We removed this old Harris BC5HA transmitter recently:
It was installed new in 1974 when the station moved to this site from another one a few miles up the road. It functioned as a main transmitter until the BE AM5E was installed in late 2001. The BE transmitter, other than a power supply issue, has been a solid, reliable unit. Truth be told, the last time the BC5HA ran was in 2006. After that, the unit refused to run, and a bad modulation transformer was suspected. It was deemed not worth it to repair, thus, out the door it goes. We ended up giving it to a local contractor who scrapped the metal in lieu of payment for his labor. The only thing he could not take was the aforementioned modulation transformer, which is full of PCBs. That will have to be hauled away by a licensed disposal company.
We may be getting a second hand Nautel transmitter from another station as a backup transmitter. If that comes to fruition, then a couple of racks can be added to the end of the Phasor/transmitter/transmitter row and the wiring for the remote control and STL can be simplified and neatened up.
The HA had the 10kW power supply and twin finals and could really belt out the positive peaks, until the IPA tube went flat (about 9 months) or the mod transformer failed. A CRL stack adjusted for a close shave could push it over the edge.
I drained, flushed and refilled (with the assistance of Northern States Power) 5X before the PCB levels dropped when I decontaminated one of those beasts. The power guys had never seen a transformer with that high a PCB concentration. I don’t know who built those transformers for Harris, but they meant business.