Best Looking Broadcast Transmitter in Ham Service

[Opcom]

I put a lot of work into the radios but only use them occasionally. I was sufficiently inspired by that comment to fire up the RCA and call a couple CQ the other night and then the night after there was a conversation going on but never got the opportunity to get in. Never been one of those Hams who gets on and talks for twenty minutes solid, myself run out of things to say after giving QTH, type of rig and the like. Maybe if it's another technical person will talk transmitters but that’s it for me. Good thing were not required to operate a cretin amount of hours per month to keep the license. One look at the shop and you can see there is no shortage of radio projects. But maybe I have a shortage of things to say.

What do you use the 11/23 for? Real computers is something to talk about..

[KA3EKH]

The PDP-11 project is one of those things that serve no purpose beyond just wanting to do something. Back around 79 or so I had a PDP-8 that I got in a trade and traded it for something else, think maybe an S-100 system. Over time keep thinking about the old PDP so one day decided I want to build up a pre DOS computer system. With the PDP-8 systems selling for stupid money ended up building the 11 instead. That system has the five Meg RL-01 hard drive using RT-11 operating system along with two eight inch floppy drives. Spent around two or maybe three years buying parts, building cables, repairing drives and maybe the hardest part for me learning assembler and RT-11 but now can do simple things like copy and format disks along with loading my copy of Dec Basic and running basic programs. The web page on the 11 is:
http://staff.salisbury.edu/~rafantini/pdp11.htm
Have a couple YouTube videos of it up also, think maybe I will do a quick YouTube video for the RCA transmitter this weekend. Although some may think it looks like an industrial furnace, have to admit that I do think the Western Electric transmitters are something to look at. Not just the outside but the insides and construction techniques are incredible. If I had to pick a favorite of what's been shown it would have to be the WE stuff.
Wasn't I supposed to send you some HV cable? Do you still need it? Can go over to the TV transmitter at lunch today and pull it out and send it.
Ray F

[WA3VJB]

I miss Fortran IV.

[N3WWL]

I'm kinda partial to the Raytheon RA-250 and RA-1000.  Built like the proverbial brick outhouse!

[k4kyv]

At one time the FCC did not allow remote-controlled unattended transmitters, so smaller stations had the studios at the transmitter site, allowing the announcer/DJ to serve as control operator.  I have seen photos of early BC stations where the transmitter and announcer  were all in one big room.

That wouldn't work very well with most BC rigs.  For one thing, they are too noisy.  Transformer talk-back/acoustical feed back, acoustical hums and buzzes, clanking relays, etc. Not to mention the heat  they  give off that would make the announcer's studio unbearably hot to sit for long shifts.  So they put the transmitter in a separate room with its own ventilation system, with the large sound proof plate-glass window to isolate the transmitter with its noises and heat from the rest of the studio.

When I got the BC1-T up and running on 160m, I found it almost impossible to use because the mod reactor talk-back sounded like a small speaker inside the transmitter cabinet, the contactor relays buzzed like a chain saw and the fans sounded like a vacuum cleaner, all running at the  same time.  I eliminated the talk-back by replacing the stock open-frame reactor with a potted one. The relay system was converted so that the coils operate on DC. I took the fans off 230v and connected them to the 115v tap; they run OK at reduced voltage and still run fast enough to cool the transmitter, but are barely audible.  In addition, I added a toggle switch in a blank hole in the front panel that allows the fans to be turned off entirely. Most of the time I operate the beast without the fans.  With intermittent amateur type operation and normal ambient temperature in the shack, convection cooling is plenty sufficient for the 833As.  About the only time I use the fans is on rare occasions when I fire up the rig in summer months.

Even though they look "cool", I doubt that I would bother with a Continental or W-E transmitter running in linear or grid modulated service, since I QSY a lot, and low level modulated finals are more complicated and critical to tune up than are those running in plate modulated class C service that just require a few dips and peaks. 

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I recall taking transmitter readings in the early 80s when I was DJing, Don. Can't remember how many times each night (I did a 4 hour show unless the next guy didn't come in, then it was a loooong night), but I do remember the clip board and form with columns for specific meter readings, time taken, etc.

Hay Todd, You just keep on stirring up the pot, don't you?   

No sir, not me. Making an overall statement of opinion on rig beauty vs utility, actually. In fact, I don't think 'ugly' is a fair term for the Vanguard. Perhaps a better description with be 'Transmitter that looks the least like a transmitter'. It actually has a rather stylish 60s look to it. I like the BC-1T too, triangular window and all.

Since my friends with R-390's, T-368's, BC-610's and KW-1's are thought of in the same way I'm going to have to start an ugly duckling support group. As a matter of fact we are already talking about making terms like "Very industrial looking" and "Ugly Radio" illegal Hate Speech.

Having owned or currently still owning all of the above except the Vanguard, it never bothered me. I always figured we were all a little whacked for hauling home someone else's trash and making a hobby out of operating something that most folks only listen to.

It's all good. And I agree, Jay - those Raytheon transmitters are things of beauty with the tu-tone paint scheme, banks of meters, and all that heavy duty chrome. Viewing windows are nice, but as you and others have found out - not a requirement for enjoyment. Your closed circuit TV monitoring arrangement was far cooler!

[KA3EKH]

In the old days you were required to take meter reading every three hours and do a full proof every year. Also to have base current readings taken at the base of the tower that involved pulling big switch at the ATU that was  hot to insert the base current meter in line with the tower then switching it back out when finished. I have done this myself with one and five thousand watt AM stations and it can be hairy but often wondered what it was like for the engineers who had to do this on the 50 kW stations. There was a requirement that the control operator had to be able to visually see the transmitter while on air so that resulted in the windows into the transmitter room but all that went away when the FCC decided you no longer needed a first phone and later allowed you to run in unattended mode. By the time I started working in radio most of the rules were gone and now you don’t need a commercial license, third class permit or anything, anyone can go in and be an engineer. About the only thing the FCC gets worked up about are tower lighting and EAS compliance and the stupid, useless public file. In thirty years I have never heard of one case where someone came into a station and asked to see the public file but that's always is the first place the field inspector goes. Speaking of inspections I have not seen anyone from the FCC in about five years now, we have a thing where the corporation hires a outside expert to come in and do the inspections and gives us a letter that we are supposed to give the FCC if they did show up. The private inspections are way more detailed and exact then the FCC ever was.

[K5UJ]

Some old-time engineers I used to work with told me station SALES people, those who sold commercial air time, would often provide tours to potential advertisers. They could see, and hopefully be impressed by, the formidable, tangible thing called radio. 

It was a problem to compete against newspapers, since a client could SEE and hold the ad.  Radio ?  Not so much.  SO an impressive transmitter facility indicated a station's commitment somehow.

That was a major problem for us at the little 3 KW ERP FM I worked at around 31 years ago.

It was a small commercial property in Mississippi just south of Memphis on 95.3.  We were out in the country with a 300 foot guyed tower, and a 3 bay circularly polarized dipole antenna side mounted.  Our tx was a Gates; don't recall the model but I think it put out 2.5 KW with a single tube, 2500 or 3 KW dissipation.  We had a box fan on top of the cabinet to help pull air up and out.   Announce booth on the other side of a window from it.  Small board, two turntables, couple of cart machines, tape deck and processing rack.  That was about it.   Feedline was 3 inch heliax with nitrogen.

I was told by the GM that the whole expense of getting a firm to do the engineering, handle the CP application, cost of building the site, i.e. everything to sign on, was around $250K.  That was in 1979.  Then we had to start making money, which we did, sort of, barely.   (While our non-com listener supported brothers down the road below 92 had the most lavish setup you could imagine, but that's another issue.) 

It was incredibly difficult to get small business owners who were new to broadcasting, to understand the difference between print and broadcast radio, and take on a schedule of spots.   Our worst competition was newspapers, not other stations.

That has to be one of the hardest sales jobs there is, selling radio time to small business owners who can get half a page in the local newspaper for what your break-even rate is.  And that was before the internet, etc we have today.

It's surprising there are still small stations on the air.

[k4kyv]

There was a requirement that the control operator had to be able to visually see the transmitter while on air so that resulted in the windows into the transmitter room but all that went away when the FCC decided you no longer needed a first phone and later allowed you to run in unattended mode.

Actually, the control operator at the physical transmitter site requirement was eliminated first, allowing remote-control operation from a studio usually located downtown while the unattended transmitter site was out in the country or somewhere at the edge of town. The control operator, usually the DJ/announcer who was  required to have a 3rd class FCC radiotelephone permit, was supposed to take the remote meter readings every 30 minutes IIRC and record them in the transmitter log (but usually he simply took a reading or two during his shift, and faked the rest). The station was still required to have a first phone chief engineer on the payroll, on standby duty at all times when the station was on the air.

Sometime in the early 1980s while the government was on one of its deregulation kicks, the first phone CE and 3rd class control operator requirements were eliminated, allowing anyone to walk in off the street and be hired as a "technician" at a broadcast station.  Most stations got rid of their CE, and depended on a "contract engineer" (usually living out of town) to come get the station back on the air whenever something major crapped out.

To-day's solid state transmitters, unless they get zapped by lightning, are much more reliable than the older tube types and require less routine maintenance, so the chief engineer on duty has largely gone the way of the dinosaur.

[KA3ZLR]

Hey man..

 The bestest looking transmitter is the one that's Paid for...Yessum 


73
Jack
KA3ZLR

[Jeff W9GY]

When I got the BC1-T up and running on 160m, I found it almost impossible to use because the mod reactor talk-back sounded like a small speaker inside the transmitter cabinet, the contactor relays buzzed like a chain saw and the fans sounded like a vacuum cleaner, all running at the  same time.  I eliminated the talk-back by replacing the stock open-frame reactor with a potted one. The relay system was converted so that the coils operate on DC. I took the fans off 230v and connected them to the 115v tap; they run OK at reduced voltage and still run fast enough to cool the transmitter, but are barely audible.  In addition, I added a toggle switch in a blank hole in the front panel that allows the fans to be turned off entirely. Most of the time I operate the beast without the fans.  With intermittent amateur type operation and normal ambient temperature in the shack, convection cooling is plenty sufficient for the 833As.  About the only time I use the fans is on rare occasions when I fire up the rig in summer months.

Don, The modulation reactor in my BC-1G was a potted one when I acquired the transmitter.  The contactors produce very little audible buzz operating on AC, so I left them alone.  Since the original fan was shot, I replaced it with a whisper fan running on 120V.  Everything runs quite cool at 350 W carrier.  Jeff W9GY

[WA3VJB]

Ok, so I like to look at old transmitters. Epically broadcast transmitters that are now in Armature radio service, and although I am biased towards my RCA MX that I have thought I would open up the floor to allow others to post pictures of what they have and are using. Keeping in mind that to qualify it has to have been produced for commercial service and retrofitted for armature use and has to be functional. Don’t know how but maybe we can have a pole of best looking and perhaps worst looking transmitters.
The idea would be that you post a picture and a description. I will start out with my transmitter. It’s a RCA BTA1-MX built in 1955 and was installed at WLAN 1390 in Lancaster Pa. It currently operates at around 375 watts carrier on 1.885 Unlike many of the huge box transmitter of the same time like the Gates BC series this transmitter has a foot print only just larger then a nineteen inch equipment rack and I think the square shape and limited use of chrome make it appear way better looking than the rounded oversized Collins transmitters.

Ah but I almost forgot to nominate the General Electric BT-20A, the "refrigerator transmitter" with a pretty chrome handle just like their premium kitchen line.

Sorry I don't have a shot with the door closed, but you can clearly see how this fine transmitter enhances the decor of any home.

Here, an appliance salesman prepares the unit for delivery to a new home.

(the real estate agent agreed that in this case "appliances do not convey")

[W3GMS]

Paul,
A classic picture for sure.  Those pictures mean more and more as time goes buy.  We tend to collect those audio files but the pictures are FB as well.
Joe, GMS 

[Opcom]

The PDP-11 project is one of those things that serve no purpose beyond just wanting to do something. Back around 79 or so I had a PDP-8 that I got in a trade and traded it for something else, think maybe an S-100 system. Over time keep thinking about the old PDP so one day decided I want to build up a pre DOS computer system. With the PDP-8 systems selling for stupid money ended up building the 11 instead. That system has the five Meg RL-01 hard drive using RT-11 operating system along with two eight inch floppy drives. Spent around two or maybe three years buying parts, building cables, repairing drives and maybe the hardest part for me learning assembler and RT-11 but now can do simple things like copy and format disks along with loading my copy of Dec Basic and running basic programs. The web page on the 11 is:
http://staff.salisbury.edu/~rafantini/pdp11.htm
Have a couple YouTube videos of it up also, think maybe I will do a quick YouTube video for the RCA transmitter this weekend. Although some may think it looks like an industrial furnace, have to admit that I do think the Western Electric transmitters are something to look at. Not just the outside but the insides and construction techniques are incredible. If I had to pick a favorite of what's been shown it would have to be the WE stuff.
Wasn't I supposed to send you some HV cable? Do you still need it? Can go over to the TV transmitter at lunch today and pull it out and send it.
Ray F

Hello Ray,

Thanks I am good on the HV cable. I used "outdoor luminous sign" cable. I had asked for more flexible wire because the head has to be easily picked up and moved by hand, but it has turned out that once the cooling hoses, control cable, and these wires are all shoved into an outer nylon web, the 'stiffness' of the HV wire is only a small part of the overall umbilical. However it turned out to be flexible enough, so all is well. I made it longer than necessary so the part than hangs down can form a 'loop' about 18" diameter with no stress. I'd wanted a 8" loop but that was not realistic.

Thank you,
Patrick

[WA3VJB]

Paul,
A classic picture for sure.  Those pictures mean more and more as time goes buy.  We tend to collect those audio files but the pictures are FB as well.
Joe, GMS  

Yer right Joe.  My earliest radio pictures include Roger WA3FLE, now gone, Dave, K3ZRF, now gone, and of course the Derb, above.

Not to be too morose but yes, it makes me appreciate the time we have left. It's hard for me to square that up with the feeling I'm still 34, or so.