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KOL Audio Pilot

X

xmtrland

This is really for BossBill. Most on this board are to young to know what I'm talking about.

Bill I found the Audio Pilot that was on the air at KOL. It's intact in storage at a Seattle radio station Bone yard. I'm brining it to Vashon to display in the next month. Do you have any stories to share about this innovative audio processor that was ahead of it's time? I was just blown away when I realized what I was looking. I'm still in shock that I found it. I think George Frese only made 46 of them. Are there any others in existence?

It will look great next to the Vintage Optimod and CBS Volumax.
 
xmtrland said:
This is really for BossBill. Most on this board are to young to know what I'm talking about.

Bill I found the Audio Pilot that was on the air at KOL. It's intact in storage at a Seattle radio station Bone yard. I'm brining it to Vashon to display in the next month. Do you have any stories to share about this innovative audio processor that was ahead of it's time? I was just blown away when I realized what I was looking. I'm still in shock that I found it. I think George Frese only made 46 of them. Are there any others in existence?
It will look great next to the Vintage Optimod and CBS Volumax.
Click to expand...

For you Frese Audio Pilot fans, here is the official website: http://www.schwenkleraudio.com/technical-posts/frese-ap4-audio-pilot-manualschematics/
 
I just posted to the schwenkler website. George and I installed the Audio Pilot at KOL; we hadn't budgeted for it. Ralph Bellenot, the corporate CE, came up from San Fernando, the thing blew our socks off and it was a done deal. So many features we expect today, but this was in the '60s into early 70's, with tubes and relays. The darn FCC put a limit on positive modulation peaks, which I never understood, and the modulator tubes had to be changed more often... KING turned us in for over-modulaltion.

We were loud...


Kelly, can you check the serial number? My memory says #37 but time gets in the way sometimes.
 
bossbill said:
Kelly, can you check the serial number? My memory says #37 but time gets in the way sometimes.
Click to expand...

Hi Bill, I believe Steve actually has the Audio Pilot.

Back when I worked at KMPS 1300 (formerly KOL) down on Harbor Island, I remember seeing the Audio Pilot sitting on the floor of the building. One day while in Wenatchee, I ran into George and we talked about how he developed the device. The old RCA at KOL needed quite a few modifications to beef up the modulator section. Many years later, I knocked the dust off and got the old RCA running again as a standby. That thing would still modulate pretty well. Not as good as the Collins Power Rock, but still pretty respectable.
 
When I was there, we had 2 - Collins 21E 5 kw rigs, s/n 169 and 170. Same box as the 21M 10 kw except for iron and final tube count. I bought the Power Rock, and we sold the 21E units to a United Airline pilot who was building a new station in Aptos, CA. I also had acquired a 1 kw xmtr but it may have been a
Gates. An RCA must have been installed after I left. The 21E just didn't have enough oomph to really do the Audio Pilot justice, but it did OK.
 
I will have the Audio pilot on Vashon in a couple of weeks. I'll check the SS# but the chain of "ownership" makes sense. If I get it running I'm going to try it on an NX50. All the formats for the stations I'm working with are talk. But Jim Rome has some rockin' bumper music. Wonder what it will do to Feralls voice? Very happy to give it a place to hang out and be appreciated and visited.

Kinda funny that 1090 will be the one to try it out if it gets working.
 
I'm sure you will Steve, but I'd be careful using that device on a modern station. I don't believe it would be compliant with the 10 kHz NRSC requirements because of the ringing and harmonics the Audio Pilot could create during operation. That, and who knows what a modern Nautel or Harris solid state transmitter would do when presented with audio through an Audio Pilot.

If it were me, I'd clean it up and keep it as a museum piece in honor of George. In fact, MOHAI has a wonderful and growing Seattle/PNW radio history collection. Providing them with information about George and an actual Audio Pilot, would be an excellent addition to their radio history section.

With the permission of Barry Ackerley, I donated a lot of the historical items to MOHAI from KJR and KOMO before Clear Channel took over. It made me feel good that those valuable pieces of PNW radio history were secure for future generations.
 
I'm going to be working with Feliks Banel on doing just that. Yah I was wondering what the Nautel would do if hooked it to the Audio Pilot. Most likely if I do it, it will be at less than 50KW and maybe into the dummy load the first time. But first I need to get it cleaned up.

Did you donate that Oven element dummy load at KJR? I may hang a couple of oven elements at their new site for nostalgia. Feliks is also getting a broadcast museum going at WSU so I could see the processor being sent there for display for a period of time. Just finding a place to store and catalog items for any museum is tough. I'm happy to be able to help preserve and store items.

When I was a young kid hanging out at the KIRO 710 transmitter plant I would thumb through a Gates/Harris broadcast catalog and wished I could collect some of the stuff. Now I am and have a great place to store and admire what's been collected. My living room was getting really cluttered and now my living room is back to being a living room and the KIRO plant is my display place where I can go and really display some neat stuff. The meter collection is really awesome. It will take about a year to get it set up before I would be ready for any type of public tour but that's on the agenda. A tour of the KOMO and KIRO transmitter plants is almost overwhelming for a first time visitor to take in. It will take a while but that's the goal. But it's fun, I found a TE3 exciter for the collection, I think it's on 94.1. The best part non of it is sitting in my living room or spare bedroom.
 
xmtrland said:
Did you donate that Oven element dummy load at KJR? I may hang a couple of oven elements at their new site for nostalgia. Feliks is also getting a broadcast museum going at WSU so I could see the processor being sent there for display for a period of time. Just finding a place to store and catalog items for any museum is tough. I'm happy to be able to help preserve and store items.
Click to expand...

I suspect the oven element hanging on the phasor wall met the same fate as all the other equipment at the West Seattle Waterway site after the Nisqually earthquake and subsequent mud flooding into the building. It all went to the scrap heap somewhere.

It was sad actually, as I was hoping to have saved the Power Rock Brothers, but they were all buried in mud and the site was being bulldozed soon anyway.
 
Something I did today that's been on the bucket list...visit SPARK museum in Bellingham. it is about evolution of electricity, but also covers a great deal of wireless into radio evolution, with a nice collection of vintage tubes and transmitter parts, etc.
 
Kelly A said:
I bet there is a lot of classic IGM gear in those exhibits.
Click to expand...

Surprisingly, none ..... but I did drive by the old IGM building because, from the freeway, looked like it had been leveled and replaced with a hotel. Turns out the new hotel is across the street (between IGM & Freeway). IGM space tenant is now a SOLAR company .... little bit of irony, there!! The only nod that I could find to specific BHam was a KVOS mike flag (and one from KBRC).
 
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