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WWKB Cutting Back To 10,000 Watts?

If you guys would like a gander at what the WKBW Westinghouse HG-50 looked like, check out this week's Tower Site Of The Week at www.fybush.com. Scottso is conducting a tour of KDKA's AM site there. KD has a twin of the WKBW HG-50 and there's a nice wide-angle shot illustrating how enormous the transmitter is.

The "1" and especially "2" versions of the HG-50 had significant styling differences as compared with the first series. IIRC there were also tube type changes in the subsequent models.
 
By the way, we tossed out all of the computers from on the floor in front of the xmtr. It looks much better now. The huge modulation transformer is still in the basement as well as the plate transformer and the motorized voltage regulator.

Early on, solid-state rectifiers were added to the system. (Westinghouse Rectox units) and you could switch between the solid-state and mercury vapor tubes.
 
Nothing like a little "arc starvation" for breakfast. I love the musical sounds of "8008" and "857" gunfire in the morning. It's a real waker-upper.
 
maybe it's just dumb luck, but since the story about their supposed cut back to 10kW,
I have been receiving them better here in SW PA than at any time since the 70's.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
maybe it's just dumb luck, but since the story about their supposed cut back to 10kW,
I have been receiving them better here in SW PA than at any time since the 70's.
Click to expand...

Me too, I thought maybe it was my 300 feet of wire killer horizontal loop antenna on the Ham transceiver or maybe because WCKY turned off their IBOC Hash maker!
 
Savage said:
Nothing like a little "arc starvation" for breakfast. I love the musical sounds of "8008" and "857" gunfire in the morning. It's a real waker-upper.
Click to expand...
I have been in broadcasting for 57 years. I must confess that I DO NOT miss 857 gunfire!!!!!!!
 
Congrats, hypwr - you're the first I've chatted with here who's longer in the tooth than yours truly. I'm a relative newbie with only 43 years in the biz. Started on my 17th birthday. I still say radio's the best birthday gift I've ever gotten.

Ever read the account of the Mexican borderblaster - can't recall which one - that had the site-built superpower rig, where the high-voltage rectifier consisted of mercury-splash tubes used in streetcar power systems? The tubes required manual shaking to start the internal arc.

THAT would make me thankful for 857s. Or make me think seriously about an alternate career at - well, Dairy Queen, if need be.
 
Yes, those old Westinghouse transmitters were built like locomotives. Or battleships.

Back around 1970, WHAM purchased a surplus Westinghouse 50HG from WPTF in Raleigh NC for use as a source of spare parts for the Rochester transmitter. There were nine cabinets, about 4.5 x 4.5 x 6.5 feet each (40 feet long assembled), plus the huge transformers. From a warehouse loading dock, we rolled the thousand-pound cabinets on pipes, three at a time, onto our 2 1/2 ton flatbed truck and carried them home to strip off the useful parts like meters, switches and sockets. The empty cabinets sat in the barn for years afterwards but eventually were donated to a farmer for use as storage sheds. Stainless steel trim, glass doors and all.

The modulation & plate transformers together weighed about 18,000 pounds and stood around 8 feet high, a bit of an overload and somewhat oversized for a 2 1/2 ton truck. Undeterred, my old man splurged on a brand-new set of tires, pumped them up to 100 pounds each, hired a crane to hoist the machinery onto the flatbed and set off from Raleigh NC for Rochester NY at a top speed of just about 25 mph. With the hazard flashers blinking all the way, it took quite a while to make the trek, stopping every ten miles or so to let the tires cool down. The cops never stopped him for overloading or anything. On arrival at the WHAM transmitter site, the transformers were lifted onto a newly-built covered concrete 'porch' on the back of the building, ready to be wired through the wall into the 50HG circuits if the need ever arose. But nothing ever happened. There they sat until the WHAM 50HG was finally retired from auxiliary duty by the Lincoln Group in the mid '80s.

In the intervening years, attitudes about things like PCBs had changed drastically, and these transformers contained hundreds of gallons of the stuff. I understand that getting them off their porch for disposal was a lot more trouble than getting them onto it.
 
That's why our 50HG is staying right where it is, including the transformers! It would cost a fortune to move it. Besides, it looks great!
 
Lee, a relay from the WHAM HG-50 lives on to this day - it was retrofitted into WYSL's backup-standby-standby RCA BTA 1R as a switch to change power from 500 watts to 1kw. I think it was originally an overload relay in the modulation section, IIRC. The WHAM Westy was being stripped out for removal, and this relay was far more massively well-built than anything I could have bought new....typical of HG-50 construction. I swear Westinghouse built those things to run 100 years.

Also proudly displayed on a bookshelf in my office: a panel meter from, ahem, "another (not WHAM) Westinghouse HG-50." It's a cube about 6 inches square, weighs about 10 pounds, and has a 2kv scale labelled LEFT PA BIAS. Interestingly, the meter scale and legend appears to have been hand-lettered!

Hey hypwr - here's a totally subversive, troublemaking suggestion. Hook that KD HG-50 back up to Duquense Light, rip the NRSC processor out of the rack and put in a nice recapped Gates SA-39B limiter. Turn off the freakin' IBOC.

Presto: a 15 kHz-wide AM signal on 1020 that will whip the pants off any FM in Pittsburgh.

When they were allowed to, the HG-50 and RCA's BTA 50F were incredible-sounding transmitters. I still have 7.5 ips open-reel airchecks of CKLW that make people gape in amazement, 35 years after they were recorded.
 
Gotta love it. The Barrister of the Board in his continuing quest to repeal IBOC. Bravo!

Savage said:
Also proudly displayed on a bookshelf in my office: a panel meter from, ahem, "another (not WHAM) Westinghouse HG-50." It's a cube about 6 inches square, weighs about 10 pounds, and has a 2kv scale labelled LEFT PA BIAS. Interestingly, the meter scale and legend appears to have been hand-lettered!
Click to expand...

Hope you didn't have to dumpster-dive for that puppy... or was it given to you by a mutual friend... ;)
 
IBOC is self-immolating - I'm just trying to create a nice stiff breeze to help with the conflagration.

No comment on the meter. Suffice it to say no dumpster-diving was involved.

Did anybody ever unearth that 1941 book about BBC, "A New Era In Radio?" Great pictorial walk-through of the Big Tree Road site and WKBW/WGR. It was truly an engineering showplace when built. It's ironic that the legendary WKBW had a palatial transmitter site - and an unmitigated dump for studios, the place actually frequented by by the general public, clients and most of the staff!
 
Savage said:
It's ironic that the legendary WKBW had a palatial transmitter site - and an unmitigated dump for studios, the place actually frequented by by the general public, clients and most of the staff!
Click to expand...

I've noticed that's the case at a number of historic radio transmitter sites. From what I can tell, at some of them anyway, the stations owned the transmitter sites, and leased the studios. Don't know if that was the case at KB.
 
At the time Big Tree was built, WGR and WKBW were operating equally palatial studios at the Rand Building (as well they should have been, considering that George Rand was a major investor in the BBC!)

It wasn't until later on that new, more cost-conscious owners moved KB into the dump on Main Street.

Man, I wish I could have seen that dump...
 
Just imagine, in your mind's eye, a kinda cramped, depressing hamfest where "no solid state stuff is allowed!!" and the average vintage of the gear for sale = your age x 2.5.

Throw the event in a rundown old garage somewhere with inadequate parking. A high-crime neighborhood would help set the scene. Make sure the roof leaks badly. It would be more realistic if you could find a garage where about 20 people had chain-smoked inside for the past 20 years.

There. You've got 1430 Main.
 
Savage said:
Lee, a relay from the WHAM HG-50 lives on to this day - it was retrofitted into WYSL's backup-standby-standby RCA BTA 1R as a switch to change power from 500 watts to 1kw. I think it was originally an overload relay in the modulation section, IIRC. The WHAM Westy was being stripped out for removal, and this relay was far more massively well-built than anything I could have bought new....typical of HG-50 construction. I swear Westinghouse built those things to run 100 years.

Also proudly displayed on a bookshelf in my office: a panel meter from, ahem, "another (not WHAM) Westinghouse HG-50." It's a cube about 6 inches square, weighs about 10 pounds, and has a 2kv scale labelled LEFT PA BIAS. Interestingly, the meter scale and legend appears to have been hand-lettered!

Hey hypwr - here's a totally subversive, troublemaking suggestion. Hook that KD HG-50 back up to Duquense Light, rip the NRSC processor out of the rack and put in a nice recapped Gates SA-39B limiter. Turn off the freakin' IBOC.

Presto: a 15 kHz-wide AM signal on 1020 that will whip the pants off any FM in Pittsburgh.

When they were allowed to, the HG-50 and RCA's BTA 50F were incredible-sounding transmitters. I still have 7.5 ips open-reel airchecks of CKLW that make people gape in amazement, 35 years after they were recorded.
Click to expand...
Would that I could!!!!!! There's no question, those old xmtrs sounded great. Another great one is the GE that WCKY used for many years. It was still in the building about 15 years ago when I visited them. It had really neat round meters and was in the traditional GE green livery.
 
Savage-type-person,

Have you ever seen our 50HG in the flesh? If not, if you ever get down this way, contact me by email and I'll set up a personal tour. I will even take a photo of you in front of the rig. This is an offer I extend only to "true believers". Only lovers of old xmtrs. need apply.

Hypwr
 
hypwr said:
Savage-type-person, Have you ever seen our 50HG in the flesh? If not, if you ever get down this way, contact me by email and I'll set up a personal tour. I will even take a photo of you in front of the rig. This is an offer I extend only to "true believers". Only lovers of old xmtrs. need apply. Hypwr
Click to expand...
Savage, we might crash your invite. We'll rent a bus. You can drive. Fybush will navigate. I've got the tolls.
 
JimPastrick said:
hypwr said:
Savage-type-person, Have you ever seen our 50HG in the flesh? If not, if you ever get down this way, contact me by email and I'll set up a personal tour. I will even take a photo of you in front of the rig. This is an offer I extend only to "true believers". Only lovers of old xmtrs. need apply. Hypwr
Click to expand...
Savage, we might crash your invite. We'll rent a bus. You can drive. Fybush will navigate. I've got the tolls.
Click to expand...

Hypwr, if this tour happens, I'd love to see it as well...if you don't mind.
 
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