Standing Inside a Broadcast Transmitter While it's ON!
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- Опубліковано 23 бер 2017
- See inside a Gates BC-250-GY broadcast transmitter from the 40's era. Lots of big Tubes, Transformers and Capacitors! Check out my Patreon site here: / mrcarlsonslab
- Наука та технологія
Hey! Learn more about electronics, and see more of my video's on Patreon. Check it out here and join the crowd: www.patreon.com/MrCarlsonsLab
plz make tuning video thx bbz
Mr Carlson's Lab k
Hi mr Carlson.
Mr Carlson's Lab I need a 50,000 watt commercial am amplifier for use in CB band
Wow! I thought that was going to be a few kilowatts...
I’ve run pirate radio stations in the uk since 2000s and my 300wt fm transmitter is about the size of the grey box on top right of that am transmitter.
Once we turned a 150wt transmitter on indoors to see if it was what we’d paid for...
within 5-10 secs we started feeling a bit weird..
Felt a bit stunned and like a eiry feeling..
We only did that once..
assumed it was frying us like a microwave 🤣
My wife says I have too much stuff but then she saw Paul's electronics lab. Now she just complains about other things lol.
You can never have too much
Years ago I worked at a UHF Television with a Townsend transmitter. It was about the size of a streetcar, with doors that you had to go inside to service it. It had safety interlocks on the doors of course. There was also a grounding rod device so you could discharge capacitors that might hold a charge even after powered down. Our engineers called them "Jesus Rods", because if you didn't use them you might meet him in person.
In a rollercoster sound system valves powered amplifier : ("Gougeon" was the main brand in rollercosters and carrousels sound systems) , the plate voltage of the 308 valves is 800V DC current ! Enougth to kill a man too !!
In the 70', the Gougeon company build the first solid state hight power sound system amplifier... The output power was 2500 Watts on 2 Ohms speakers load per channel !!! It's commercial name was "Presence 250" ( have a look on the web).
@@cletusspuckler2243 I work on roller coasters, and pretty much everything about them will kill you if disrespected. Massive motors, relay cabinets where all the logic circuitry is at 480v, exposed live shit **everywhere** in the control boxes, 120v at the buttons and panels, some crazy shit with older things xD
Praise the Lord!
This took me back a ways. 60 years ago I received my 3rd Class Broadcast license. I was in high school and I worked at our local Radio and TV station in Ohio. It was a great experience
.
I remember seeing a huge machine about the size of a bus, that used 50,000 W R.F
to heat & dry toweling running through it. When you open any of the side doors, all
the lighting inside was just numerous Fluoro Tubes, held with spring clips !! No wires.
You just took me back 50 odd years, serving in the RAAF starting in Jan 1972 I was posted to Butterworth Air Base, Malaysia. We had a radio broadcast transmitter and studio which collectively went by the callsign RRB, 1KW I believe. I didn't work on the AM broadcast band transmitters such as this but remember the large transmitter hall where it sat dwarfed by the huge HF transmitters we used for communications back to Australia from the base. A mate of mine from the ground radio side showed me the huge complex and antenna farm.
Now I was a radio tech air which meant I worked on airbourne radio comms , navigation and radar equipment. As it transpired I finished up working on the Mirage III Cyrano II fire control radar for 6 years (many pictures of the beast on the net). The RF final and modulator electron tubes you show are bigger than anything I worked on but there were huge water cooled electron tubes in some of the big HF TX's with PEP of several thousand watts. I had not ever seen tubes that big before, I was in my early twenties and had completed a 5 year electrical/electronic apprenticeship at 15 before I joined the RAAF.
I am retired from the RAAF now, spending my last serving years teaching electronics at the then RAAF School of Radio which sadly no longer exists.
Thermionic electron tube theory is fairly basic and easy to understand compared with our world of microprocessor controlled electronics now.
I obtained my amateur licence in 1989 only having to sit for regulations, the theory was waved. I am wondering what band you work with that transmitter as you would have to retune the drive, final and adjust the ant loading every time you changed your VFO frequency.
I am not active at the moment due to wide spread QRM at my current QTH. It's so bad I can't really receive anything except the two local AM broadcast stations and the NDB from RAAF base Sale, Victoria up the road where I had two tours , I am still investigating. Cheers Robert VK3URS
When you spoke of the HV interlock switch I was reminded of Max Ferguson's story of the CBC Toronto Xmitter.
One of the non-technical staff would open up the door to heat his meal inside and cut off transmission every night. The engineers couldn't figure out why it was happening.
lol!
Very funny
kaybikerow Or in my case get some winter time heat by putting standby transmitter into the dummy load LOL!
@@gatesmw50 Who among us hasn't done that?
Last time I saw a beautiful Gates box like this it was in my little station back in the 1970s when radio was still king.
Thank you for the nostalgic journey
Feb 2021: My first impression of Mr Carlson's Lab with this video last year. Back for a replay.
Thank You for showing us your Gates. We (My Antique Radio Club) toured the inside of KRMG's 50K Watt RCA. It was as big as a house. They have digital now but still maintain the old RCA as a backup. Also when we were kids, we rode our motorcycles out to the TV Channel 8 tower. The engineer saw us looking up at the tower. He took us inside and showed us their One Million Watt Transmitter. A great day for two 14 year old geeks!
Fantastic! Designed and built by "Space Cadets"!
@@lysippus They should run a restaurant selling fried food from the cooling oil 🤣
@@TebTengri Yes! Although, I'm sure the cooling oil is not culinary-grade oil and thoroughly inedible. It probably would not taste very good either.
@@scratchpad7954 in Africa street vendors fry food in transformer oil. PCBs for everyone!
Beautiful technology, excellent channel, flawless presentation. Thanks a million Mr. Carlson.
You deserve a lot of praise for taking care of these old beasts. They would have ended up in the dumpster or have been scavenged for parts otherwise. The demise of AM stations is a darned shame. Modern broadcast equipment are full of digital gimmicks and wizardry. The old valve stuff are simply bombproof works of beautiful craftsmanship and built to last a few lifetimes.
We were still using these when I left KUJ in 2000. I don't think I ever had to touch them they just sat there at the towers. I checked them once a month. Its funny the old gear for the AM never had issues, but anything new, like the SAT receivers, the computers, carts, all would last may five years or had weird glitches, but the damn AM gear, including the AM giant knob pot board, never ever failed.
What a Great Teacher Mr Carslson is, he is Pleasant, Courteous and Brilliant in his Delivery
And he looks like he just pooped his pants.
Early 2020: Mr. Carlson and Jordan Petersen, top 2 on my list. :)
Wow, looking at this beautiful transmitter, is like the same as checking out an ole classic car ! :)
Well worth the 37 minutes. Thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks!
You have D104's! I had one with a 6-wire cable back in the 70's. I ran a Surveyor 23 channel mobile through a salvaged Starduster antenna. I had great range and annoyed a lot of guys with full base stations. They had Browning and Cobra radios and I kept up with them. The D104 brings back great memories!
Great video! A trip down memory lane for me...in the late 1960s, I worked for RCA in Meadowlands, PA, building AM broadcast transmitters...mostly 5kw units, in walk-in cabinets like your Gates. Lacing cables, bolting stuff in place, wiring them up. My initials are inside the cabinets of several XRs. As a young guy, it was exciting for me just to be around heavy iron like that! Something magical about big glowing tubes . . .
Thanks for taking the time to write!
Yes! By all means more transmitter stuff! Love it. Thanks for your video.
second that notion!
I started listening to shortwave radio around 1980 on a small Sony portable. AM hams could be received with ease and conversations were pure delight. BC610, Johnson Viking, Globe Champ and other kilowatt rigs were used. Some names and callsigns I remember in case any of you recognize them: Ashtabula Bill, Ed WA3PUN, Tim and the Timtron on a mountaintop in Skowhegan, Maine WA1HLR, a ham in London, Ky and another still active in Woodlawn Tenessee, another GG Liddy fan in Virginia Beach, Va. and many more from Texas to Florida to Maryland, Maine, Pennsylvania. Pleasant memories and great listening times. WA3PUN and another in Ann Arbor were running a project to honor Nikoli Tesla with a statue to go in the Smithsonian.
A radio DJ for 17 years I have an affinity for old broadcast transmitters. This video was wonderful to view, thank you! I would enjoy more of these as well as seeing how you tune these. w0xs
Every time you touched a component in there, made me pucker up.
Very cool . . . big tube transmitter! Appreciate the detail minutia of operating this beautifully restored piece of radio machinery, it is something of an artform. Have no idea why anyone would give a thumbs down. I remember in the distant days of my youth (a very long time ago) being fascinated with high power tube circuits . . . big transformers, big relays, big caps, big everything! I'm amazed there are engineers today who understand the subtleties of bringing this ancient radio tech to life and keeping the artform alive.
i was a army radio operator for the dutch army in 1998 just before they went digital , it was a single side band radio built into a shelter that was put onto a truck that i also happened to be the driver for . i don't really remember what set number it had in there but it was the coolest radio that i ever played with , we had different anteny with it like the straight 20 meter ( or so )pole , we could make a dipole antenna and a cartwheel antenna , that thing had a good deal of range also when using the signal booster that it was equipped with outside the rf protected cabin , man i tell ya when the booster kicked in ( and you had to give it a few seconds to get to full boost before broadcasting) that thing could fry some stuff , it was for that reason the warning no to get anywhere near the antenna when in use for so i was told it could fry an egg .
In 1965 I was trained at ferris state college in transmitter service man does this bring back memories this was way before digital electronics, really enjoy all of your videos you do a super job from Brian WB8IDY in Michigan please beep up the good work 73
Thank you for always letting us explore inside your curious world with you! It truly is amazing!
Glad to share Zac!
What a great walk back in time! Reminds me of interesting thing that happened to me shortly after I started to work for WBT-AM in Charlotte NC 57 years ago! I was only 19 at the time but had been a ham since 11.
After being on the job for only two weeks, the chief engineer assigned me to start on the second shift SOLO! That scared me to death because I would have to switch directional that afternoon, and I had not had the opportunity to do that before! Now WBT-AM was a big deal - 50KW from that big ol' RCA BTA-50 spreading from Canada to Cuba blasted millions of ears - a point impressed very strongly on me by the CE. Anyway, the guys who I trained with on the first shift told me NEVER to switch on a modulation peak or it could take the transmitter down! Now the DJ at that time felt there should be no lapse of audio content between music - I never knew him to ""run out of gas."
Well, the time finally came to make the switch. Ty Boyd just would not stop talking! Five minutes after the official time to switch, I finally went for it! BANG! Huge plate breakers in the high voltage bay loudly signalled their displeasure at the current overload when the relays came back in directional mode. Then SILENCE! I almost messed my britches cuz all I could think of was that millions of people all over the world had lost their favorite station and I was the one to blame! I cud just see that pink slip coming! And I was planning on getting married in a couple weeks and cud see that going down the drain!
I deduced that the problem could be remedied by going into the transmitter entry bay and manually resetting the main high voltage breaker. Bad decision! When I reset that breaker the DJ was still talking and the same problem occurred - this time the primary AC breaker tripped and the whole transmitter went black! Not a tube was lit! Now the CE had been trying to maintain some sort of industry record by keeping the filaments on those big finals hot for the longest time since initial installation. I remembered him proudly telling me that those finals had not had their filaments turned off since they were installed several years prior. All that was running through my head and I had no idea how to get that transmitter back on the air without it shutting off again!
After what seemed like an eternity the phone rang. It was the CE. He calmly asked what happened to the WBT-AM signal. With a shaky voice I told him the situation. He had me turn off all the switches that had to do with power and cut the main audio switch. Then he slowly and methodically talked me into bringing everything back up in sequence starting with the primary AC breaker. Eventually, I got the transmitter back on the air and adjusted the various controls to get the directional RF power set to the proper level to drive the three towers.
After I convinced the CE I was OK and the transmitter was doing what it was supposed to, he hung up. I was just waiting for him to come in and fire me. In about 15 minutes I heard him come in the front door and go straight to his office. I was mentally preparing for him to tell me that was my last day as an engineer for WBT-AM! However, at my great surprise, being the tremendously professional he was, he came out and CONGRATULATED me for the excellent job I did in not panicking and getting his beloved station back on the air!
Needless to say, the lesson I learned was to cut the audio at the appointed time before switching directional, regardless of what the DJ was doing, whether talking, playing music or running a commercial!
That experience not only taught me a lot about broadcast transmitter operating procedures it built my self confidence and taught me a lot about managing and dealing with people. I went on to spend 47 years with that company, eventually rising to Vice President of IT for the entire company. When I retired, the company owned 3 TV stations, 17 radio stations and a sports production company.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Carlson! I just joined your world as a patreon! Thanks again for the enjoyable trek back in time and for the excellent job you are doing in educating both old and new about the the wonderful world of radio and electronics repair.
Joe AB4WF
Thanks for sharing that great story Joe, that was a very enjoyable read. Thanks for your kind comment too!
Thanks so much. Just watched this and loved it. I'm a Ham also. Love vacuum tubes and feel they are the real radios. I have always dreamed of owning a nice commercial transmitter like that. I plan on watching several more of your videos.
Gear like this transmitter must be the type of template from which game designers built the props in games like Portal 2. I could swear I regularly tried to flip all the switches, twiddle all the knobs and press all the buttons; alas, no reaction, not in the game, that is. Nice to see a real one! Cheers!
MIGHTY good entertainment. I have absolutely no idea how this stuff works, or really any huge interest in the radio itself BUT I like watching you talk and explain all the stuff that you do.
Yes, more transmitter videos, please! This is my favorite YT channel. Thanks for sharing the knowledge, Paul.
Brings back memories, when I was in Electronics class in High School 1965-1967, we had an old army transmitter. It was a bc810? We drove 300 watt light bulbs on the output and had a lot of fun with it.
Circa 1970 I was at a 1000/250 watt radio station w/similar transmitter. Changed the HUGE tubes almost weekly. Thanks for the great video/memories!
Just gotta say thanks for lighting a well needed fire under my life-long but recently dormant interest in electronics. I've watched a dozen or more of your videos and am marveled at how you take the fangs off of some of the most intimidating repairs and restorations. It's been a welcomed and refreshing boost to my own electronics aplomb. Thanks Paul.
Great to read! You're Welcome.
I felt the same way.... I'm only a Gen Ham License, ... got bored until I found Mr. Carlson...he rocks Radio !!!
Excellent presentation, Mr. C. I have always enjoyed seeing the guts of these older devices perhaps because I started my career in the the era (1960s) when you could walk inside computers even though they were solid state.
Nothing like Gates transmitters and a Collins board along with Altec Lansing squirrel cage mic ! I started in 1972 and loved it 👍
People like you are the reason I love UA-cam.
Awesome video! Thank you so much for taking the time to produce these.
What a great presentation! Large transmitters have always fascinated me, especially The US Navy VLF xmitters such as the one that use to exist at Annapolis. I'm a past USN communications electrician and you've really sparked my enthusiasm for electronics again. Thank you for that Mr. Carlson.
Great! You're welcome Scott!
ETN?
Very enjoyable tour!! I had never seen the innards of an older Gates TX.
I ran a Gates BC-10H for AFVN in 1970-71. It sat in a tiny building on 55 gallon drums in a swampy area next to its 200' tower. We were "The Big 900!" in Dong Ba Thin. It had 4 5000W ceramic tubes in the output, and the 2 modulators were driven by a dozen TO-3 transistors. They were insulated from ground by the usual thin mica insulators...even though they were at the -560V bias of the output modulator tubes! The sheet-metal roof blew off once in a typhoon, dumping about 50 lbs of sand from the bags holding the roof on into the transmitter, along with lots of saltwater spray from the lagoon. I spent a week cleaning everything as well as I could, threw the B+ switch, and the emitter resistors on those mod driver transistors went off like a string of firecrackers. Salt, moisture, and HV do not get along! Interestingly, the crystals were mounted in 6146-style evacuated tube envelopes. I enjoy restoring older amateur radios and I've picked up lots of good tips from your videos: Thanks so much! My next project is an HQ-120, and your comments on the IF alignment will be very useful! Keep up the interesting work!
de Fred Archibald VE1FA.
PS As Frank Roberts comments below, when you walked into the TX shack, you could clearly hear the voice and music from the BC-10H's power and mod transformers!
Fascinating! I’m never going to be involved with something like this, but I still learned a lot.
Thanks a mil! looking forward to watch the next ones!!
Would have never been able to have a tour around an old transmitter like that without this channel, interesting stuff thanks
Paul, Thanks for the tour! Was a really great look into a fascinating piece of history.
Nice work on the restoration. Love your video!
I love these old amps, Please do more :)
Thank you for the succinct , crisp, enlightening information! A real pleasure to watch!
Thanks Chris!
Hi Mr Carlson i just wanted to say that i use to work at the local AM radio station here in Nevada Mo. And the gates transmitter that you have was the same model used as the primary xmter. I can remember many a evening sitting in the control room with that heater keeping the studio nice and warm on the winter night. This vidio realy brought bavk memories of fun tumes in the 70's and the owner too Thank You for the trip down memory lane. By the eay the station is on 1240 khz here
Thanks for sharing your story Terry!
Smiling!
Good video sir!
We always called them bread slicers.
I just love the look of vac tubes, those two transmitter tubes would make awesome night lights lol. I just love the way they look. I grew up with tube tv's, not just the picture tube mind you. the kind of TV that would take a few minutes to warm up because the tubes were cold and needed to heat up. I would look in the back at the warm glow of the tubes in the back of the tv. I was more interested in what was IN the tv rather than was was ON the tv when I was a kid.
I guess tubes just hold a nostalgic memory to them.
Great video, nicely voiced.
Thanks Mike!
That is a nice looking transmitter. Always wanted something like that. Maybe one day. Love the potato slicers!
Thanks for sharing Paul
Just found your channel and enjoy your content very much. 30 years ago I was a Chief Engineer for an AM station that used the BC-1/T (1KW) and a BC-250/T as backup. One night after a huge storm, the roof failed right above the BC-1/T and flooded the cabinet. When I arrived, there was standing water on top of all of the transformers, reactors, capacitors. It was a mess. I removed everything that could soak up water, took those parts to a motor rebuilding shop that "cooked" the transformers, inductors, etc. at a low temperature for a few days. Everything checked out okay. I reinstalled, retuned everything, and the transmitter worked perfectly. Didn't have to buy any replacement parts. Gates had excellent well written manuals. Neat to see the BC-250/GY in this video!
Thanks so much for the tour. Sure reminds me of my previous life as a broadcast engineer. I worked mostly at the TV & FM site but always loved MW & SW broadcast transmitters which is what I cut my teeth on.
*Saw the title and thought, If he says, "Don't try this at home," I am never coming back here again.* :o)
In Britain when the CB radio craze was just starting in the 1980s everyone was using illegal AM sets imported from America. It was legal to own them but not to use them to broadcast with. A law everyone and his granny was breaking.
I bought a Plymouth car at auction and in it was an AM CB radio. I had to buy a mag mount antenna for it and the very first time I switched it on was just before sun down on a Summers evening. I switched through each of the forty channels and heard nothing. Then suddenly I heard an American voice. In a few minutes I realised it was a taxi driver calling his controller. Feeling vaguely stupid I keyed the microphone and called out to the, "Guy in the taxi calling his boss" and asked if he could hear me. To my utter amazement he answered wanting to know who I was.
It was a moment of true wonder for me and I became hooked on radio as a result. Pretty soon after I bought a bigger and better rig called a "Ham International" and soon I was surfing the skip on lower side band and talking to people all over Europe. I called it radio fishing. My love for radio was born that day and has never left me. Not bad for a 4 watt transmitter.
That is a great story! I hope do be able to do that soon!
Great story
I'd imagine it must have been immense to hear some random guy on the other side of the world for the first time
Now with the internet it's so commonplace nobody bats an eye
Phones and internet are very good for worldwide comms, but it doesn't replace the magic of radio, kind or hard to explain but I'm going to try.
With the internet you just make a connection and thats it, the message gets through and you're done, however with radio, plugging an antenna into the back of a box, then fiddling around with a control until you hear something breaking through the static seemingly from thin air and in the case of the person above, keying up and replying finding out they're on the other side of the planet is pretty damn cool, especially if you build your own set.
Well said, that's exactly what I thought!
We Yanks were walking across the pedestrian bridges into Nogales or Villa Neuvo Mexico or any other town in Mexico and walking back with illegal linear amps, under our arms, for use on 11 meters, back when CB was super popular. The CB cowboys are still pushing as much as 100,000 watts, on 11 meters, and spreading their charm and wit, or should I say, witless charm, across the airways. So the CBers are still exceeding their legal limits by 40,ooo or 50,ooo Watts, and using all manner of profanities. They are a crusty bunch of characters. I missed the Hamfest in Scottsdale this year, and my mate from London. He found a lovely old ARC Pye mobile made in Cambridge. Imagine finding a London police two way VHF set in Arizona, and it even still had to mounting bracket! These CBers are supposed to be limited to 4 watts AM, or 12 Watts SSB, but they have no problems running 110dB over that. It's all rather silly, but I guess they enjoy each other's company. I have reached Florida QRP with 5 watts, from Phoenix Az. That's not too bad. I can run 1500 with my Amp Supply, or 1200AM, or 900 RTTY, and 1500 RTTY with me solid state rig, and 3000 SSB, but I keep it down to the legal limit, of 1500 Watts PEP.
Thanks again for a interesting video.I did the A/C on these transmitter shacks and saw these Gates Transmitters, now I know what I was helping to cool down. Thanks again!
Love your style and the deep understanding you have of electronics from before I was born to modern day technology.
Great in-depth description looking forward to seeing more on this topic.
My father was forman of assembly for Gates Radio located in my home town of Quincy Illinois. I remember him working there in the 50's and 60's. He would take me there and I would see these large radio transmitters being made for radio stations and later TV and then for satellites. He always cautioned me against the high voltage and current and not to touch anything. Teams of people would hand assemble and test the units. Later Gates was sold to Harris. My dad was also a ham operator and built a 900 watt transmitter in our basement. His radio code was W9SFT.
Thanks for sharing your story Mike!
@@MrCarlsonsLab Gates is still in Quincy, Illinois. The other RF company in Quincy is Broadcast Electronics. If you listen to radio or watch broadcast TV the equipment is likely built in Quincy. Parker Gates was only 14 when he founded Gates Radio in 1922.
Paul that was a great video! I used to install broadcast TV and Radio transmitters all over the country. I also installed large broadcast shortwave transmitters from Harris many years ago. I would love to see more of your RF videos. I also get on AM and have been a ham for a few years. Thanks again for the great quality videos you make.
Tony (W0ALA)
As a ham radio operator, this was right up my street. Loved every minute. MM0SDK.
My late father was a big ham radio operator, loved to sit in the garage with him while he would see who was on the air, W4GTH
Awsome transmitter, thank you for the tour.
Great video. Lived behind an AM radio station for many years. I remember when they did a retrofit maybe 20 years ago. They pulled a Rockwell transmitter out of the building that looked similar to this one. I think it was called the rock or the power rock. Anyway I've always been fascinated in broadcast stuff because of those four large antennas and little white building out past my yard. Thanks for making a channel where I can explore what was in that radio hut that's amazed me for most of my life!
The Power Rock (315R-1) 5 kw AM firebox. I installed three of these from 1979-1982.
(24:42) - I like the way Paul says *_"Audioble"_* for *_"Audible."_*
It somehow conveys more meaning, though what exactly, I'm not too sure.
*_Go Mr Carlson !_*
>
Audible is just something you can hear. Audioble is something you can hear, then stroke your beard, nod, and go "hm..."
My father designed parts of that unit and built many of them. He worked for Gates Radio Company in Quincy, IL for 35 years till they merged with Harris Intertype to becomes Harris Broadcast products. I used to walk inside those units as they were being built. He also designed towers and antennas.
Great story! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks sooo much Mr. Carlson's lab. I really appreciate the knowledge
As a young teen, I was friends with a lot of Ham operators. So I was exposed to a lot of radio equipment & towers, and repeaters.
G'day fella. Awesome video. Love the old big transmitter stuff. I did RF system as TAFE here in Melbourne Australia years ago. A beats of a transmitter
I love the old Ham radio days with high power transmitters and DIY HF and VHF antennas, rotators and Towers.
Today, it's sitting in front of a computer watching Skype and UA-cam.
Technology and times have certainly change fast over my 70 years on planet earth.
Wow! Beautiful transmitter, thanks for the in depth explanation and tour. I’m a general license holder, KE5PQD, but haven’t been on the air in about two years, this gives me the itch to get back on the air.
84 thumbs down so far. I guess they are from people who hate people who know what they are talking about, and think that "learning" is a bad word. Or maybe they're just jealous of your lab. (...who wouldn't?)
BDW, your videos are gold. I've been in the electronics field for around 25 years, and not only reminds me how much I still have to learn, also how much I have forgotten. Thank you very much Mr. Carlson.
chevylization Absolutely agree. I'll never going to understand the state of mind of the people that thumbs down a top quality video like this.
How to tell if your gs31 is bad
"The damned Earth is flat I tell you, flat! Knowledge? Logic? What is this fakery!?" OK, they are just knuckle-draggers, phew!
If your into radio / electronics, why would you thumbs down this ? Takes all kinds I guess.
Some of em are Swedish girls. Think of all the radiation this thing emits. There's probably asbestos inside.
When the robots rise in 20 years and the great A.I. war begins, If you survive you will be using this thing to broadcast the rebellion. Very cool! : P
When the great A.I. war begins I have a feeling he will be viewed as a superior intellect to them so he will be feared and untouchable... LOL
Or kept alive to repair them like some kinda techno noir egyptian priest : P
The ghost IN the machine....literally....
no.....
Moan....
Dude... you've impressed me beyond comprehension! Total y awesome and looking to watch more of your video's!
Nice job! Good instructor, very detailed, very professional, very enjoyable to hear you explain the broadcast transmitter. NICE equipment too! Thanks so much. Jeff
REALLY cool video. Not too geeky, not too basic...just right. Thank you and please do more. BTW: reminds me of 500W AM daytimer I worked for in Midland Texas in late 60s KNAM. When it got really cold, I would have to go to work an hour early and turn on the electric space heater in the transmitter room to heat up the transmitter enough for it to function. Other DJs would light the teletype copy on fire with a cigarette lighter when I was trying to read the news literally straight off the wire....a broadcaster's practical joke. Great fun for a teenage kid. I really enjoyed the video, please keep them coming.
More like this one. Maybe you could post a couple of snap shots of those big ones you have in storage. I worked for a short while at KIML way back in the olden days. They ran a Gates 5K/1K, 5K omni day light, 1K directional night time. Every Sunday I got to power it on and tune it up! Fun times.
My uncle is a HAM and the equipment he's had over the years was amazing.
Absolutely Fascinating!! Thank You, Paul.
To amplitude modulate a 250W transmitter, you need at least 125W of audio power which accounts for the large audio amplifier and modulation transformer down there on the floor.
Yessss!so very interested in old timey technology and vacuum tube equipment!pls do more!
Those tubes are nuts! Ive never seen anything like that before
Good of you to take the time to share with us. Please keep going.
We have one of those "shacks" with broadcast tower for CBS AM next to my house. Lot more than 250 watts. So much so anything with a diode, corroded connection, or just unsupported wires (like a toaster) will pick up and "play" the station just fine. Fortunately its mostly sports radio so I can get my update while my toast toasts.
Do you hear it in dental crowns? That'd be convenient! Hahaha
(Myth Busters did a segment on that once, it was interesting)
mysock351C l live behind an AM station and have for many years. I think it's around 25,000 watts daytime. We used to hear it on all our landline phones and on certain TV channels. Basically anything that could act as a receiver would tune it in just fine. Hell, I remember using my tone and probe set to trace some wires in my house and the probe was picking up the station the whole time! They did a mod and upgrade to the station some 20 years ago and that mostly eliminated the Interference.
I used to get the local religious station on the landline phone. Hard to talk to people when there is a voice yelling "praise jesus" the entire time.
You remind me of when I lived near my local fire station and occasionally I would pick up the VHF chatter on my audio amp whilst listening to some music. When I thought about it more, I realsed that a pre-amp is basically a radio reciever, just wired a little bit different.
With 200 watts or more of RF tx, as you say, it will modulate to anything that's got a diode and a coil in it.
That is because your landline telephone had wires connecting it to the wall! If the wires are the length of some even--fraction of the frequency the signal is being broadcasted on, the telephone wire acts as a "receiving" antennae! The signal is then amplified by your telephone. You can either switch to a "wireless" hand held telephone because they have excellent signal rejection qualities---or you can buy several iron toroidal coils, and wrap your telephone wire from the wall around the iron form several times. Do this maybe three times with the coils spaced out a couple feet! The iron cores absorb the extra signals.
As a teenager in the early '60s, I worked as a disc jockey in a small radio station that had one of these Gates transmitters. It was a small town station, housed in one unit of an old motel. The transmitter was right there in the same room from which we played the records, and pretended we were right up there with the big boys. We operated at 990 KHz on a clear channel, dawn to dusk. I can remember seeing all those big tubes brightly lit as I peered through that little window in front. That station is gone now and I have no idea what happened to any of the gear.
Thanks for sharing that story Rick!
three years later and youtube brings me back here. this is the first Mr. Carlson video i ever saw after falling into a rabbit hole caused by cheap Chinese ham radios. i've been subscribed ever since. Thank you for teaching me so much about the world of electronics and radio through history, and thank Baofeng for sparking my interest in Ham radio.
Enjoyed the video, 1st Phone since 1961, worked on the Gates BC-250GY and the RCA BTA250-L & -M. Even got to build the Bauer 707 1kW transmitter kit. Fun times! Enjoy your detailed explanations, really great for people that didn’t grow up in the business.
Your warning about high voltage is sooooo important I had one of my students at GM become a fatality because he taped the safety switches on the interlock system and got across the voltage. I had a 30 minute section in my notes when teaching from induction heaters used in industry. Very sad but it did happen brian Wb8idy michigan
..Как это стало возможно..??.. Осторожность работы в устройствах высоких энергий - первое правило начинающего техника и инженера, которое нельзя игнорировать ни при каких обстоятельствах..!!
Thanks for the playlist link to my WLW video. The views peaked!
Looking forward to seeing your other heavy iron!
Very interesting. Thanks for allow us into your lab.
Mr Carlson, thank you for being an amazing resource for us all. I am a ham in RI that has been following you for quite a while now. I would like to see a video on tuning RF amps. I run a number of older amps here so I know how to tune them but I find so many newer hams that do not and it'd be great to have a video by a very trusted source, like you. :-) My primary amp is a Henry 2KD that I drive with a FlexRadio Flex 3000.
73 de november 1 mike juliet foxtrot.
In my hometown there was an AM broadcast station that _'forgot'_ to switch to night time power on one night. They were heard very clearly in Venezuela ... from North Carolina.
Sean Watts AM dxing still sometimes produces some odd results. I've caught some from Mexico and I'm closer to where your cranked up country station was
The opposite happens all the time. At night, I used to always get as many mexican stations as american... in tennessee. I say mexican, but honestly, I don't really know if they were speaking Spanish or Portuguese, so some of it may have been south america.
When I used to dx AM stations at nite in northern Indiana, very quickly I found that conditions were such that you either had good Canadian reception OR good reception of Mexican stations. Never both. But those (much!) higher-powered Mexican outlets were alot further away!
I've managed to pull in a fire & brimstone preacher, from Florida I believe, in North Wales one evening. that's about the extent of my DX'ing though lol. I recently acquired an old Sharp music centre though that seems to have a particularly hot tuner so might set up some antenna and see what it brings.
Love it - thank you Paul. Especially the 813 and 810's - nice tubes. I run a linear here using a pair of 813's, and have a pair of 810's on a sub-chassis (given to me years ago) that look very similar to the two inside the Gates. Maybe that's where they came from. These wonders need to be preserved, and people made aware of them. You are doing a great job. 73's from VK5ZL
Oh ya! I'd love to see more of this kinda stuff. I love all your other content too, but RF transmitters really fascinate me. Watching your videos has given me confidence to successfully save a couple old radios already. Always looking forward to your next project.
Dig it man. I'd like to see you detune the amp and walk me through the setup. Always been fascinated with AM and vacuum tube amplifiers. Even tried reading ham books from the fifties, but never got the hang of it. Love the walk through though.
I am a non techical person but i love the video's that you make the way you explain your topic is so interesting, i still don't understand a lot of what you talk about but hey it was dam interesting i wish i had your knowledge and understanding great vid's thanks
You and I are in same boat....lol
Paul I love to see all your videos I learn something every time i watch.You are a very smart man I wish i knew just part of what you do thanks again and can't wait for your next one
That is frigging decent!!! Thank you for this video. I am a bottlehead without enough room for such masterpieces so I really appreciate the tour!!
Wow. Can't believe I've not found you before this. All the stuff I love in one channel. De KE9PW. Subscribed! Thank you.
You ol' so and so you, lol you built an Ovened remote-tuned VFO for this thing !?
And I thought my ol Collins TCS was funky
Impressed...
That was probably one of the best videos I had ever watched on youtube, thanks for sharing...
Great tour, thank you for the video.