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WLW - The Original AM Blowtorch
- Thread starter landtuna
- Start date
I got a tour of the transmitter site back in 2000. What an awesome place, lots of history there. There are lots of great stories about what would happen when WLW kicked it up to 500KW!
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
Mike Sheridan said:
I hear it would blow out electric fencing units and cause lightbulbs to flicker in time with the music
for many miles around the xmtr.
FreddyE1977 said:
I always figured that lightbulb flicker has got to be an issue with poor power line voltage regulation more than RF issues. I've worked in operations with 1000 kW MW transmitters and we don't even notice anything inside the building, especially with the solid state transmitter. About the only time we had a power line reaction was with the tubed 1000 kW transmitter if we had an arc in the transmitter and the crowbar circuit would short the power supply a cycle or two ahead of the power supply contactors dropping the AC line into the high voltage section.
What becomes a problem with higher power transmitters is proximity to operations which use cranes. Unless some precautions are taken to ground the cranes and using a grounding bar to ground the crane lifting hook before someone would touch it, the lifting crews would find out how "hot" the crane was.
It would be interesting to get some data using today's computers and sensors. Right?There is a video of the 500KW on youtube. I doubt it would work anymore. Most of the main transmitter is still intact, but I wouldn't be surprised if some parts were missing. I'm told that it had its own electrical substation outside which no longer exists. It would probally be cheaper to get a new transmitter if it were legal to go back to 500KW. You probally couldn't even get parts anymore for something like that. It would have been nice if they had kept it functional. I would love to hear what it would do if someone actually fired that bad boy up. But could you imagine the electrical bill for that thing?
RadioFan2J3 said:
Sounds like Riyadh...
flytrap said:
I know this sounds trite, but it really does depend on the cost of electricity. If a location is paying 28 cents per kWh, then those costs are one thing. If a location is paying less than a penny per kWh, well, you guessed it, the power costs are roughly 1/28th.
This doesn't take into account the several other variables in high consumption billing issues that large consumption commercial and industrial users deal with, some costs which aren't directly related with kWh use.
By the way, that rate spread is for real, 2011 costs.
It won't work now. One of the compartments of the 500 KW beast was hollowed out so they could install some RF sensitive computer networking equipment. They needed something well shielded and that fit the bill.
Besides I'm sure there are more efficient ways to generate 500KW.
Besides I'm sure there are more efficient ways to generate 500KW.
wpxt said:
At night. prolly most of the US
I had the pleasant experience in the 1960's to have contacts with one of the former WLW engineers. He told me that after the power was decreased from 500,000 watts back to 50,000 watts in 1939, there was still some expermentation with the higher wattage that took place after midnight. He told me that one night, the power was reportedly increased to 750,000 watts.
FRR said:
It could be DXed in much of the world at that time; in the late 30's 500 kw was high power, but in the post-W.W. II years it was nothing exceptional to have 300 to 600 kw stations, with quite a few in the 1-2 MW range.
In more recent times, Trans World Radio on Bonaire ran from the 60's into the 90's with 500 kw and could be heard decently in many, but not all parts of North America... but a variety of 10 to 50 kw stations on the same channel in Canada, a 150 kw station in Mexico, stations in the 10 kw vicinity in several parts of Central America, Colombia and Venezuela blocked the station and noise levels made listening, at best, unpleasant.
WLW was quite listenable in most of North America, and certainly could be DXed in the uncrowded dials of the 30's in much of the rest of the world, although probably not "a station you would listen to for pleasure" even beyond the Rockies in the US.
WLW did have a shortwave station, but the government took it over for the war effort. It's the one that was later the VOA facility in Bethany, OH, near the WLW transmitter. That was more likely to be heard in Europe on a regular basis.
http://www.thebdr.net/articles/prof/history/HPH-VOA.pdf
http://www.thebdr.net/articles/prof/history/HPH-VOA.pdf
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