HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: Azimuth Coordinator on December 15, 2017, 2234 UTC
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Looks like big problems at WBCQ
https://www.gofundme.com/wbcq-radio-replacement-transmitter (https://www.gofundme.com/wbcq-radio-replacement-transmitter)
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pfft... A Harris of that vintage, I'm surprised it lasted that long.
They are indeed lucky it didn't take the building. A lot of early MW-5's would do similar, and take the building with them.
+-RH
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I gave. And here's the link for the newly uploaded Allan Weiner World-Wide. http://radionewyorkinternational.com/archives/aww/2017-1215%20allan%20weiner%20worldwide%20fire!.mp3 That should be an interesting one.
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Hey redhat, check out this story of a a bit of a flame-fest from a MW-5's point of view:
http://www.comcents.com/rg/mw5.html
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Hey redhat, check out this story of a a bit of a flame-fest from a MW-5's point of view:
http://www.comcents.com/rg/mw5.html
Yup that one has been around the block a few times. I don't think you can get the PWM choke anymore. What a lot of engineers missed when repairing these boxes is a check of the damper diodes. You needed a special test setup to test them. If the damper diode stack was bad, your new coil and mod tube would fail in short order.
+-RH
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From the description, it sounds like this is (or was) their only 50 kW transmitter? I thought all US SWBC stations had to use 50+ kW transmitters (I assume that requirement was to make it more difficult for SWBC stations to go on the air). WBCQ has four transmitters I think? Are the others not 50 kW? Just curious.
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According to the audio, this was their main for 7490, backed up by another transmitter that for whatever reason only makes 30 KW. My guess never having seen the place is that most of their transmitters are either missing parts for other frequency ranges, or have instabilities and are happiest on certain ranges. Some of the pictures I've seen include old AEL/REL transmitters from military service in the 50's and as such parts are probably no longer available.
You make due with what you have. 5% power beats 0%.....been there :(
BTW, RCA BTF-20E's had a similar problem where an arc would catch the tube deck on fire (which was made out of lexan). The plenum blower would then blow flaming bits of plastic all over the room. Quite a few failed in this way, and for that reason, RCA transmitters were banned from one of the transmitter sites in NYC. I was happy to retire one in 2006 that had its fair share of close calls, and an ice storm the winter prior sealed its fate after running at 7% power for a week.
+-RH
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Do you think Weiner and Timtron are battling it out for the back-ups Tim has stashed in that fleet of junk school buses over at his place?
"C'mon Tim, I'll give it back." "That's what you said about my broadcast Collins and I haven't seen it since." "I told you, Lightning ate it?" "JPL can eat, but he doesn't eat ferrous metals. Give it up!"
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..."there was no insurance".... ??
Maybe they should get some.
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Created a special Promo! Used the text from the Donation website!
http://www103.zippyshare.com/v/Wnz5Yw8d/file.html (http://www103.zippyshare.com/v/Wnz5Yw8d/file.html)
André
CoolAM Radio - ShortWave
http://coolam-productions.tk
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I think Harris was Gates or bought out Gates. As a much younger dude than I am today, I worked with the 1kw am model. It was four bottles. Two RF, two Modulator. As I recall Gates believed in the old, but true KISS principle. The Transmitters were basic, but always had high reliability. And yes BCQ it is indeed a marvel it lasted more than half a century. Believe its vintage was 1959! 8)
I think it was the two ears bottle, the 833A triode. Those were the days and then that beautiful mercury vapor GLOW of the rectifiers.
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Nope, they had the PDM MW-50 modified to an SW-50. There is apparently a problem with the fiberglass chimneys for the tubes. As they age, they become more prone to carbon tracking and breakdown, which is what happened.
Funny, Allan says he wants to go back to a conventional push-pull high level modulated transmitter....I would advise against this, as his power bill might double.
Also He did mention there was no insurance. Most of the radio stations I've worked for had some form of business insurance. I can't imagine running one without. In this business, you have a lot of exposure, towers that fall, buildings that burn, stuff that is pretty expensive to replace.
Just a thought,
+-RH
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:o Well, why no insurance? I think I read, they said, they could not get it because they were very far from any fire station.
I suppose closer to truth, they can't get any reasonably priced insurance because of that.
They now say, 20 grand can bring in a transmitter to include shipping from where ever.
I am wondering having been a BC engineer when in my twenties, if routine preventive maintenance could have prevented the big burn? :-X
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Also He did mention there was no insurance. Most of the radio stations I've worked for had some form of business insurance. I can't imagine running one without. In this business, you have a lot of exposure, towers that fall, buildings that burn, stuff that is pretty expensive to replace.
I was thinking that, rather than describing it as "no insurance", perhaps "self-insurance" might be a better way of describing it. But then having to publicly raise funds to cover the cost isn't self-insurance.
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I'm not sure how most SW Broadcasters keep the Transmitter and Lights on.. WINB sent me an E-Mail offering 60min blocks on their station for $25 an hour at that rate their just squeaking by WBCQ had 5 SW 50Kw's They knew of the issue with the Fiberglass and had inspected and cleaned it thinking that it was still serviceable trying to save a few dollars. but it didn't go as planned. It's hard to turn a profit or break even in AM or FM let along SW. Which the average American has no idea exists. just my 2 cents
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Yea the story Allan told was that due to where they are and other factors no insurance company wants to even think about touching them. He also said that transmitter had just had a bunch of work done to it a few weeks prior to it deciding to have a complete meltdown to get it back up to good working condition (I think a lot of things up there are getting run down by the sounds of it). 7490 was the only frequency they have that was a full carrier AM, the others are reduced carrier SSB so they only need to make 50 kw PEP by fcc rules, not 50 kw of carrier for full AM SW stations. As far as I can tell from various websites with pictures of the transmitter site, they had the Gates MW-50 for 7490, then there was an old Collins of some sort in that same building with the Gates and also a TMC GPT-40, then in another building was another transmitter that appeared to be a hybrid of a TMC exciter with a Collins amp, then I believe I've heard on Allan's show that there was a third building that has the new Harris MW-50 for 3265 in it (this is a newer version of the transmitter that burned up). From some old info I found that Collins was the 9330 rig and the GPT-40 was used for their higher band service (17495?, 18910, 15420 I believe, possibly others) and the TMC/Collins was the 5130 rig, but then a recent episode of AWW he said that the 7490 transmitter building had the 5130 transmitter and the backup 7490 rig in it, so one of those (the Collins or the GPT-40) is 5130 and the other is now being run on 7490. Anyway, to make things even more interesting in the world of WBCQ, get a load of this:
http://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/0002/ampegon-installs-shortwave-array-antenna/340965
EDIT: Not to mention all of this is going on right around the time that they loose what was probably their biggest income source (brother stair).
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That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range WBCQ will have some signal with that antenna array. I wonder if it also comes with a combiner..
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That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range WBCQ will have some signal with that antenna array. I wonder if it also comes with a combiner..
Did Allan win the lottery? ;D
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You know, now that I think about it, I find it kinda ironic that they would have such an advanced piece of antenna technology, but at the same time Allan is adamant about running only old transmitters after what happened to that MW-50. I imagine that array takes some hefty electric motors or something to rotate it, ought to be interesting up there seeing how the only power available onsite is single phase. :o
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So what's going to happen first... WBCQ gets that antenna, or WMLK finally gets back on the air? There's always the chance that neither happens ;D
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Don't know, but both of them have deals going with Ampegon it looks like...
http://ampegon.com/news/?id=91
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That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range.
I suggest that it might cost more than $300K US.
$150k US might cover the labour cost of two engineers (one electrical and one mechanical) coming from Switzerland to install along with the labour of the team of construction crew and riggers who will actually pour the concrete, install the motors, assemble, put the thing up and ensure mechanical functionality. Maybe the riggers will come from Switzerland, maybe they won't.
Not covered by the above: any NRE, cost of shipment, cost of materials, cost of partial assembly in Switzerland, profit margin (which won't be less than 50%).