Harris to quit Broadcast Market

[W3LSN]

Yeah Jim, Brookeville Rd.  The transmitter site is still there.  Across the street, I buy tires for our various vehicles at a place that's been there since I was in college, and I used to get my Motorola commercial 2-way radios tuned up at Teltronics on the WWDC side, remember them?  Still there too.

Paul, yes indeed. I think the office park next door which once housed the old FM tower is still called "WWDC Park" or some such. You probably also know that BE/Spotmaster's rival called Tapecaster was located on Wilkins Ave in Rockville near the present HHS office building.  My wife used to work down the street from them in what was once the sales counter and warehouse for Capitol Radio Wholesalers, the former parts emporium. 

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

[Bill, KD0HG]

Wondering- How and why did BE end up moving to Quincy, Ill., the hometown of Gates?

I think it's best described that BE transmitters are built like Russian designs, easier to fix, compared to Harris and Nautel.

Although, BE really screwed up a 20 KW FM box I had to fix...The plate transformer had its 208 volt 3-phase primary's wound first around the iron core, then the 13 KV secondaries were the outside winding, only covered with a few layers of glass cloth tape and varnish. BE routed the #1 THHN wire to the primary, but they laid it across one HV leg of the plate transformer. Result? Arc through the 600V rated THHN to the HV primary as they touched...Burnt secondary winding on plate transformer...Replacement cost, only $5,000 or so.

Doh!


Bill

[W3LSN]

Wondering- How and why did BE end up moving to Quincy, Ill., the hometown of Gates?

I think it's best described that BE transmitters are built like Russian designs, easier to fix, compared to Harris and Nautel.

Bill, I think that Quincy became a hub of broadcast manufacturing because there is experienced talent there which is difficult to find elsewhere for what is basically a niche industry. Although IIRC Harris Broadcast has been retrenching a lot of its broadcast support and operations to the Denver area for the last 10-years, maybe more so on the TV side. 

The last time I ever bought a rig was for the former WTEM 570 in Bethesda, MD for which I purchased two BE AM5 rigs when that line had just been released. I liked them a lot over the Harris MW-5A's that they replaced, but all-in-all I would probably buy Nautel next time. I've been out of commercial radio since 1993 and so don't think I'll ever get the opportunity to install a broadcast rig again.

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3