WMRN Transmitter Room c. 1942

[Tom WA3KLR]

Attached are the other 2 photos of the WMRN set that I have.  According to wikipedia, WMRN was started in 1940.  So the station was only 1 - 3 years old when these photos were taken.

[Steve - K4HX]

Amazing facilities for a small town, 250 watt station.

[Ralph W3GL]

Yeah Steve, some one put a lot of 1940 dollars into that set-up.

Today's equivalent would be close to or over the mill mark...

[WA3VJB]

Attached are the other 2 photos of the WMRN set that I have.  According to wikipedia, WMRN was started in 1940.  So the station was only 1 - 3 years old when these photos were taken.

Yeah you can see where the landscaping hasn't really filled in yet, outside.

I wonder if that big room with the chairs was for live performances.  I was talking this weekend with some folks on 80m who named WRVA and WBT among the stations they listened to in the early 1960s.  I went to look at an old Hammond that WRVA wanted to sell as they prepared to relocate.  It was part of a live music studio the station originally had.

Bet this might have been similar.

Those shots were probably taken on a Graflex "press" camera, like a SpeedGraphic. Great big sheet film.  What the lens didn't have for detail was made up for with huge negatives.  An 8x10 could be a 1:1 contact print, so the grain was real small and the resolution real high.

Paul, K2ORC picked one up at a Rochester (NY) fest some years back. I took a shot of him that I have somewhere, and perhaps your Dad as photographer used that type of gear.

A friend of mine, David Burnett, still slogs one of these around as a news photographer. Amazing.

[flintstone mop]

That's a REAL camera, Paul.

It was customary to sink big dollars into AM radio back then. It used to be a money maker before mom and pop were put out of business. The companies got bigger and bigger and the profits melted away..............then FM radio stole the show.

My observation earlier about the RCA or Raytheon transmitter from Tom's post, was that they seem to be identical looking transmitters. RA 1000 and the RCA unit pictured.

[Jeff W9GY]

Also, I'm thinking they used a red filter to make the sky and clouds pop out like that using B&W film

[KB2WIG]

There was a problem with a large format camera at Rainchester a few years back. If I remember correctly. Something about a group picture. Nice profile. But the beer was cold. That I remember.


klc

[Tom WA3KLR]

WMRN - Look at the hallway photo.  The doorway on the left must be the entrance foyer of the building.  Each end of the building is a studio.  The glass windows on the right side of the hallway photo must be for the transmitter room.  Note the chairs sitting in the left side of the hallway and the shape of the chair backs.  Now look at the transmitter room photo at the bottom of the frequency monitor rack which is to the left of the transmitter.  You can see the reflection of a chair back.  So it appears that the transmitter room photo was taken through the hallway window.

* I believe the chief engineer of WMRN in 1941 was Bob Morrison W8QYU.

* Ralph W3GL says the flag at the far end of the hallway is a "Defense Flag", which dates to 1944, 2 years after my father left the station.  The photos were then mailed to my father while he was staying at the YMCA on Lehigh Avenue in Philadelphia, at the time.   He was taking courses at Temple University related to radar technology, as personnel of the new Air Contingency Group (ACG) I mentioned in Reply #17 page 1 of this topic.

[W7TFO]

A little light entertainment from a few years back:

http://www.myfootage.com/details.php?gid=58&sgid=&pid=18082

Here are a couple pix of a WECo 50kW and the bill for it.  Obviously, there was money in AM radio, check the date and dollars...

73DG

[Jeff W9GY]

Looks like the old WE transmitter at WJR-Detroit.  (The great voice of the great lakes)

[flintstone mop]

Those were the days for radio. An entire room (big) for a 5kw transmitter.
My son and I are visiting a local FM as a Cub Scout achievement. The studio will be impressive. Transmitter is remote and only 100 watts. No excitement there.
I wonder if he'll start yapping that his daddy has just as much studio stuff as they do.
As an aside...The Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts still have requirements or electives to get involved with Ham radio.

[Tom WA3KLR]

I stopped at WMRN this week while on vacation in Ohio.  I took a picture of their building from approximately the same position as in the 1943 photo posted in Reply #25 above.  The building is the same except it has been doubled in depth.

WMRN 70 years later:

[W7TFO]

Tom, thanks so much for starting this thread. 

There is something just so comforting about an old station building still being used today.

73DG

[WA3VJB]

Tom it must have been very nostalgic for you to visit. 

Wonder if you stopped in and talked with anyone?  Maybe it would have broken the spell, since, yeah, probably not likely anyone would care.

I messed with your photo a little, hope you don't mind, and put it alongside the original.

If only people would hold up as well, 70 years later, eh?

[Tom WA3KLR]

Thanks for your comments Dennis.

Paul, in retrospect I probably should have contacted the station months ago but I never considered going inside until I was standing out front this past Tuesday.  I could have walked to the front door but just didn’t care to.  Thanks for converting my photo to black and white and lightening it up to better match the 1943 photo which was taken later in the morning, and for mating them together. (The building is now doubled in depth.)