upstairs to 80º F and it keeps those rooms comfortable.

I happened to stand at just the proper angle with the sun, and I can see why.  The light reflected off the roof was almost blinding.  The old roof was charcoal grey asphalt.  All that radiation that is now being reflected away used to be absorbed by the shingles to raise the temperature.  And the finish on the metal panels is not even a lighter shade.  It is dark green.

Next year the IRS will give me a substantial tax break on the cost of the roof because of its purported energy saving capability.

As far as PCB, I probably have 10 gallons of the stuff stored away in various oil capacitors and a few oil filled transformers I have here.  As long as the building doesn't burn down, it's no big deal.  When PCB burns, it is reported to turn into some nasty stuff.

[ve6pg]

..DON...SPOKE TO DALE, VE3AAM SOME MONTHS BACK...SEEMS HE'S GONE  "UP COUNTRY"....OUT IN THE BACKWOODS, OFF THE GRID, DOIN' THE BACK TO THE LAND THING..THE HELL WITH SOCIETY, GOVT., ETC...TIM...

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

..DON...SPOKE TO DALE, VE3AAM SOME MONTHS BACK...SEEMS HE'S GONE  "UP COUNTRY"....OUT IN THE BACKWOODS, OFF THE GRID, DOIN' THE BACK TO THE LAND THING..THE HELL WITH SOCIETY, GOVT., ETC...TIM...

Heh, yeah - last time he was on the air a bunch of us gave him the ol' what-fer (a bit of his own past attitude and antics, basically) because he was running a mobile ricebox and was pissweak. He was still trying to talk like big, bad Dale, but the signal was unconvincing. Plenty of guffaws, haven't heard him since.

Did he finally scrap all of his BC stuff, Tim? He'd been threatening to do so for a while.

[ve6pg]

...as far as i know, everything is gone...his leased commercial space is occupied by someone else....tim...sk..

[Tom WA3KLR]

On April 11, 2007 I made a post on Dale called "Channel Chatter - Dale VE3AAM"

"A few evenings ago I heard Dale VE3AAM on 75 AM quite late.  I don't remember who he was in QSO with now, but Dale said that he is retiring (at the ripe old age of 48).  He is selling the shop and some gear there.  There may be some good Tx acquistions available. 

He is buying a 100 acre property in Ontario, so he says.  He is picturing having an annual fest there and has invited the AMers, even the AMericans to this new shindig he would like to establish with your help."

The posting is:

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=10831.0

[ve6pg]

..hey tom...
..well, dale joined a bunch of us, on 3725, i think back in march..not sure...he was telling us of battery power, wind generation, and if needed, he has a generator...i think he was on a rice-box, running at 12vdc....have not herd him since...seems to me, he is somewhere east of peterborough, ontario....as i said, he said he was off the grid, and had no intentions of hooking up house ac....sk...