'It's like Frankenstein's lab': Massive 78-year-old transmitter for sale

[PirateSWL]

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/new-brunswick/mi-kmaq-transmitter-radio-canada-1.4495286

[Azimuth Coordinator]

Redhat and I are buying it..  Now we just have to start a go fund me page pay for the power when we go on the air 

[Pigmeat]

Tell Al it's a penguin detector. He'll give you all the cash you need.

Man, that's a nice looking old Art Deco transmitter!

[Josh]

Doesn't Al Weener need one of these? Also, way cool art deco transmitter.

[redhat]

I was thinking the exact same thing AC.  The only problem is getting a box that old loaded with PCB's back to this side of the border!

...That and a new steel building to house the thing.  Come on, generators are cheap

+-RH

[KaySeeks]

Doesn't Al Weener need one of these?

Yeah, and on a relative scale it's "not that far away" from him. Customs duties would be rough though.

[Pigmeat]

The ice is still on the Aroostook. He and Tim could bring it across in the middle of the night in one of Tim's Sno-mo Schoolbuses.

[redhat]

Typically with anything that old, all PCB containing components would have to be removed and disposed of, a very costly proposition.  Here in the US, the equipment is not supposed to be moved until this has been completed.   I have heard stories of equipment being sold to folks overseas, and as far as the gubermint was concerned, as long as it was leaving, no problem

I am no expert on Canadian hazardous waste rules, but I imagine they are more stringent than our rules here, and as such, good luck getting that old girl anywhere.

+-RH

[Capt. Kidd]

Hmmm now all I need is a boat, a tower, and a generator.

[redhat]

..and a few cases of the handymans' secret weapon...duct tape.

+-RH

[Pigmeat]

Is their anything duct tape can't do?

There's a large scrap and junkyard across the river from me. Since the heroin boom took off in 2010, they have separate pile for all the tower sections the junkies are stealing from translator sites. You can drive by there before opening hours for the general public and see beat-up old pick-ups piled full of the stuff lined up to get in. Most of it is bent at the joints from them using four wheel drives and ATV's to pull the things over. I found that out when I went over to inspect that pile one day, looking for a tower on the cheap. It seemed like a good idea at the time? No harm in trying to buy the stuff up at 50 cents a lb.

[Josh]

Around here they steal headstone urns and such. Guess ours are lazier.

[Pigmeat]

They were pulling that, but the state started hammering the scrapyards that bought the headstones and urns with heavy fines for buying stolen goods. The junkies were even stealing bronze manhole covers for awhile.  The crackdown on the yards stopped most of that stuff as it dried up the market for it. It's hard to deny it's not stolen when it has "City of Bugtussle" stamped on it.

I went to HS with a crew who were stealing old copper telegraph wire that was strung along about 40 mile stretch of railroad tracks in their late teens/early twenties.  Everything was going great until they got to a more sparsely populated part of that county where the railroad and the road were squeezed between a bluff and river.  When the power company put lines down that way in the 1920's and 30's, they didn't have room to erect separate poles for their lines. They rented pole space from Western Union for that section all the way into the next decent sized town, where the road left the riverside and cut across country. About 6-8 miles of still functioning power line shared the poles along the track with the long dead telegraph wires the night our heroes came in to strip that section. When they tried to get that power line the shock and fall killed one of them and another lost his lower left arm from the damage from his burns. He was the guy holding the ladder.

The ironic thing is the guy in that bunch that I thought would be dead first is the only one still living.

[Josh]

That telegraph line woulda made a dandy vlf antennae.