GE BT-25 Mystery transmitter site

Update: Thank you, Jim.  The mystery site is KFIG (formerly KFRE) in Fresno, CA.  This is what the transmitter building looks like from the outside today:

KFIG transmitter, circa 2011
KFIG transmitter, circa 2011

In the previously mentioned rescued file cabinet and along with the WFLY transmitter site construction information, I also found these interesting photographs:

Mystery AM transmitter site
Mystery AM transmitter site, plate 9296

I do not know what transmitter site this is. From the photo, it has a two-tower (guyed) directional antenna. It looks to me to be somewhere out west. The transmitter is a General Electric BTA-25 or BT-25, the same as the former WPTR and WCKY transmitter. I know this back hallway well:

Mystery AM transmitter site, back hallway of GE BT-25.  Plate 9300
Mystery AM transmitter site, back hallway of GE BT-25. Plate 9300

This is the transformer vault:

Mystery AM transmitter site, transformer vault.  Plate 9297
Mystery AM transmitter site, transformer vault. Plate 9297

Modulation transformer and three-pot plate transformer:

BT-25 modulation transformer.  Plate 9299
Mystery AM transmitter site, GE BT-25 modulation transformer. Plate 9299

I would say that these may be promotional photos, because of the spotlessly clean installation and the plate numbers on each print.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the front of the transmitter, including the operator console.

Does anybody know where this is?

Horby and Solvesborgs transmitter site

This is a video of Radio Sweden’s shortwave and medium-wave transmitter sites:

Håkan Widenstedt at Hörby and Sölvesborgs Transmitter sites from HamSphere on Vimeo.

This was filmed in 2006. In 2010, Radio Sweden ceased broadcasting on medium and shortwave, thus I believe these sites have Horby (HF) have been dismantled.  Medium wave installation Solvesborg is visible starting at 15:30. Two tower directional array 180-degree towers with 600 KW carrier power. Quite impressive.

There is an effort to at save the Solvesborg site, perhaps as a museum.

Transmitters were in Skane, Sweden:


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h/t Shortwave Central

Wikipedia Articles

Wikipedia-logo-v2

Type the call letters for almost any radio or television station in the country into a search engine, and the second or third result will be a Wikipedia article.

Try it.

This is both an opportunity and a burden.  Since Wikipedia articles place so well in most search engine results, it would be a benefit to radio stations to keep an eye on them; keep them up to date, make sure that no one vandalizes them, and fix them when they do.  Most importantly, keep the station website link and streaming link information up to date.  That is the burden but it is relatively small.

The opportunity comes from the ability to document the history of individual radio stations. On the grand scale, the history of any individual radio station is like a grain of sand on the beach. It is only pertinent to those who care.  But then there are those who do care and for some of us, reading a well-written, well-sourced article about some station we are familiar with is interesting.  To be sure, there are many crappy radio station articles on Wikipedia.   Some of them read like advertisements, clearly written by non-neutral party.  Others do not have sections, have poor grammar, improper or no source citations, etc.  Those poor articles should be fixed.

In my time as a broadcast engineer, I have found radio stations to be like ships; they all have a certain personality.  It is difficult to explain how an inanimate collection of equipment and buildings can have personality, but they do.  Of course, with time, format, and ownership changes those personalities change.  Documenting operating histories, formats, unique occurrences, famous past personalities, incidents, accidents, and technical discoveries in one place takes a little bit of time.  Having that information available for fellow radio people to read about is a valuable service.  The one thing that I notice about most radio station Wikipedia articles; there are no pictures.  There should be more pictures.

Voice of Russia to cut shortwave

Another government shortwave broadcaster calls it quits.  The Voice of Russia (Голос России, Golos Rossii) will cut its shortwave service as of January 1st, 2014. Originally known as Radio Moscow, it has been on the air continuously since 1922. It will be sad to see yet another shortwave station pull the plug.

Radio Moscow stamp, courtesy of Wikimedia
Radio Moscow stamp, courtesy of Wikimedia

I can remember Radio Moscow being one of the first shortwave stations I tuned across on my Uncle’s Zenith Transoceanic shortwave radio.  It was fascinating to me to hear the news from the far away and all too scary Soviet Union.  After a short bit of interval music and a series of beeps counting down to the top of the hour, a man with a deep, sonorous voice came on and said “Zis is Moscow…” It was very dramatic.

The economics of HF broadcasting is daunting, to say the least.  Minimum power levels in the US are 50,000 watts into a highly directional, high-gain antenna.  Most stations use greater than 50 KW transmitters, which will very quickly use gobs of electricity, becoming an expensive operation.  Other expenses include maintenance on transmitters, buildings, land, and antennas.  With little or no opportunity to commercialize, it becomes difficult to justify a shortwave operation.  Sadly, those are the state of affairs in HF broadcasting today.