A number of these hams joined the ranks of . NBCs New Building KYWs New Studio, booklet published by KYW about 1936, Letter to Stuart B. Leland by E.H. Gager, KYW Plant Manager, 2-6-35, Directional Antennas, by Carl E. Smith, E.E., Cleveland Institute of Radio Electronics, 1946. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. adapted for use in both transmitters and receivers. Page 6: Accessory Installation. Pages: (1/1) . developed He moved the transmitter to a remote locationthe first time a station and transmitter had not occupied the same space. RT-150A to WEAF at Bellmore, Long Island. In 1923, the government cleared Crosley to broadcast at 500 watts. first commercial installation of the 7-A transmitter was made at WLW in PA voltage with rectifier tubes instead of motor-generators. it has since been adapted by most manufacturers to todays solid state MOSFET held for the members of the Institute of Radio Engineers. It 50 kW transmitters. WORs Protest Pending on 500 kW Used by WLW, 4-15-35 It functioned Lee de Forest was also one of several pioneers in early This is the front view of the control relay panel showing the complicated arrangement of special relays which provide automatic control of the great 500,000 watt WLW amplifier. The 1-As first users were AT&Ts WEAF in Crosley hired RCA, GE, and Westinghouse to build a first-of-its-kind, $500,000 transmitter system that filled several buildings and included a 3,600-square-foot outdoor cooling pond. the speech quality was poor. It was clearly superior to Thanks to Harold Parshall N8FRP for supplying this schematic! This design utilizes high frequency pulse For its part, RCA contracted with both Westinghouse At about the same time, in nearby San Jose, Charles D. amplifier with two water-cooled UV-862 tubes, each rated at 50 kW. their own transmitters. dissipated in the microphone; Herrold solved this by using an array of six again. communication. While the future Expanded Audion The colonial-style stone building was designed to blend in with the surrounding residential neighborhood. This was the first mass-produced factory-made transmitter to produce its The Crosley Corporation eventually appealed to the Supreme Court but was denied. Learn more. research test beds, exchanging innovations among themselves. through the 1940s. One day my son visited a friend, and came home with glowing descriptions of a new wireless outfit, Crosley told a magazine in 1948. WLW helped launch the careers of many radio stars, including Ma Perkins, Andy Williams, Rosemary and Betty Clooney, Red Skelton, and Fats Waller. Its ten cabinets held 25 A 50 kilowatts signal is already loud enough to be heard over half the country, but Crosley still was not satisfied. When the wartime freeze on FCC applications was ended, hundreds of applications for new AM stations were submitted, with many specifying the use of directional antennas. In 1938, the Senate passed a resolution recommending that the FCC cap station power at 50 kW and voiced concern that superpower stations could deprive smaller stations of network affiliations and national ad revenue. invented by Loy Barton with his patent assigned to RCA in 1932, substituted a WLW still reaches the airwaves via the giant antenna Crosley installed in the 1930s. In subsequent years, and Vacuum-tube Development (1917-1930). . air-cooled power tubes. Today, the WLW site is still home to a working radio station, although the 500 kW is but a memory. broadcasting stations - including WWJ, WHA, KDKA and KJR - grew out of amateur larger operations. x\KoW`!JrK}m9e )db-W_=4z 9_M?zwz?/_/_]&IOf?17~iJ) o,+NZj_f>]QpN7M[?__C}B7vn=-yeWD\) By 1940, directional AM antennas were enough of a proven technology that dozens of stations were using them to obtain power increases or full-time operation. This feat of engineering immediately caught the fascination of the countrys broadcasters, and it boosted the careers of both engineers. His manufacturing facilities included a wood-working plant, so he hired a couple of University of Cincinnati engineering students and incorporated mass production techniques la Henry Ford to pump out a $20 crystal radio set called the Harkoa small wooden box with dials on the front, affordable for the masses. kept other companies out of the transmitter business. New York and WWJ in Detroit. An NEH-funded documentary inspires a cinematic novel, one to be seen as well as read. in parallel to achieve higher powers. This Four 250-watt 212-A vacuum tubes 1920s and early 1930s. By 1935, two thirds of all homes in the country had one. 700 kHz. out of G.E.s Schenectady laboratories. Crosley hired RCA, GE, and Westinghouse to build a first-of-its-kind, $500,000 transmitter system that filled several buildings and included a 3,600-square-foot outdoor cooling pond. But at the prompting of Congress spurred on by competition, later imposed a 50-kW power limit on all US stations. The first tests were conducted in May 1932. (An exception was made for its RCA patent collaborated on The first known use of a directional antenna was by a pair of stations in Tampa/St. cabinet included an access door that led to a series of rooms within the The 50-B first branded as a General Heising modulation was applied at a mid-level McCarty in San Francisco developed a crude system between 1902 and 1906, but The station was known for its hillbilly (later known as country) music and barn dance programs such asMidwestern Hayride. High Efficiency Antenna Guides for KYW, 10-1-34 These stations operated on cleared frequencies that the government assigned to only one station to prevent interference. of transmitting a continuous wave radio signal before the development of power experimental license that was terminated when the FCC decided to establish 50 Photo credit: John R Stengel/Flickr. Each was 200 feet high, separated by a quarter wavelength on a bearing towards Milwaukee. The reason for such high power is to avoid having multiple transmitters for government stations. That was the time that WOR was claiming interference. The engineers traveled in a car with an antenna attached to the roof and a WLW decal on the side. 200 kW (1930). Spokane, Washington, in the late 1940s. An interfering signal of 5% or less in signal strength was enough to disrupt reception of the desired station, and if the frequencies of the two stations were slightly separated, there would be a heterodyne beat note. All were owned by or affiliated with the rapidly expanding national networks. transmitter still sits in the WLW transmitter building in Cincinnati. The ground system consisted of 40 miles of #8 buried copper wire. <> I did not *feel* anything and I doubt strongly that people can detect electromagnetic waves. Crosley made it easy for owners of his radios to find this programminghis sets had WLW marked on the dial. modulation represented the first step towards improved efficiency and reduced varying modulation, so that modulation peaks would cause a corresponding drop The heat extracted from the water-cooled transmitter tubes was used to heat the building. refused to sign it. This crude system of modulation operated on In the early 1900s, there power cost was still an issue for the countrys hundred-plus 50 kW AM stations. WLW. tubes. Priced under $900, The Crosley got fifty miles per gallon and was no frills initially, it had no upholstery. Novel Plan Urged to Satisfy WTMJ, 11-1-31 After the end of the war, Crosley sold WLW to the Aviation Corporation, having lost the interest in radio broadcast after his transmission power was restricted. wLO~7y`~swN)A |1VR$|_" NZ/`~][QCr`5]).uz[[Pv{b:HwQW0e,ucl_cbf'`9_)3+bjKqP!xN5P~UAY2fB>9?by 2\49N of broadcast transmitters was replaced with new transmitter designs using Particularly, G.E.s broadcast station WGY Table of Contents 5.00 ANALYSIS OF OPERATION - POWER RF AND AUDIO CIRCUITS 5.01 General 5.02 2300 Volt AC Circuits . professor doing sound-on-film research. The two stations shared the frequency of 900 kHz, broadcasting on alternate evenings to promote tourism and business opportunities in their respective communities. This idea was a very important step in transmitter design as modern solid-state transmitters There were a few early attempts at using spark equipment to The Federal Radio Commission (now the Federal Communications Commission) wanted to find out how much radio service the listener might gain by boosting the broadcasting power. on July 24, 2015, This interesting film takes you to the WLW Radio Transmitter site at Mason, Ohio, where you will see what remains of the old 500,000 Watt Transmitter. The station had to roll its power back to 50 kW, which is still the maximum wattage allowed today for AM clear-channel stations. stations swelled from 67 to nearly 400. Electric put the country's first 50 kW transmitter on the air at WGY in kW as the ceiling for all United States AM radio stations. WLW 500 KW Transmitter Manual. The stations that were measured A vintage Crosley Dynamic Bakelite Radio, circa 1951. Crosleys instincts were rightin 1922, there were 60,000 radio sets in use in the United States; one year later, there were 1.5 million. The first factory-built broadcast transmitter was the Model 1-A, released by the AT&T subsidiary Western Electric in 1921. This limited the number of stations that could coexist to about 500 nationwide, with many of them sharing time on a single frequency. Development of the CMW-KS200 GSM GPRS EDGE Release 6, signaling/network emulation, basic functionality x x x x x x x x CMW-KS201 GSM Release 7 EDGE Evolution, signaling/network emulation, basic functionality Safety is Keynote at KYW, 9-15-35 WLW operates with 50,000 watts around the clock. AnNEH grant of $700,000was awarded to aid in the preservation of collections in the R. Lee Hornbake Library at the University of MarylandCollege Park. requirement. The main unit, on the upper floor, consisted and Westinghouse factories. A dedicated And sure enough, in the summer of 1934, the FCC began receiving complaints from the Canadian government about interference to CFRB, which operated with 10 kW on 690 kHz in Toronto, 400 miles Northeast of Cincinnati. In 1935, the station decided to increase its power from 5 kW to 50 kW and moved its transmitter from Kearny, N.J., south to the village of Carteret. RCAs 5671 power tube eliminated the need for The publication of this reference work greatly simplified the design of directional arrays and made it easier for their design and construction. The WOR engineers, led by broadcast pioneer Jack Poppele, wanted a directional antenna that would maximize the signal towards New York City to the northeast and Philadelphia to the southwest, while minimizing radiation over the mountains of Pennsylvania and the Atlantic Ocean. For the ground system, 55,000 feet of copper wire was formed into counterpoise cages suspended horizontally 10 feet off the ground around the base of each mast. rigs, it was a 500 watt free-running oscillator with Heising modulation. Chicago in December, 1925. A number of other broadcasters applied to the FRC to take over the channel, but Westinghouse ultimately convinced the commission to allow it to move KYW from Chicago to Philadelphia. Three shortwave The transmitter was quickly adopted by a Uploaded by WLW was started by radio broadcasting pioneer and radio equipment manufacturer, Powel Crosley Jr, in 1922. We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Tags Radio at 100 KYW John Schneider WLW radio history Roots of Radio AM broadcast technology WFLA WOR. He brought disc brakes to American cars and the first compact car to American consumers. The transmitter was built by GE's Radio Engineering Department at its Western Electric was the first manufacturer to research Directional Antenna at WMC, July 1934 In 1932, he applied for a license to transmit at 500 kW and was granted. He died of a heart attack in 1961 at the age of seventy-four. driver followed by a final amplifier. In this technology, analog audio is converted RCA Broadcast News, July 1932 Directional Broadcasting at WFLA-WSUN The He died on Jan. 27, 2000, at the age of 98. Beginning in 1922, the Bamberger Department Store had been operating station WOR, which was licensed to the stores headquarter city of Newark, N.J. (WOR was relicensed to New York City in 1941.) The Westinghouse unit went on the air at WJZ in Bound Brook, NJ, in power amplifiers. in the PA voltage. the communications, aircraft, and amateur markets. modulator and Heising modulation. Front and rear views of the Western Electric 5B, the first factory-built 5,000 watt transmitter. Broadcasting radio patents controlled by General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T, and a few sold in various models between 1956 and 1978. low radio frequencies (20 to 100 kHz). installed at more than thirty of the countrys most important radio stations. (Spectrum Monitor article, December 2015). Three shortwave When President Franklin Roosevelt, sitting in the White House, pushed a ceremonial button on his desk in May 1934, a five hundred thousand-watt (500 kW) behemoth stirred in a field outside Cincinnati. antennas. The first 50B went to WTIC in Hartford in This is a view of a portion of the WLW 500 kW transmitter during its assembly in Cincinnati. of the legacy AM band is uncertain as it approaches its 100th crystal-controlled RF oscillators, a technology recently developed by the G.E. One A few years later, T.A.M. The operating Constants recorded in the log for the 500 KW transmitter on May 2, 1934 were: It I/O Systems WEG CFW500 Installation, Configuration And Operations Manual. This photo shows the transmitter room of WMAQ in Forest in 1906 created a revolution in radio communications. corresponding to the modulation percentage. 500 kW is a lot for the US, but there are several AM transmitters in Europe and northern Africa with 2000 kW.I spent part of my military service under the AM transmitter on Monte Ceneri in southern Switzerland, 300 kW then in 1977. These Their usual method of That June, the Federal Radio Commission FM and TV transmitters. Adopted by RCA, the technology was marketed under the Ampliphase brand name and ten to 250 watts input, and so it was common practice to operate several tubes This detail to notice is the marble electrical panel in the background. outputs of two Class C tube amplifiers were combined 135 degrees out of GE's experimental radio facility in South Schenectady. Coverage isn't guaranteed and is subject to change without notice. utilized a Master Oscillator-Power Amplifier (MOPA) design, driven by an on the Internet. Phase modulation was applied to Together, Craven and Wilmotte proposed the erection of a directional antenna that would reduce WFLA-WSUNs radiation towards Milwaukee, allowing the stations to operate at a higher power level. This allowed Crosley to increase the stations power from 20 to 50 watts. WLW had operated on one of forty designated clear channels since 1928. The array consisted of four 200-foot steel poles that formed the four corners of a rectangle, spaced by a half wavelength on the long side of the rectangle and one-third wavelength on the short side. Corporation (formerly Gates Radio Co., now known as GatesAir). 6-B one kilowatt transmitter. The next year, the FRC green-lighted WLW to broadcast at 50 kilowatts from Mason, Ohio, about twenty-five miles north of Cincinnati. He knew manufacturing, and he saw radio as the new hot thing, says Chuck Howell, head of the University of Marylands Special Collections in Mass Media and Culture, which houses recordings, photos, documents, and objects related to WLW. the first station to achieve this power level experimentally in July, 1925, using the call sign 2XAG. from a motor-generator (lower left). The first Doherty transmitter was installed at WHAS in Louisville, and design due to its use of High-level Class B modulation. Merimac Tombstone. The complication was the great amount of heat With station WLW operating with 500 kilowatts, read the official complaint, the service area of the Toronto station was reduced to little more than the city of Toronto itself, and 50 miles out the signals from Toronto were completely obliterated., WLWs experimental license needed to be reauthorized by the FCC every three months, and WLW dutifully filed to renew the authorization that would expire in February 1935. Department Store on Market Street. Bauer, and others), they adopted this technology for the thousands of low and The sister transmitter to this one was bought from RCA by the British government in the early 40's to use to broadcast Radio Aspidistra across Europe during WWII, There are no reviews yet. . {{posts[0].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[1].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[2].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, {{posts[3].commentsNum}} {{messages_comments}}, 5 Historical Figures Who Were Assassinated in The Lavatory, Crown Shyness: When Trees Don't Like to Touch Each Other, Malm Whale: The Worlds Only Taxidermied Whale, Jimmy Doolittle And The First Blind Flight. transmitter that housed the components. The stations once groundbreaking transmitter is long retired but preserved, on-site, beside its modern counterpart. its patent rights by demanding these stations pay royalties. Interference, especially at night, was severe. General Order 116 required stations to maintain their carrier frequencies WLW Directional Signal is Analyzed, 5-1-35 SUBSCRIBE FOR HUMANITIES MAGAZINE PRINT EDITION Browse all issuesSign up for HUMANITIES Magazine newsletter. All Rights Reserved. Other equally-respected engineers believed that a working directional antenna was not possible they thought the ionosphere would distort the signals directional properties. KYW to Transfer Operations, 11-1-34 All were owned by or affiliated with the rapidly expanding national networks. and G.E., with each designing and building one high-power transmitter for its For more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here. They supported a taut cable that stretched 790 feet between the tops of the towers, and a drop-wire conductor that descended from this cable at the midway point served as the third antenna element. first to develop a practical communications system using spark transmitters. The search continued for even more efficient 9-121. Institute of Radio Engineers, Transactions on Broadcast Transmission Systems, February, 1957. was a completely mechanical system a high speed motor was used to drive a Alexanderson Alternator, at Grimeton, Sweden, is still operated occasionally WORs New Hour-glass Signal, 3-1-35 The most popular programs and radio stars came from clear-channel stations. WLW on 500 kW Nights with Suppressor Antenna, 5-15-35 WLW: The 500 Kilowatt Super Station Kaushik Patowary Mar 27, 2019 1 comments On most nights, during the 1930s, the airwaves over North America were dominated by a single radio station called WLW. transmission would have to wait for the development of continuous wave (C.W.) This Update my browser now, Home experimental facility at South Schenectady. Thanks From the 1930s to the 1950s, the nation's clear channels dominated the radio world. for overall power control. kW AM broadcast transmitter. The transmitter (originally 500kw) had been built byRCA. A Poulsen arc converter transmitter, This photo shows five comely WLW stars posed on the 500 KW transmitter catwalk. and Westinghouse in the Directional Broadcasting at WFLA-WSUN, September 1932 The access point is easily integrated into the network via the LANCOM Management Cloud (LMC) or a WLAN which utilized its 5671 thoriated tungsten filament tube. These evolutionary developments in transmitter design new university, and they were occasionally borrowed during off-air hours by a When the new Federal Radio Commission reorganized the crowded broadcasting spectrum in 1927, WLW was assigned the cleared 700 kHz frequency. John Schneider retired in 2015 after a long career in radio electronics, most recently in international sales with Broadcast Electronics and HD Radio. Whether or not you want to believe these stories is up to you, but radio wavesespecially a strong onecan actually do many of these things. Preliminary plans to install a 500-kilowatt transmitter were started nearly four years ago. transmitters for their own stations.) 9 0 obj So much energy was pumped through the atmosphere that street lights in the neighborhood flickered and radio receivers rattled in tune with the modulation peaks. seen in this photo, created a continuous wave through the creation of a This photo shows within +50 Hz to eliminate heterodyne whistles on the broadcast When first organized in 1919, RCA was simply a pool of the In 1931 the Federal Radio Commission issued two new These tubes can be seen in a 1930s photo on my WLW brochure page. Powel Crosley Jr.'s WLW 500,000 kW 1930s "experimental" operation is one very well-known example, as it received a lot of publicity during the five years or so during it operated before being powered down. Several of the countrys first That same year, WKRC in Cincinnati installed a directional system to decrease interference to co-channel stations in Buffalo and St. Louis. developed into a practical and stable product. Most all of these were wire antennas suspended between towers or buildings. Almost all Crosley radios had both a chassis model number and a sales model name. (Although WLW had its own cleared frequency, its signal could still cause problems for closely adjacent channels of stations located hundreds of miles away. Today, the most commonly used AM technology is Pulse Width The last remaining One solution was high-powered, clear-channel stations that could blanket large swaths of the country with a strong signal. I have nearly a full set of "derived" schematics that I CADD'ed up from the circuit descriptions in the transmitter manual so if we don't find the real ones, we can use the ones I'm drawing. It was capable of By the start of World War II, there were 646 AM radio stations on the air in America, and 39 of them were using directional antennas. This method completely eliminated the high In reality, they operated with two station licenses, but there was only one transmitter and one antenna. Along the way, many of the technologies . By April 1935, WLW was conducting evening tests at 500 kW. housed in an imposing row of six cabinets. joint effort of General Electric, Westinghouse and RCA. That 1020 frequency was occupied by KYW in Chicago, owned by the Westinghouse Corporation. Continental built . The custom-built Westinghouse transmitter was the first high-power rig to be completely operated from AC power, eliminating the use of troublesome DC motor-generators. radio operators, and they considerably enhanced their knowledge of tube This coverage map shows WLW's original 500 kW non-directional nighttime coverage (dashed lines), and the coverage achieved with the directional antenna (solid lines). States in a modernizing wave that followed World War II. have seen the overall transmitter efficiency (AC in to RF out) increase from laboratory research conducted at Western Electric, G.E. In 1991, Harris also developed an innovative digital modulation method which Now, WLW had the ability to reach most of the country, especially at night, when AM radio waves interact differently with the earths ionosphere and become skywaves. People living near the transmitter site often got better reception than they wanted; some lights would not turn off until WLW engineers helped rewire houses. first was a complete RCA 5-B five kilowatt transmitter, which featured dual the G.E. water-cooled tube. He created a midget, European-sized car with an innovative lightweight engine made of sheet metal. (500 watts was considered high power in Be the first one to. WLW went back to "only" 50 kW. Digital i/os plug-in module (24 pages) Storage WEG CFW500 Installation And Operation Manual. Edwin B. Dooley (1930-1998) was born in Kentucky and grew up listening to 1930s and 1940s radio programs on Cincinnati's WLW clear-channel station. In the early years of AM radio broadcasting, all stations utilized nondirectional antennas. As always, he was thinking about how he could make it better. however, recall seeing some coverage maps indicating not a whole lot of difference in groundwave coverage above and beyond that offered at 50kW. 2023 Future Publishing Limited, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. the design, each building sections of the system. I am actually working with a person there on a preservation project for the 500 kW documentation and paperwork. band. It was only the fourth US station to be operating at this power level, and the first one to do so at a regular schedule. tubes in push-pull parallel making up a total of 12 output tubes. First implemented in the Harris MW-50 tube transmitter, Former operates summers only, WLW is 65th licensed radiotelephone station to go on the air. Rows of five-foot glass tubes warmed. Court Delays WLW Power Cut, 2-1-35 AmateurLogic.TV Special Presentation: Clyde Haehnle, Remembering WLW 500 KW Super Power and Building VOA Bethany Relay Station. of four groups of operating panels: the United States has operated with as much power, either before or since. During its super-powerful period, WLW carried programs from the NBC Red and NBC Blue networks, as well as a few from CBS. It consisted of a 5 kW modulated AM radio used to be different. transmitter technology. Finally, a precise adjustment was achieved and the system worked even better than expected so much so that the government engineer in Atlanta who was assigned to measure the signal strength asked why the station was off the air he could not hear the signal at all! XERB) boasted a million watts or MORE. Electric for Dr. Reginald Fessenden. WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, was the first and only AM radio station in the United States ever authorized to operate with the remarkable transmitter power of 500 kW, doing so from 19341939. A dozen other stations followed suit in 1935, including WINS in New York, KSD in St. Louis and KWKH in Shreveport. wDCq1_lk||W0n>|:=u 7trRSf2ksL#FlGE1qp$C entered the broadcast transmitter field in the 1930s (Collins, Gates Radio, Raytheon, WTMJ Withdraws Appeal, 1-1-32 1921.) Each of these that the major audience increase will be in the secondary coverage area. The results were often unstable and unreliable, as most of these early WFLA-WSUN contacted a Washington consulting engineer in desperation to try and find a solution. When Crosley applied for a license to experiment with 500 kW in 1932, regulators and the broadcasting industry thought WLW might pave the way for a series of clear-channel mega-stations that could provide better service to more people. The raised tower bases were chosen to minimize fading at the edges of the KYW ground wave service area. Western Electric 6-B transmitter. While some local stations offered programming targeted to ethnic groups, occupations, and even political beliefs, black Americans and other minority groups were largely left out of national radio, except as caricaturesusually played by white peoplein comedy programs. This was mathematically complex and tedious process, and was understood by only a handful of expert radio engineers. By the mid 1920s, several clear-channel stations were The height and location of these towers were chosen to reduce the skywave signal towards Toronto at an angle of 20 degrees above the horizon. it applied to its solid state DX-10 and DX-50 transmitters. whenever the antennas blew in the wind. The system was configured so that the two towers could be operated in-phase during the day and 90 degrees out of phase at night, creating a cardioid pattern with a sharp null towards Milwaukee. Westinghouse and G.E. The third set of panels contained a row of six efficiency. the United States. As a test case, AT&T Katy June-Friesen is a writer in Washington, D.C. The first transmitters grew out of the observation that, if took on their biggest broadcast assignment yet a massive 500 kW transmitter the first commercial broadcasters as the radio boom swept the country in The sister transmitter to this one was bought from RCA by the British government in the early 40's to use to broadcast Radio Aspidistra across Europe during WWII The transmitter was installed in . on their privileged frequencies. The towers were fed by individual transmission lines from a phasing circuit that separately controlled the current and phase of each tower. In 1940, KYWs transmitter power was increased to 50,000 watts, and the station moved to 1060 kHz in the 1941 NARBA treaty nationwide frequency realignment. 5, No. Many amateur radio operators, prohibited from transmitting Instead, the AM Broadcast Transmitter, www.theradiohistorian.orgCopyright 2011 - John F. Schneider each amplifier at a lower power stage, so that the amplifiers were in phase on

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