This is a Bauer FB-5000J transmitter, stashed away in the corner of a transmitter site.
Bauer FB-5000J Medium wave transmitter
Sorry I can’t get a better angle on it, as I said, it is stuck in the corner.
I don’t know what vintage it is, it seems to be from the early 1960s or so as it has a low serial number. It ran as the main transmitter until the Harris Gates BC5H was installed in 1976. The transmitter is in beautiful shape, almost a museum piece. I don’t know if it still has all its original iron, as the modulation transformer may have contained PCBs and been disposed of. Otherwise, it is complete and tuned to 1,460 kHz.
I think the owner might be willing to donate it to a reputable organization, preferably a 501(c)(3).
In the time that I have been working as a broadcast engineer, I have seen some pretty unique transmitter sites. The aforementioned power plant, with the antenna mounted on a smoke stack. The more traditional AM station, is located in a swamp. Other stations both AM and FM combined into one antenna, etc.
WGDJ AM transmitter site
This is WGDJ, 1300 KHz, Albany, NY. It is located in what might be a swamp if we were not experiencing marginal drought conditions this summer. The transmitter is located along route 9J. It is a four-tower directional daytime, 10 KW, and a six-tower directional night time, 5 KW. Nothing spectacular, 90-degree towers, spaced 90 degrees apart. Since they are below 200 feet, they don’t need to be lit or painted, which is nice.
WGDJ directional antenna towers
The building and all the towers are on 20-foot-high steel stilts. The area is right next to the Hudson River and often floods in the springtime.
Back of WGDJ transmitter building
The transmitter site sort of reminds me of something I once saw at coastal radio stations WCC and KPH. They were located along saltwater bays.
Phaors with Nautel XR12 transmitter
The station signed on the air in 1963. Initially, it was a 5 KW daytimer only. They added night operation sometime in the seventies. Around 2006 or so, they went to 10 KW day, 5 KW night. The phasor is gigantic for a 5 KW station, or even a 10 KW station. I’ve seen smaller phasors on 50 KW directionals. It has a “Quakertown, PA” nameplate on it, which may be the forerunner of Phasetek. There is a rare art form to creating a functional, yet space economical phasor. Harris could sometimes pull it off, RCA did well, Kintronics seems to be the one of the top phasor makers today.
The main transmitter is a Nautel XR12, which has a very similar look as the V series FM transmitters. The backup transmitter is a MW5A, which, quite frankly scares me. The site was just recently air-conditioned, which means the MW5A transmitter was sucking swamp air through it for 25 years. I do not want to turn that thing on under any circumstances.
Nautel XR12 medium wave transmitter
All in all, the station has a pretty good signal into the capital city of New York. It nulls to the west, somewhat. Being on 1300, it doesn’t carry as far as some of the other class B AM stations like WROW 590 kHz, but it does alright.
After years of neglect, the station is making a bit of a comeback in the Albany market. They do a lot of local talk radio, which, when the other station is carrying almost all satellite syndicated talk, is making an impression. Being the state capital, there is a lot of fodder.
This is perhaps my favorite model FM transmitter, the Continental 816R2:
Continental 812R2A transmitter, on the air
I have known this particular transmitter for almost twenty years. It was installed new at WFLY 92.3 MHz in August of 1986. I was reflecting on that today, as I replaced the bad 4CX250B driver tube which caused the output power to drop to 10 percent. The power control is via SCRs on the HV power supply, not the more common PA screen voltage adjustment. That means the transmitter comes on with zero PA voltage and ramps up to full power. It makes the whole thing “smooth” like driving a Mercedes.
I have experienced a few overloads, which usually are accompanied by the room lights dimming slightly and the plate voltage turning off. Again, no theatrics; no big blue flashes, no loud arcs, etc. Simply turns off the high voltage and light a LED on the overload board to tell the operator what happened.
Over the last 20 or so years, I think I have had three out-of-the-ordinary problems with this transmitter:
The power supply pass transistor in the 802 exciters failed. This is a TO-3 case mounted on a heat sink, something like a 2N2225 I think. It runs hot. Anyway, the exciter had no 20-volt supplies, which was pretty easy to diagnose.
The SWR foldback did not work during an ice storm. This transmitter feeds an ERI antenna without heaters or radomes. About once every 2-3 years there is an ice buildup, which will cause the transmitter to fold back. In this case, the transmitter overloaded and went off the air instead. Traced back to a bad/dirty connector on the directional coupler.
One of the SCRs exploded while running on the generator. Figured out this was caused by harmonics from the generator exciter. Replaced the exciter with a different version, no SCR problems were encountered after this fix.
I like the Continental tube-type transmitters, they are solid units that perform well and have years of reliable service if properly maintained.
Letter to the editor in the April 15, 1987, Radio World:
I’ve heard all the garbage I can stand about the AM stereo “issue.” The problem?
1. Motorola and Kahn each was a monopoly.
2. The stations don’t want to waste $6,000 on the wrong system.
3. The FCC is afraid it will be sued by the “sore loser” in a standard decision.
4. The receiver makers are afraid of wasting millions of the wrong system.
5. The listeners don’t know anything about AM stereo.
Does any of this sound vaguely familiar regarding some AM “improvement” schemes currently being used? Those that fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it, Bob.
