Historic AT&T NJ Antenna Farm Info

[Tom WA3KLR]

Information links from Bill WB9EQD:

There’s a walking tour of the AT & T Pole Farm located in Mercer County, NJ.

 Following is event info (also a couple of other Ma Bell events:
 
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/ma-bell-exhibition-related-programs-125909

I was able to find a zoom lecture done by the person hosting the walk.

This might be better to watch than the actual walk (of course you won’t get the health benefits of the exercise).

https://youtu.be/RSRk_DBZWUM

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I have some early/old radio books that show this site with broadside arrays - proceeding several wavelengths horizontally of a wire square wave. A 1/4 wave on a side as I recall, bottom leg close to ground.  This must have been the first approach and then abandoned for the Sterba curtains and rhombics. The final designs got rid of the Sterba curtains and went to two rhombics side by side.

[WA2IXP]

I toured this sight as a boy when the station was still in limited operation.IT was winding down.  Living near by and interested in radio my dad took my brother and I there one afternoon. He may have known someone there I don't remember. Probably 1968 or so. We were fascinated. The old original transmitters and eq. were still there supplemented by several modern transmitters about the size of refrigerators. Old transmitters were huge cabinets with windows to see tubes. Air cooled I think for the most part. Overhead were many parallel  lines with alot of rope operated knife switched. Separate trans. for each sw band. There was a central control location for audio and switching set up studio fashion. Alot of Jack patch panels. The receiving end was at another location.   The building itself was stone. Just off to the right of the entry was a huge diesel  generator with open valve train. May have  ran at 600 rpm. Fueled  by two tanks 20,000 gallons each. One with diesel and another with white kerosene which was backup as it stays usable for a very long time. At that time hadn't run for years. A separate building housed a haywire of antenna switching. All manually controlled. Feed lines ran out about 15 ft overhead to antenna field . Over a mile long I believe.  Back then it was lawereceville nj  - farm country. Now its high end . I can't even afford to drive though there. Buildings are gone replaced by housing I think. Wasn't aware the antenna field was still there. I was young and my recollections may be supplemented by my imagination. A day I enjoyed with my dad and will never forget
                                                                                                                            Jay-