Wanted: Pics of Collins 20V-3 Transmitters

[tnlance]

Hello,

I know this is a silly request, but how many of you have a Collins 20V-3 your using on the Ham Bands? If so, I would like to get a picture of your Collins 20V-3, just the front of it, turned on with the meters in operating mode and the tubes glowing.

The last tube transmitter I used at my AM Commerical Broadcast Station was a Collins 20V-3. It was replaced by a Harris (Gates One) Solid State Box in 1997. Since then, the Harris has been replaced with a Broadcast Electronics (BE) AM1A, that fits in the rack on only weights 90 lbs.

I miss my old Collins, but it doesn't make sense to have a tube transmitter at a small town AM Radio Station anymore. I'm disabled, and my little 1 KW daytimer is not a "BROADCASH STATION"!  It is a hobby business for me. With the economy the way it is, it's hard for some Daytime AM Stations to make money. I don't take a salary out of mine. I just make enough to pay the bills and go on.

We'll so, much about me and my little AM Broadcast Station, but I miss my old Collins 20V-3 and just want to get pics of folks that have one, fired up, in operation mode, with the tubes lite up. Just the front of the rig. If you have digital pictures, just email them to me. It will be like old times again! It's my favorite old tube rig!

I do have a BE, Model 5M150, 5 Rotary Fader, Mono, Broadcast Console on the air. Parts can be had for it and I love small rotary consoles than the newer, slide fader ones in the "Real Broadcash Stations"!

[K5WLF]

I do have a BE, Model 5M150, 5 Rotary Fader, Mono, Broadcast Console on the air. Parts can be had for it and I love small rotary consoles than the newer, slide fader ones in the "Real Broadcash Stations"!

I agree entirely. I first worked on-air in broadcasting in 1966 when it was all rotary pots. I love sliders for recording and sound reinforcement, but I simply cannot get used to them in broadcasting. There's just something that seems so "right" about a big knob on a good pot in an on-air board. Keep that little rotary BE on the air.

BTW, where's your station?

ldb
K5WLF

[tnlance]

I do have a BE, Model 5M150, 5 Rotary Fader, Mono, Broadcast Console on the air. Parts can be had for it and I love small rotary consoles than the newer, slide fader ones in the "Real Broadcash Stations"!

I agree entirely. I first worked on-air in broadcasting in 1966 when it was all rotary pots. I love sliders for recording and sound reinforcement, but I simply cannot get used to them in broadcasting. There's just something that seems so "right" about a big knob on a good pot in an on-air board. Keep that little rotary BE on the air.

BTW, where's your station?

ldb
K5WLF

It's in Gallatin TN, near Nashville.

[K5WLF]

Wish I lived closer. I'd come in and take an air shift once a week just for fun and old times sake.

I wish you the best in keeping it on the air. Broadcasting has pretty much been taken over by the consortiums. I miss the little independents who were the true heart of commercial broadcasting. The true local stations.

ldb
K5WLF

[N3DRB The Derb]

Scott, lotsa pix out there via google. Here's Mike's W8BAC's example.

[tnlance]

Scott, lotsa pix out there via google. Here's Mike's W8BAC's example.

Yes, I did find his website before I posted this. I wonder if he would take a picture of the front of it, with the tubes on and the meters on operational mode? I would take the digital picture, and have it blown up to poster size, frame it, and put it in my little lobby of my station. If anybody talks to him before I do, tell him I have this simple request. He can email the picture to me. I'm sure he would be proud to have a picture of his transmitter, framed and on display at my station!

[Mike/W8BAC]

Here is what I have at the moment. I can take a shot of what ever you like when I get home in a few weeks.

Mike

[tnlance]

Here is what I have at the moment. I can take a shot of what ever you like when I get home in a few weeks.

Mike

Thanks Mike! I'm going to take your digitale picture, have it blown up to almost poster size, to display it in my lobby of my little AM Daytimer. I never replace my Broadcast Electronics (BE) 5M150, Mono Console, with the rotary faders. It cost very little, AC wise to run on the. All the parts can be bought in Nashville, and looks so cool and small town radio in my studio. It runs every day with no problems and the audio is clean!

[K5UJ]

So Lance, what kind of processing boxes are you running on your 1 KW rig at your station?  What you using for mics?

Rob

[K5UJ]

you must be the 1560 station.  You have pretty good coverage in the daytime.  Most of Nashville and almost up to Bowling Green.
At least you don't have to paint and lamp the tower, assuming it is 90 degrees. 


You can operate at night .... with all of 3 watts    actually it is always surprising how well flea power gets out with a good tx antenna and ground system.  There's a guy down your way who rebuilds ground systems, Kevin Kidd.  I think he is somewhere in northern Alabama.   I think he calls his operation AM Ground Systems Inc.   What are you running for feedline?  Or do you have the tx in a shed at the tower?

Rob

[tnlance]

you must be the 1560 station.  You have pretty good coverage in the daytime.  Most of Nashville and almost up to Bowling Green.
At least you don't have to paint and lamp the tower, assuming it is 90 degrees.  


You can operate at night .... with all of 3 watts    actually it is always surprising how well flea power gets out with a good tx antenna and ground system.  There's a guy down your way who rebuilds ground systems, Kevin Kidd.  I think he is somewhere in northern Alabama.   I think he calls his operation AM Ground Systems Inc.   What are you running for feedline?  Or do you have the tx in a shed at the tower?

Rob

Hi Rob!
Good to hear from you. For Processing, I use an Inovonics, Model 235 for Processing. If you go to the Inovonics site, it’s not a loud box, but it does give you a good AGC, Compressor/Limiter, EQ, and it is simple. Don’t get it confused with their Model  222 unit.  The model 222 was for the NRSC rule put down on broadcasters around 1990. It’s just a simple 10 KC brick wall box to work with other older processors.

I use an ElectroVoice  RE-20 for mics. Only have to have 2 of them. One in the Control Room, and one in the Preachers Room, and I have one here at home to do production.

Coverage is decent on 1560 going north, but going into Nashville, since WLAC turned on their IBOC, I have trouble in Northern Davidson County, where their transmitter is. I don’t like IBOC and I hope I’m never forced to have to do it. I like analog the way it is.

My tower is 85.6 degrees, slightly shorter than a 90 degree tower. The tower is a self supporting tower manufactured by Pirod. My Dad bought it for me back when he was alive in 1999. The City was wanting me just to put up a 100’ tower, and I could have made it work o.k. with a folded unipole, like I’m using now, but I’m happy to have that extra 50’.

I can hear the 3 watts at night. If you were to draw on a map a straight line from the tower site to my house, I only live one mile away. I cover the northern end of Gallatin at night, and Public Square, but that’s about it. The interference eats my signal up, and besides, I have no spots to run at night anyway, so I don’t really worry about nighttime. Nobody is listening to us at night anyhow, but I leave the transmitter on 3 watts just to make sure everything is o.k. at the station at night.
Yes, I do know Kevin Kidd. He is a nice gentleman and a good Christian Man. My engineer is Ivon Davis, who happens to own WEEN-AM and WLCT-FM in Lafayette, TN and owns Davis Electronics. My transmitter is not in a shack by itself. It is in the main building with the studio. It’s really cool if you’re sitting at the BE Console, you just look up and through the window you see the BE AM1A Transmitter, processing, Belar Modulation Monitor, and EAS Gear.
I tore down the old shack behind my building 3 years ago. We never used it for the transmitter. Like I was saying, the studio and transmitter is in the same building with my office, all nice, neat and compact. I am using the Andrew 7/8ths cable from the building to the ATU at the tower. I think I telling you right. I know its manufactured b y Andrew, but it’s big fat cable that stations up to 5 KW can use. I’d have to go look at the model number to tell you the right size, but I think that is what that cable is.
Well, I hope I answer all your questions, if you ever thing you’re going to be up this way, let me know in advance and I met you at the station. Good hearing from you!

[Mike/W8BAC]

Hold off printing that poster for now Lance. I want a chance to take a few more pictures with my new camera. Hopefully they will be better quality. I'll take some shots of the meters in action and of the rig in general.

This transmitter came from WBAC in Cleveland, Tennessee. It's now in the Detroit area. I'll post here when I have some pictures for you.

Mike

[K5UJ]

Lance fine on everything.  The inovonics box sounds like a winner.  I'm not familiar with it but I currently run the 222 with an old orban analog compressor/limiter (the 422A).  I drive the 222 to a lot of gain reduction, maybe too much but in ham radio it is all voice, no music, so a lot of density is not always a bad thing.  Yes, I had a hunch your feedline is the 7/8 inch stuff--that's the standard o.d. for 1 kw; seems like the 250 and 500 watt stations run the 1/2 inch line and use the 3/8 for sample lines.  Speaking of that, I bet you are glad you don't have to deal with a DA.
And a free standing tower is great too.  Yep, 86 degrees is probably better on the light bill than what you'd have to run to get your uV/m with the shorter stick and the solid state rig sure helps too. 

Well, it has gotten to where there are so many stations on at night that the effective coverage for everyone is way down.  It would probably be amazing to find out what your 3 watts could do if you had 20 khz to yourself.   There's a ham who runs a ham news bulletin service on Saturday nights on 1860 KHz out of MO.  He has 375 watts to a 90 degree tower and 120 radials, i.e. the standard AM bc setup but for 1860 Khz.  Because he pretty much has that frequency to himself in North America, it is amazing how well he gets out at night all over N. America.  I mention this only because it gives an idea of what the old genuine clear channel stations were capable of before the channels started filling up at night.

It's too bad about LAC and all the other IBOC interference.   I have a station here on 670 running it at night and it makes WSM tricky to get now, and I appreciate the way Watt H. has kept it analog, probably the only 50 KW analog music AM left.   Thanks for the invitation and I'll keep it in mind.  by the way it is hard to go wrong with those RE20s, a real industry standard.

Rob

[flintstone mop]

OK here's an idea for a YouTube presentation!!!!!!!!
Tell us your most favorite song, you always liked to hear on the radio and whoever owns a 20V3 could play that song into their TX into a dummy load. All loaded up for max power...... max audio, and make a video of the TX. Feed the TX audio from a well tuned receiver into the camcorder, so you can hear the effects from the compression and the video would show the dancing meters and the flickering rectifiers pulsating to the bass notes in the music. Maybe pan over to the receiver and a 'scope to see the display of the audio and the slight pinching of the carrier on the bass notes. ORGASM!!!! I'm hopelessly sick...........Now you know what I used to do when I had my 20V2.
Hows about that???

Fred

[Mike/W8BAC]

Good ideas Fred. I'll have to work out the receiver part as all are muted (except the mod monitor) on transmit. I haven't posted anything to youtube yet so that will be fun. I haven't tried video with this new camera yet and I'll have to learn how.

SO, we need a tune. I'll leave that to the board to decide. I'll work on the rest when I get home.

Mike

[N3DRB The Derb]

actually I was planning on letting Ray jam with my favorite tunes for a while into the DL and puttin the video on my YT channel.

I'd be heavy into the 70's soul/funk, but I'd have a 1947 set that played the #1's from 1947 when Ray was new. I'll do maybe 3.

I have a RCA console that would allow Ray's upper & lower registers to be heard.