Hello Mark, et al.
In the mid 70s the chief engineer took myself and a friend through VOA
Dixon. The engineer's call was K6NM, I long ago lost touch with him.
I wonder if he was the guy you met on 40? He used to operate 40 quite
a bit. In fact, he told me of hooking a Heath DX-40 to the NW curtain
arrays and he was so loud in to JA that nobody he worked believed he
was in the USA. Few people would QSO with him since they thought he
was in Japan bootlegging with his K6 call. At the time it was not
legal for US personnel in Japan to QSO with Japanese hams unless they
had a special callsign issued. (a KA8 I believe) While in Dixon I
climbed one of the 360 foot curtain support towers, wandered through
the transmitters, and got quite a thrill drawing a 3-inch arc off one
of the guy wires that support the short feedline poles. The open wire
(pipe) feedline had such standing waves on it that the intense RF field
would impart 10 to 15 kvrf on a 15 foot *grounded* guy wire! I used a
large set of keys held tightly in my hand, touch the guy wire, draw it
out to about 3 inches and the bright corona formed an electrostatic
speaker. The female chinese voice was loud enough from that arc to
almost hurt my ears. My hand and the keys would quickly get hot enough
that I could only hold that arc for about 3 or 4 seconds.
More recently (last year) I got a full tour of the BBC/Deutsche Welle
relay site on the island of Antigua. They employed six 250kw
transmitters feeding large curtain arrays similar to the ones at Delano
and Dixon. The transmitters were built in the 60s and each had it's
own giant diesel generator to supply the power. Those engines stood
about 10 feet tall and the cylinders were as big as dinner plates.
All maintenance and overhaul on those engines and generators was
performed on-site. Fortunately I took a lot of photos. The station
was decomissioned shortly thereafter and the staff sent home.
I also used to visit WRNO in New Orleans once in a while, knew the
chief engineer there. Does anyone know what happened to that station?
I never hear it anymore.
Yep, a lil 8877 doesn't look so big after seeing this stuff...
Dennis
N0SP (ex WB6CBJ)
> I had the thrill of standing INSIDE a kazillion watt transmitter's final
> cage, at VOA -- Dixon, CA .. back in the late 6Øs .. awesome! The tour of
> that station really got me into broadcast engineering. Heck, a 1ØKW
> transmitter was just not as forbidding after that! A ham that I had met
> on
> 4ØM .. possibly WCARS .. had invited me for a personal showing .. wow! I
> have somewhere some outside views of the facility, cannot remember why I
> don't have inside pix... perhaps security? Hmmm. Dixon is `twixt SF and
> Sacto ... farmlands abound thereabouts.
>
> Mark Nelson - AA6DX
>
> mailto: AA6DX@ARRL.NET
>
> 1. Re: WLW 500 kW transmitter Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 09:11:43 -0500
> -1"
>
> I went by the old VOA site. It is now a county park. Also drove by WLW
> transmitter. It is right in downtown Mason.Wish my camera had been working
> :-(. Awesome sight!
> Joe W4AAB
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