On 04/22/2011 08:31 AM, D. Peter Maus wrote:
On 4/22/11 07:01 , Joe from Kokomo wrote:



Side story: The 50 kW AM outlet of a TV station I once worked for
was actually (dimly) lighting an incandescent lamp in a nearby home
that was located in the main lobe of the directional pattern. People
also were getting shocks from their rabbit ears TV antennas.



When I worked in Iowa, the array was in a cornfield west of town. A
developer bought the land directly north of the array (we beamed 5kw
nearly straight north) and built a subdivision there. The back yard of
some of those homes ran up to the fence around the array.

One of the features of these homes was recessed flourescent tube
lighting in both the basement and the garage.

One cluster of 5 homes, not only did the owners get my radio station on
their refrigerators, but the flourscent lights could not be turned off.


We (KRIZ now KOY 1230 Phoenix)had to read the antenna current at the
doghouse every half hour when I started in radio. We had an F40
fluorescent tube we used at night to light up the meter. We only ran 250
Watts at night so we had to get the bulb right next to the feed wire to
get it to glow. Then we could move it a few feet away.

You can see the modulation in the lamp. That's kind of cool.