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Re: Topband: and KDKA

To: herbs@vitelcom.net
Subject: Re: Topband: and KDKA
From: Grant Saviers <grants2@pacbell.net>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:40:18 -0700
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
My uncle W2NPR George Saviers(SK) was an RF engineer at KDKA radio in the 1930's when the "original" Saxonburg, PA 718' tower collapsed due to a guy failure while under construction in 1936. As he told the story the guy cable ends were flayed out and potted with molten zinc into a reverse tapered internally end fitting. One not correctly potted failed. A second tower of the same design was built at the Saxonburg site in 1937. It was a symmetrical center fed antenna, 135deg per leg. In 1939 the antenna was dismantled and moved for better coverage to Allison Park, PA. That tower was 1000yds from my back yard. The moved 718' "Franklin" was replaced in 1994 due to age (55 years) and tower parts were sold to benefit charities. The present 718' Franklin is an unsymmetrical design, 90deg base, 180deg top sections.

See http://www.fybush.com/sites/2010/site-100326.html

I collect older KDKA radio memorabilia and would appreciate any.

I guess is possible there is some substance to the farmer story, but the Allison Park WWII tower location north of Pittsburgh is pretty rough up and down small hill country, not much farming. I've not heard it before. At the Saxonburg site KDKA/Westinghouse experimented with MW 400kw transmissions.

Grant Saviers KZ1W

On 9/10/2013 12:32 PM, Herb Schoenbohm wrote:
There is an old story about KDKA's antenna system that was told to be a long time ago. During WWII KDKA along with a frew other stations was allowed to operate with 250,000 watts to the antenna system. A farmer across from the KDKA's arrays was plagued by RF on everything including hearing the station in his kitchen sink. A friend of his was a ham and came up with the idea of tuning all the lamps in the barn and house into a tuned circuit to resonate and provide a means of lighting for free. It work so well that the farmer would brag about it at a local tavern and was overheard by one of KDKA's engineers who told the management who called the FCC Field offices. So the dispute insued that the farmer claimed the radiation was on his land without permission and he had rights to it no matter what. The whole matter ended up in the DC Circuit with KDKA claiming it could not comply with its required radiation pattern because the farmer was distorting their pattern. The court came up with an unusual conclusion that there was merit to both arguments. But since the station was required to have a precise RF level at a measuring point the court offer the farmer the option of leaving his lights on all the time or completely turning the lights off permanently. Since the lights were constantly flickering with modulation he chose the later solution if KDKA agreed to pay for his lawyer.

I would be interested if anyone else has heard this story before and if there is any veracity to it.

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ










On 9/10/2013 1:34 PM, Bill Cromwell wrote:
Hi Ed,

The engineer at WTIC responded. That station does not have a Franklin antenna but has "series fed halfwave" during the day and switches in a second one at night, phased to change the radiation pattern. He also told me that their 'sister station', KDKA in Pittsburgh, does use a Franklin antenna. Some members near Pittsburgh may want to roll by for a peek at it.

73,

Bill  KU8H


On 09/06/2013 04:13 PM, Edwin Karl wrote:
There are several interesting articles if you Google "Franklin Antenna"
they are mechanically BIG and require feeding ingenuity (hams are known
for this feature ...) but are stacked verticals, note- phase the top element
to avoid cancellation.

If memory serves me right WTIC in Hartford phased two of these puppies,
but it's been a long time ...


73!

ed k0kl
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