Topband: Fw: Monopole Radiation Patterns, takeoff angles etc

[Bruce]

Early 1920's  AM radio stations in Bangor Maine had horizontal roof  top 
antennas. WLBZ, when it first moved from Dover Foxcroft to Bangor had only 
one program, a church service on Sunday morning.  I have found no evidence 
of mountain top AM radio stations in the state. Much later they went to 
towers erected in  moist fresh water areas. Even later some discovered  near 
salt water sites were better.


1920's Low frequencies in Maine
I have done many years of research on  the Radio Corporation of America 
radio relay station 1XAO  in Belfast Maine on air from  1923 to until the 
depression of 1929. They had four 150 foot towers. three in the form of a 
triangle with the 4th in the center. It was a horizontal  affair with feed 
wires coming down near to each tower to tuning coils for different 
transmitting frequencies.   The main frequency was 182 Kilocycles (1650 
meters)
Receiving was by a wave antenna ( named  Beverage later)  that was two #10 
copper wires running parallel on cross arms spaced 64 inches with an average 
height of 18 feet. The wires were transposed at frequent intervals, and the 
length was 52,610 feet (just under 10 miles)  As time went on from 1923 to 
1926 they installed two more wave antennas. The finished array had three, 
the same length, and spaced 6 miles apart. Harold Beverage made trips to 
check installation progress. (Harold's boy hood home, and some family 
members lived on North Haven Island a short distance away.)

Samuel Winthrop Dean, the Engineer in Charge of 1XAO,  left RCA and went to 
Houlton Maine, December of 1925 to build the first Trans-Atlantic AT&T radio 
telephone.   Dean graduated from Harvard and was a licensed amateur radio 
operator, call 1ZD issued by the Department of Commerce, radio service 
bulletin Feb 1915 No.2 special land station, wavelengths 200, 425, 600. 
>From his Harvard records he was a charter member of the ARRL. At Houlton 
Maine he installed a large complex (Beverage) wave  antenna array. Patents 
are available through Google searches.

73
Bruce-K1FZ




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "W2XJ" <w2xj at nyc.rr.com>
To: <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: Topband: Monopole Radiation Patterns, takeoff angles etc



> Having worked in the business over 54 years with LW MW and SW
> transmission systems up to 2 megawatts and having built numerous MW
> arrays to 12 towers I would respectfully suggest a quick check of
> fundamental broadcast history. Google is your friend.
>
> BTW most early stations broadcast from rooftops, not mountain tops,
>  and some diamond towers (Blau Knox) are still in service at legendary 
> stations.
>