I have been licensed 4o years and almost 6 months now Barry.
Just a kid and barely having a clue occasionally getting my dad to drive me
over to the other side
of town for a meeting of the Joliet JARS and Gypsies.
I truly miss hearing you speak with the authority and passion that you did back
in the day.
I particularly remember the program you did a few years later on the then new
"Minooka Special".My only wish is that I had come into the fold a little
earlier in life.
Thanks for being such a willing and eager steward and teacher of amateur radio.
You and Joyce are very much remembered and missed.
73'
Clay Melhorn N9IO Bonfield, IL
Webmaster: KARS - Kankakee Area Radio Society - W9AZ http://www.w9az.com/
> From: W9UCW@aol.com
> Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:05:12 -0400
> To: topband@contesting.com
> Subject: Topband: WLW
>
> One Sunday at the close of the Dayton Hamvention about 40 years ago, some
> Cincinnati friends arranged for a tour of Gray's Radio Museum, The Voice of
> America installation and WLW, all in or near Mason, Ohio. A bunch of us
> got back to Illinois late that evening with unforgettable memories... and
> about 100 pictures.
>
> I have told the stories of that wonderful day many times. The wildest
> stories were from the WLW-RCA 500 KW station. Our guide was an expert on the
> subject. The original control console was moved over to a side wall, but it
> was still powered up... likely for the entertainment of visitors. The two
> experimental calls issued to Crosley were emblazoned on some controls. They
> were W8XO & W8XAL as I remember. BTW, my long time friend Dave, one of those
> guys from Cincinnati now holds one of those calls. Ask him about "when
> Skip was in."
>
> As we walked along the elevated walkway in front of the stages of the
> transmitter, we were awed by the 6 foot diameter pi wound coupling coils
> with
> Farraday shields and we noticed that there were as many water guages and
> valves as there were meters and controls. Each of the three final stages was
> water cooled and a fountain in the center of a small lake outside cooled the
> water.
>
> Each final stage was about 8 feet wide and had a metal door you could walk
> through. Our guide stopped at that point in the tour as we gazed at a huge
> ammeter with a 150 amp full scale. "What's this," someone asked.
>
> He told us it was put in for Crosley who got a bug in his butt to see what
> the rig would really do. The meter showed the total current on the three
> finals. One night he cranked it up as far as it would go. Keep in mind, the
> voltage on the finals was 17,500 volts, as I remember. He got that meter up
> to 100 amps. Do the math. He burnt up some local fences that night.
>
> Of course, 13 transmitters (with plug-in coils) each running 220,000 watts
> simultaneously on several bands down the road at VOA was astonishing, but
> that 1,700,000 watts at WLW was stuck in our minds all the way home that
> night. We were TopBand guys, afterall!
>
> 73, Best DX, Barry, W9UCW
>
>
> _________________
> Topband Reflector
_________________
Topband Reflector
|