RadioBanter - View Single Post

April 25th 05, 04:24 PM

In article ,
(RM MS) wrote:

Anybody here from southeast Michigan? On Van Dyke near 15 mile Rd.,
there is an Ameritech Building on the east side of Van Dyke. It has a
HUGE rotatable beam, probably log-periodic and all-band. I am guessing
the main boom is over 60 feet long. Has anybody else seen it? I wonder
what they would be using a HF antenna for?...

Here is info provided by the station's engineer:

"The building is called the Warren Main Central office... This is the
site of [SBC] Emergency Operations Center. The tower and antenna are
part of the SHARES/NSEP radio service [...] When all else fails, the HF
radio will work. The Log Periodic antenna covers 6.4 MHz to 30 MHz. It
is on an 85 foot self supporting Rohn tower. The rotator is also
something to drool over. It communicates to the control box over a two
way wireline, so it could be located anywhere. There is a wire delta
loop antenna located below the beam that covers 2 MHz to 30 MHz.
The radio equipment is manufactured by a company called Trans-America.
The transceiver is a commercial rig that is FCC type accepted for this
service, (plus) a 1KW solid state Linear by Trans-America. The radio is
integrated with a PC and will perform ARS or automatic reporting
service. This is a system that automatically sets up a frequency/link
on an automatic basis. It finds the best frequency band/frequency for
the traffic. It is designed for non-trained users. However,
(operators) in Illinois and I have no problem using the equipment and
passing traffic (using this equipment). The site in Sterling Hts (was)
the primary site when we were Ameritech. Now that we are part of SBC,
the primary site is in Hoffman Estates, Ill. But, there is a least one
station in each state."

Hope you found this useful.

Chuck Reti WV8A
Detroit MI