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The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New YorkState
In the 1920's a radio station in Schenectady, NY built a powerful
transmitter. In those days before FCC regulations, not knowing just how big to make a transmitter in order for the signal to be received some distance away, the station set up to broadcast at 500,000 watts. It requires about one watt to be received four blocks away. A cell phone is three watts. This station broadcast at such tremendous power that they could be heard around the world. People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. - from www.clip-text.com |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"javawizard" wrote in message ... In the 1920's a radio station in Schenectady, NY built a powerful transmitter. In those days before FCC regulations, not knowing just how big to make a transmitter in order for the signal to be received some distance away, the station set up to broadcast at 500,000 watts. It requires about one watt to be received four blocks away. A cell phone is three watts. This station broadcast at such tremendous power that they could be heard around the world. People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. - from www.clip-text.com -------------- Can you imagine the cost of their electric bill? I used to pick up AM radio stations in my head. The theory back then was that it was due to dental work acting as a rectifier, etc. I could tell you exactly which song was playing and where they were at in the song. All one had to do was turn on a radio and I would be singing in sync with it. The really weird part was that all I could hear was the music and the time announcements. This was in the late 50's and early 60's when I lived in Carneys Point, NJ. The radio station that I heard the best was WAMS (1380kc) in Wilmington, DE. The second best was WFIL in Philadelphia, PA. The latter I heard after WAMS went off the air for the day. Ed, NM2K |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver
500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Are you aware of the technical difficulties that obtained in just getting that monster to work? General Electric and Westinghouse supplied most of the parts, the rest by RCA, and RCA was the company that strived and strived before it was workable at that power level. I once worked for Harold Vance, the RCA engineer in charge of the project. Certainly this didn't happen in the 1920's, and not in Schenectady. Somebody's been feeding you horse hockey. Walt, W2DU |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"Walter Maxwell" wrote in message ... Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Are you aware of the technical difficulties that obtained in just getting that monster to work? General Electric and Westinghouse supplied most of the parts, the rest by RCA, and RCA was the company that strived and strived before it was workable at that power level. I once worked for Harold Vance, the RCA engineer in charge of the project. Certainly this didn't happen in the 1920's, and not in Schenectady. Somebody's been feeding you horse hockey. Walt, W2DU You can see the whole WLW story at http://www.hawkins.pair.com/wlw.shtml Scroll part way down to see the 500 KW monster. Tam/WB2TT |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
On Aug 5, 7:31 pm, "Walter Maxwell" wrote:
Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Are you aware of the technical difficulties that obtained in just getting that monster to work? General Electric and Westinghouse supplied most of the parts, the rest by RCA, and RCA was the company that strived and strived before it was workable at that power level. I once worked for Harold Vance, the RCA engineer in charge of the project. Certainly this didn't happen in the 1920's, and not in Schenectady. Somebody's been feeding you horse hockey. Walt, W2DU On the other hand, there were spark transmitters well before that in a similar power class. As I understand it, the powers actually achieved as output were often either not well known or were kept quiet for various reasons, but they were clearly in excess of 100kW. Apparently the Oct. 1920 issue of "General Electric Review has an article by Alexanderson about a 200kW alternator-driven transmitter. I understand that there were also some high-powered (Poulsen) arc transmitters (quite distinct from the shock-excitation of spark). I found one reference to a Poulsen arc transmitter that ran at 3.6 MW input power which was "still active in the early 1920s..." It ran on ~50kHz. Pretty much all this early stuff was below 100kHz, which of course yields very reliable propagation if you put enough power into it. Our plant used to be less than a wavelength from a 1MW transmitting system, and I was always somewhat surprised that we weren't bothered more by them, as we made sensitive spectral analyzers that covered the frequency range on which they transmitted. We moved, and now we're a couple wavelengths away. We're more bothered by the 5kW AM broadcast station a few miles away, though that's easily filtered/shielded. Cheers, Tom |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
In article , "Walter Maxwell"
wrote: Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Hello, and I grew up in Cincinnati where Crosley might well be regarded as Cincinnati's equivalent to Pittsburgh's G. Westinghouse. Don't know if Cincy had a Tesla, though ;-) The operations of WLW over the years are well documented in technical journals and newspapers so I would ask of the OP what is his information source(s). Sibncerely, John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: Naval Research Laboratory 4555 Overlook Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20375-5337 |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
Quoting from the original post in this thread:
"People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. " These are the phenomena reported from WLW's 500 kw operation in the 1930's. Some posters on this thread mention spark, Poulsen, Alexander alternators as sources of 500 kw and Mw power in the 1920's, which is true. On the contrary, from the quote above, I believe the original poster was referring only to a station broadcasting voice transmissions. This is what I believe to be untrue, as I don't believe 100 kw tubes were available in the 1920's. In addition, the WLW story indicates that WLW was the first station to transmit with 50 kw, and then the 500 kw transmitter with multiple 100 kw tubes was the first one to transmit AM BC at that power. Walt, W2DU |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"christopher" wrote in message peed... On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:05:32 -0400, Ed Cregger wrote: .................................................. .................... In my wild and misspent youth when I was using 11 meters, I used a VERY large amp which would cause some neighbors to hear my voice coming from electric sockets, refrigerators, light bulbs, radios, TVs and such. I would also voice over anyone close who was recording on tape. My electric bill was rather large as I had to unplug the stove to use the 220 socket. .................................................. ............................ The other day I was operating on 40 m SSB with 1KW+ output. Antenna is an inverted V at 50 feet. My mother told me she could hear my voice coming out of somewhere on the second floor. There was nothing with a speaker in it that was turned on, not even a PC. I will have to repeat that with a ham friend present. Tam/WB2TT |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"K7ITM" wrote in message ... On Aug 5, 7:31 pm, "Walter Maxwell" wrote: Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Are you aware of the technical difficulties that obtained in just getting that monster to work? General Electric and Westinghouse supplied most of the parts, the rest by RCA, and RCA was the company that strived and strived before it was workable at that power level. I once worked for Harold Vance, the RCA engineer in charge of the project. Certainly this didn't happen in the 1920's, and not in Schenectady. Somebody's been feeding you horse hockey. Walt, W2DU On the other hand, there were spark transmitters well before that in a similar power class. As I understand it, the powers actually achieved as output were often either not well known or were kept quiet for various reasons, but they were clearly in excess of 100kW. Apparently the Oct. 1920 issue of "General Electric Review has an article by Alexanderson about a 200kW alternator-driven transmitter. I understand that there were also some high-powered (Poulsen) arc transmitters (quite distinct from the shock-excitation of spark). I found one reference to a Poulsen arc transmitter that ran at 3.6 MW input power which was "still active in the early 1920s..." It ran on ~50kHz. Pretty much all this early stuff was below 100kHz, which of course yields very reliable propagation if you put enough power into it. But WLW ran 500KW of 100% AM modulation. I understand just the modulation transformer was the size of a room in order to handle the 250 KW of audio. I believe it was on 700 KHz. See the link I gave above. Tam/WB2TT Our plant used to be less than a wavelength from a 1MW transmitting system, and I was always somewhat surprised that we weren't bothered more by them, as we made sensitive spectral analyzers that covered the frequency range on which they transmitted. We moved, and now we're a couple wavelengths away. We're more bothered by the 5kW AM broadcast station a few miles away, though that's easily filtered/shielded. Cheers, Tom |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
On Aug 6, 8:21 am, "Tam" wrote:
"K7ITM" wrote in message ... On Aug 5, 7:31 pm, "Walter Maxwell" wrote: Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Are you aware of the technical difficulties that obtained in just getting that monster to work? General Electric and Westinghouse supplied most of the parts, the rest by RCA, and RCA was the company that strived and strived before it was workable at that power level. I once worked for Harold Vance, the RCA engineer in charge of the project. Certainly this didn't happen in the 1920's, and not in Schenectady. Somebody's been feeding you horse hockey. Walt, W2DU On the other hand, there were spark transmitters well before that in a similar power class. As I understand it, the powers actually achieved as output were often either not well known or were kept quiet for various reasons, but they were clearly in excess of 100kW. Apparently the Oct. 1920 issue of "General Electric Review has an article by Alexanderson about a 200kW alternator-driven transmitter. I understand that there were also some high-powered (Poulsen) arc transmitters (quite distinct from the shock-excitation of spark). I found one reference to a Poulsen arc transmitter that ran at 3.6 MW input power which was "still active in the early 1920s..." It ran on ~50kHz. Pretty much all this early stuff was below 100kHz, which of course yields very reliable propagation if you put enough power into it. But WLW ran 500KW of 100% AM modulation. I understand just the modulation transformer was the size of a room in order to handle the 250 KW of audio. I believe it was on 700 KHz. See the link I gave above. Well, admittedly I was taking it a bit out of context, but my posting was a response to Walter's "Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?" And the answer is, yes, I do. Maybe not valve-based, but more than one transmitter, and capable of modulation as well: apparently Poulsen arc transmitters were FSK, since they couldn't be keyed on and off. And apparently the alternator based transmitters could be keyed at up to 100wpm. I'm pretty impressed with what the radio engineers of that era were able to achieve. Cheers, Tom |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
On Aug 6, 1:10*pm, "Tam" wrote:
"christopher" wrote in message peed... On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:05:32 -0400, Ed Cregger wrote: .................................................. .................... In my wild and misspent youth when I was using 11 meters, I used a VERY large amp which would cause some neighbors to hear my voice coming from electric sockets, refrigerators, light bulbs, radios, TVs and such. I would also voice over anyone close who was recording on tape. My electric bill was rather large as I had to unplug the stove to use the 220 socket. .................................................. ..........................*... The other day I was operating on 40 m SSB with 1KW+ output. Antenna is an inverted V at 50 feet. My mother told me she could hear my voice coming out of somewhere on the second floor. There was nothing with a speaker in it that was turned on, not even a PC. I will have to repeat that with a ham friend present. Tam/WB2TT The UK back in the 1950s, post WWII. They were investigating some complaints that a licensed amateur radio transmitter was causing interference to some of the new fangled TV sets (45 megahertz, AM sound, 405 line black and white system). The fault was mainly the inabilities of the TV sets to reject strong nearby signals in another band! One elderly lady was asked if she was "Hearing anything" and replied. "Oh yes. I hear him all the time" and was asked to show the investigators her TV set. "Oh no", she said, "I don't have a TV at all but I can hear him on my electric heater whenever I switch it on or plug it in!". Turned out that the heating coil of the heater was providing inductance, there was a sufficiently high resistance (possibly where the replaceable heating coil connected at each end) to act as rectifier under the conditions present and the metal frame of the heater provided a sound box. The lady was not particularly concerned about having the heater fixed, saying "She found his talking quite interesting!". You never know do you? Nowadays sort of wondering about cell phones and those bits of metal that some people wear in their noses, faces and ears etc. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
K7ITM wrote:
.. See the link I gave above. Well, admittedly I was taking it a bit out of context, but my posting was a response to Walter's "Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?" I think the operative word here is "deliver", by which I would mean "radiated into the far field". Dissipating half a megawatt in the system is impressive, but not necessarily as a transmitter. And the answer is, yes, I do. Maybe not valve-based, but more than one transmitter, and capable of modulation as well: apparently Poulsen arc transmitters were FSK, since they couldn't be keyed on and off. One scheme was to change the resonant frequency of the antenna (via taps on a coil), which was the frequency determining part of the system, the arc providing a negative resistance characteristic for making an oscillator. And apparently the alternator based transmitters could be keyed at up to 100wpm. I'm pretty impressed with what the radio engineers of that era were able to achieve. It IS very impressive, but whether they could *radiate* half a megawatt is sort of a good question. Consider for comparison the ELF transmitters in Michigan..several Megawatts to radiate less than 10 Watts Or Project Sanguine, which was soemthing like 800 MW to radiate a few watts. I know of several Tesla coils that have average power inputs in the hundreds of kW range, but they don't radiate a whole lot, even with 20+ meter sparks as an antenna. Cheers, Tom |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"Tam" wrote in message . .. The other day I was operating on 40 m SSB with 1KW+ output. Antenna is an inverted V at 50 feet. My mother told me she could hear my voice coming out of somewhere on the second floor. There was nothing with a speaker in it that was turned on, not even a PC. I will have to repeat that with a ham friend present. Tam/WB2TT I've had old solid state console stereos at the place I worked spew forth the local CB'er w/linear even when not plugged in. We figured that the output transistors were detecting the signal and feeding it to the speakers. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
Had the same phenomenon when the illegal, high-powered, CB transmitter next
door cut in--I picked it up through the magnetic cartridge on my turntable, "Brenda Ann" wrote in message ... "Tam" wrote in message . .. The other day I was operating on 40 m SSB with 1KW+ output. Antenna is an inverted V at 50 feet. My mother told me she could hear my voice coming out of somewhere on the second floor. There was nothing with a speaker in it that was turned on, not even a PC. I will have to repeat that with a ham friend present. Tam/WB2TT I've had old solid state console stereos at the place I worked spew forth the local CB'er w/linear even when not plugged in. We figured that the output transistors were detecting the signal and feeding it to the speakers. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
J. B. Wood wrote:
In article , "Walter Maxwell" wrote: Do really believe that there was a transmitter in the 1920's that could deliver 500 kw?. The first station that could come up with that amount of power was in the 1930's,W8XO, the experimental station of Powell Crosley, that became WLW again when the experimental period was over. Hello, and I grew up in Cincinnati where Crosley might well be regarded as Cincinnati's equivalent to Pittsburgh's G. Westinghouse. Don't know if Cincy had a Tesla, though ;-) The operations of WLW over the years are well documented in technical journals and newspapers so I would ask of the OP what is his information source(s). Sibncerely, John Wood (Code 5550) e-mail: Naval Research Laboratory 4555 Overlook Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20375-5337 From Joe Rice's (W4RHZ SK) book "Early Cincinnati Radio, 1910-1970": The history of WLW presents a story of American enterprise and ingenuity as colorful as any story in the world. It has the distinction of being one of the few radio stations in all of American of running 500,000 watts of power. This is did from New Years Eve of 1934 until 1939. From a modest beginning of about 20 watts power to the super power range is a real success story of one man. Growth of WLW was constant and it operated on different wavelengths until 1927 when it stabilised at 700 kilocycles and then in 1928 it increased power to 50,000 watts." Dave K8MN |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Jim Driscoll wrote:
Had the same phenomenon when the illegal, high-powered, CB transmitter next door cut in--I picked it up through the magnetic cartridge on my turntable, Same here. I got a 3 watt walkie talkie and and sent it all back to him. mike -- __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /\ / / / /\ \/ /\ \/This space for rent/\ \/ /\ \/ / /_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ \/_/ Densa International© 'Think tanks cleaned cheap' Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage, I block all postings with a Gmail, Google Mail, Google Groups or HOTMAIL address. I also filter everything from a .cn server. http://improve-usenet.org/ |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Walter Maxwell wrote:
Quoting from the original post in this thread: "People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. " These are the phenomena reported from WLW's 500 kw operation in the 1930's. Some posters on this thread mention spark, Poulsen, Alexander alternators as sources of 500 kw and Mw power in the 1920's, which is true. On the contrary, from the quote above, I believe the original poster was referring only to a station broadcasting voice transmissions. This is what I believe to be untrue, as I don't believe 100 kw tubes were available in the 1920's. In addition, the WLW story indicates that WLW was the first station to transmit with 50 kw, and then the 500 kw transmitter with multiple 100 kw tubes was the first one to transmit AM BC at that power. Right, Walt. Rice's book indicates that there were 31 tubes in the 500 KW transmitter, each costing $1,000 in 1934. The Cincinnati area stories of people living near WLW's Mason, Ohio transmitter site being able to hear the station on fences and down spouts were common. Even at 50 KW, WLW caused problems for a number of hams who lived near the transmitter site when they were operating on 160m. Dave K8MN |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Tam wrote:
But WLW ran 500KW of 100% AM modulation. I understand just the modulation transformer was the size of a room in order to handle the 250 KW of audio. I believe it was on 700 KHz. See the link I gave above. The modulation transformer at VOA's Bethany relay station (located quite near WLW's Mason, Ohio transmitter site) took up much of a very large room. If you stood in that room, you could hear the transmitted audio from the laminations. The sound was so loud that it was necessary to shout to be heard over it. Dave K8MN |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
Wow. We can learn something new every day. Joe Rice (W4RHZ) was one of my
idols when I had my first licenses during 1959-61. He was a key member of NKARC (Northern Kentucky ARC). Google says his "Early Cincinnati Radio" was privately published, so I am unlikely to run across a copy. (Ebay and half.com, etc, have no hits for it.) Bill W2WO (Was K4DFO in those days) |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"Walter Maxwell" wrote in message ... Quoting from the original post in this thread: "People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. " These are the phenomena reported from WLW's 500 kw operation in the 1930's. In the late 1950's White's Radio Log reported XEX (Mexico City) had a megawatt of power for a while -- several years, perhaps. Later reports gave their power as 500 KW. I never heard them in NY because there was always somebody else blocking them. Presently they're on 730 and listed at a featherweight 100 KW. http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=101201. What's the record for max BCB power? |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Bill Ogden wrote:
Wow. We can learn something new every day. Joe Rice (W4RHZ) was one of my idols when I had my first licenses during 1959-61. He was a key member of NKARC (Northern Kentucky ARC). Google says his "Early Cincinnati Radio" was privately published, so I am unlikely to run across a copy. (Ebay and half.com, etc, have no hits for it.) Bill W2WO (Was K4DFO in those days) Bill, Yep, Joe was a Norwood boy who became a Northern Kentucky transplant. I was WB4KTR when I moved from Miami to Fort Thomas in 1968. I didn't meet Joe until coming back from the Air Force in 1972. He was my first 160m contact, good for about ten miles. :-) I found the Early Cincinnati Radio at a used book store in downtown Cincy in '73 or so. I have two other books by Joe which he inscribed to me. One is called "Cincinnati's Powel Crosley". The other is entitled "Early Norwood Radio" Joe was a bit eccentric but he certainly knew his stuff about broadcast radio. He was engineer at many of those Cincinnati area stations and worked, at one time or another, for many of the electronic/radio manufacturers in the area as well. I, too, was an NKARC member until I moved across the river in 1977. 73, Dave K8MN |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Sal M. Onella wrote:
. . . What's the record for max BCB power? Dunno, but some of the SW BC stations sure are impressive. I had the opportunity to see the Deutsche Welle facility at Wertachtal, Germany a couple of years ago. It has, I believe, 12 ea. 500 kW transmitters, and the antenna consists of several miles of curtain array with reflector grids on both sides for reversibility, arranged in a pattern of three long radials from a central building. It can also be electronically steered to some degree. Modulation could be heard at about a half mile from the antenna, apparently from vibration of some of the antenna feed components. That facility leases time to many other international broadcasters. Roy Lewallen, W7EL |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Sal M. Onella wrote:
In the late 1950's White's Radio Log reported XEX (Mexico City) had a megawatt of power for a while -- several years, perhaps. In 1953, XERF at 250 KW in Villa Acuna was the strongest station on the dial in East Texas. Their studios were across the Rio Grande River in Del Rio, TX. For some reason, I remember the White Rose Petroleum Jelly commercials. -- 73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
On Aug 6, 9:23 pm, Roy Lewallen wrote:
Sal M. Onella wrote: . . . What's the record for max BCB power? Dunno, but some of the SW BC stations sure are impressive. I had the opportunity to see the Deutsche Welle facility at Wertachtal, Germany a couple of years ago. It has, I believe, 12 ea. 500 kW transmitters, and the antenna consists of several miles of curtain array with reflector grids on both sides for reversibility, arranged in a pattern of three long radials from a central building. It can also be electronically steered to some degree. Modulation could be heard at about a half mile from the antenna, apparently from vibration of some of the antenna feed components. That facility leases time to many other international broadcasters. Roy Lewallen, W7EL No wonder, then, that they can put a 0dBm signal into a decent ham antenna on 7MHz on the US East Coast. Still, I'm always in awe of the efficiency of propagation through the air, bouncing between the ionosphere and the earth/oceans. On the same roughly 5000 km path through a piece of dry air insulated minimum loss copper coax 1/3 meter diameter (a bit over a foot diameter; about 5 millidB/100feet loss@7MHz), fed 6 megawatts at the input, you get an undetectable signal out the other end, over 800dB loss yielding an output less than -700dBm. [6 megawatts at 76 ohms is 21kV rms, so a line that large should handle the voltage, but at the transmitter end, such a line would dissipate about 60 watts per foot.] Cheers, Tom |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Sal M. Onella wrote:
What's the record for max BCB power? I don't think any of the "national" radio stations in the Mideast run more than 1 Megawatt. Here's some interesting stations from the Americas: PJB3 800 kHz ND1 Daytime TRANSWORLD R 800.0 kW ZYJ-457 800 kHz ND1 Daytime RIO DE JANEI 900.0 kW YVTB 800 kHz ND1 Daytime MARACAIBO 5 900.0 kW YVKY 710 kHz DA1 Daytime CARACAS 11 900.0 kW YVKG 950 kHz DA1 Daytime CARACAS 2 400.0 kW YVLL 670 kHz DA1 Daytime CARACAS 9 500.0 kW ZYH-446 740 kHz ND1 Daytime SALVADOR BR 800.0 kW ZYH-707 AM 980 kHz ND1 Nighttime BRASILIA 600.0 kW ZYK537 AM 1040 kHz ND1 Nighttime SAO PAULO 900.0 kW ZYJ-455 AM 1280 kHz DA1 Nighttime RIO DE JANEI 700.0 kW HCXY1 AM 620 kHz ND1 Daytime LOJA EC 900.0 kW HCJB1 AM 690 kHz ND1 Daytime QUITO EC 600.0 kW Jim, K7JEB |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful
transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. Alec "javawizard" wrote in message ... In the 1920's a radio station in Schenectady, NY built a powerful transmitter. In those days before FCC regulations, not knowing just how big to make a transmitter in order for the signal to be received some distance away, the station set up to broadcast at 500,000 watts. It requires about one watt to be received four blocks away. A cell phone is three watts. This station broadcast at such tremendous power that they could be heard around the world. People in New York didn't even need radios. They could sometimes hear voices in their furnaces and coming off chain-link fences. Light bulbs lit up in people's houses even if they were switched off. - from www.clip-text.com |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"Ed Cregger" wrote in message ... I used to pick up AM radio stations in my head. The theory back then was that it was due to dental work acting as a rectifier, etc. How on earth could you sleep. You'd need to make your bedroom into a Faraday cage. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"HiTech RedNeck" wrote in message ... "Ed Cregger" wrote in message ... I used to pick up AM radio stations in my head. The theory back then was that it was due to dental work acting as a rectifier, etc. How on earth could you sleep. You'd need to make your bedroom into a Faraday cage. -------------- Truly, it didn't bother me at all. Of course, it could have been just a coincidence. I used to wonder if I had memorized their play sheet and then just applied that to the great sense of time that I had back then. I could come within a minute, twenty four hours a day, of giving the correct time each and every time someone asked. The AM radio sense disappeared when I went into the USAF in 1965. When I came back from the USAF some four years later, the 1380 WAMS radio station was gone as was the use of the frequency. The USAF removed quite of a few teeth during my four year sojurn. I always figured that was the reason why radio reception stopped. Ed, NM2K |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:43:48 -0500, Cecil Moore
wrote: Sal M. Onella wrote: In the late 1950's White's Radio Log reported XEX (Mexico City) had a megawatt of power for a while -- several years, perhaps. In 1953, XERF at 250 KW in Villa Acuna was the strongest station on the dial in East Texas. Their studios were across the Rio Grande River in Del Rio, TX. For some reason, I remember the White Rose Petroleum Jelly commercials. Wolfman Jack... 100 baby chicks for $2.98, shipped to your door! bob k5qwg |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Walt Davidson wrote:
On Sat, 9 Aug 2008 14:35:25 +0100, "Alec" wrote: Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the signal weaker for everybody else? Unlikely anywhere other than in the very near vicinity, and at that range who would have noticed. -- Brian |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
"Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the signal weaker for everybody else? 73 de G3NYY In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Now whether this is true or not is another matter. 73 Jeff |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Jeff wrote:
"Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the signal weaker for everybody else? 73 de G3NYY In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Now whether this is true or not is another matter. It seems to me that a resonant structure to capture energy would re-radiate so I can't see where such a null would come from, the wavelength is long so the path difference between the main tx and the re-radiator would make such a phase shift difficult to achieve. -- Brian |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Now whether this is true or not is another matter. It seems to me that a resonant structure to capture energy would re-radiate so I can't see where such a null would come from, the wavelength is long so the path difference between the main tx and the re-radiator would make such a phase shift difficult to achieve. -- Brian Surely that would only be true if the power was not dumped into a load? The power in the load has to come from somewhere, and if it is in the load it is not in the aether. Jeff |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Jeff wrote:
In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Now whether this is true or not is another matter. It seems to me that a resonant structure to capture energy would re-radiate so I can't see where such a null would come from, the wavelength is long so the path difference between the main tx and the re-radiator would make such a phase shift difficult to achieve. Surely that would only be true if the power was not dumped into a load? The power in the load has to come from somewhere, and if it is in the load it is not in the aether. It depends on the power captured vs the power in the load, but in any case the aperture of the loop is fairly small and cannot allow energy to be captured from outside that aperture. In comparison with the size of the transmitting antenna and the field it generates this must be insignificant I think. In fact, I wonder if he could really run a house full of fluorescent lights this way. -- Brian |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in New York State
In article ,
"Jeff" wrote: "Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. If this is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), did it make the signal weaker for everybody else? 73 de G3NYY In the version that I heard it was the null that the 'suck out' caused that led to an investigation that resulted in the prosecution. Now whether this is true or not is another matter. 73 Jeff I thought the farmers equipment caused four "nulls", or local minima, in the radiation pattern. -- Regards, John Byrns Surf my web pages at, http://fmamradios.com/ |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
Alec wrote:
Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. Please provide citations for this story; it retells what appears to be an "urban legend". Here is another take on the story: =============QUOTED MATERIAL========================================= From: "Steve Maudsley" Message-ID: Newsgroups: uk.legal Subject: Theft of electricity? Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:12:00 -0000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.103.216.21 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:14:40 GMT Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service "Jeff" wrote in message ... But a transformer still involves a direct physical connection to the mains via the primary. The primary is consuming current via its physical connection, whatever may happen to the current after it has entered the primary. The power line *is the primary*!! It is just that the secondary is separated from it by a larger distance than normal. In any case I believe that someone was prosecuted some years ago for doing what it being suggested. I do recall a story about 30 years ago (possibly apocryphal) about a farmer who lived on the UK side of the Radio Luxemburg transmitter and powered his cattle shed from the radio waves, and was prosecuted. Radio Luxemburg had some sort of phased array and the cows electrical use disrupted the beam. ================END OF QUOTED MATERIAL==================================== Michael |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
On Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:59:56 -0500, msg wrote:
Alec wrote: Back at about the same time the BBC had (and still has) a powerful transmitter on 200khz (now198) a local farmer who lived close to the station built a large tuning coil in the loft and lit his house using fluorescent tubes. He was successfully prosecuted for stealing electricity or something similar. Please provide citations for this story; it retells what appears to be an "urban legend". Here is another take on the story: =============QUOTED MATERIAL========================================= From: "Steve Maudsley" Message-ID: Newsgroups: uk.legal Subject: Theft of electricity? Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:12:00 -0000 NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.103.216.21 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:14:40 GMT Organization: Virgin Net Usenet Service "Jeff" wrote in message ... But a transformer still involves a direct physical connection to the mains via the primary. The primary is consuming current via its physical connection, whatever may happen to the current after it has entered the primary. The power line *is the primary*!! It is just that the secondary is separated from it by a larger distance than normal. In any case I believe that someone was prosecuted some years ago for doing what it being suggested. I do recall a story about 30 years ago (possibly apocryphal) about a farmer who lived on the UK side of the Radio Luxemburg transmitter and powered his cattle shed from the radio waves, and was prosecuted. Radio Luxemburg had some sort of phased array and the cows electrical use disrupted the beam. ================END OF QUOTED MATERIAL==================================== Michael Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field, all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term. I'm not a technical person but I think I have the basic premise right. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYorkState
christopher wrote: Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field, all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term. I'm not a technical person but I think I have the basic premise right. No. It wasn't DC, since DC is direct current. That was Edison who would have needed a power plant every half mile or so. Tesla was hyping "Broadcast power" which was lossy broadband RF power that would wipe out most of the usable RF spectrum. Due to the 'Inverse Square Law', it was impractical, and always will be. Tesla was responsible for AC power distribution, which ****ed Edison off. -- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html aioe.org, Goggle Groups, and Web TV users must request to be white listed, or I will not see your messages. If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm There are two kinds of people on this earth: The crazy, and the insane. The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy. |
The Strange True Story of a Radio Station's Transmitter in NewYork State
christopher wrote:
snip Didn't Tesla propose using DC current, basically broadcast/produced from thousands of transmitters. In order to use the electrical current/field, all one had to do was ground one side/wire to Earth. The other side or wire would be the receptor/antenna for lack of a better term. FWIW, the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer describes some of Tesla's ideas and also has a list of references to more recent wireless energy distribution schemes. Michael |
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