"Garrett Wollman" wrote in message
...
In article ,
R J Carpenter wrote:

But aren't there still a lot of tube 50s in backup role? A couple of
years
ago WTOP still had a tube rig as backup.

At a lot of the sites I've visited, this used to be the case but has
changed in the not-too-distant past (or is scheduled to change soon).
A lot of the effort is due to IBOC, but even in its absence I've been
told that the advantages even of the ``Destiny'' over the original
DX-50 are sufficient to make it worth stations' while to buy one and
move their DX-50s to standby status. (It's a great racket for Harris,
certainly....)

Visit 980-Washington the same day as WTOP. They has 3 solid state rigs. A
Harris DX=50 for days, a Nautel 5 kW for night, and a Nautel 10 kW for
spare. Greater Media had done almost everything in at least triplicate. The
station was sold shortly thereafter and I wonder about the present
situation.