[Amps] WLW 500 kW transmitter

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 16 May 2006 21:30:22 -0400, Will Matney wrote:

>I see he has another page about the VOA Bethany site.

Our EE class (from the University of Cincinnati) was lucky enough 
to tour the site during our senior year (the winter of '63-'64). 
We had just finished our course in Transmission Lines a few months 
earlier, and the tour provided a most spectacular view of how they 
could be used. As a ham, I was already turned on to antennas and 
transmission lines, and this station blew me away. 

One innovation that the Crosley VOA engineers contributed was to 
replace the termination resistance for their rhombics with a TL 
back to the feedpoint, where what would have been lost power was 
added back in phase!  They claimed an additional 2 dB of gain as a 
result (as compared to the resistor). 

Those two Sterba curtains, suspended between the three large 
towers, were a magnificent sight from I-75, a few miles to the 
west. 

When we toured WLW then, they put the 500 kW rig into a dummy load 
for us. It had not been on the air for since the 40's. 

Jim Brown  K9YC