General – Page 57 – Engineering Radio

Protective gear and worker safety

Safety at work is one of those things that is often overlooked for various reasons. Sometimes we just get into a groove and are not thinking about it. Other times, employers can put workers in a potentially dangerous situation by ignoring regulations or insisting employees do things contrary to common sense.

For a broadcast engineer working in the field, safety can be a matter of life and death. Transmitters, in particular, have a host of potential safety issues; high voltage, thermal burns, RF burns, revolving mechanical parts, and external things like lightning. Transmitter sites themselves can be critter magnets, anything from bees to raccoons, bears, and even the two-legged kind.

Good general practices can go a great way in reducing injuries and downtime. Take this young fellow here:

improperly attired worker attempting unsafe operation

First of all, it appears he has gone to work in his pajamas, which is a no-no. Secondly, he has the right idea, wearing safety goggles while undertaking the risky operation of cutting low-density polyethylene with a pair of hand shears, however, those look more like swim goggles. They appear to be improperly donned. He is using a right-handed shearing device with his left hand and the work area looks cluttered and unkempt.

Seriously, we are all responsible for ourselves. While at work, it is important to use common sense. I may be a wimp, but if I have a question on whether the breaker is on or off, I go check. High-voltage power supplies offer no second chances. Here is a list of things to be cognizant of while working at transmitter sites:

Weather. If the transmitter got knocked off the air by lightning, wait till the storm is over to fix it. It is still coupled to the tower, even if the backup transmitter is on the air.
Fall hazards. OHSA requires fall protection for any worker working at an elevation higher than 4 feet. Fall protection can vary CFR 29 subpart E 1926 has all the details.
Falling object hazards. Tower works have been known to drop a wrench from time to time. A hard hat should be required whenever climbers are on the tower. Also, I watched ice shedding from a 1000-foot TV tower practically destroy a fuel delivery truck in a matter of minutes.
RF safety. I require all tower climbers to wear personal RF alarms when climbing on any tower that has RF radiators active. Do not work in hot ATUs or Phasors. ATUs and Phasors should have provisions to make all necessary measurements with protective covers in place and minimally exposed RF parts.
Electrical safety. Never work alone at a transmitter site. Turn off breakers before opening transmitter doors, do not defeat interlocks, and always discharge high voltage with a ground stick. Hang ground stick on HV power supply output. Tag out breakers if in a separate room from the transmitter.
Critters. Use bee spray on ATUs and other outdoor structures. Be careful around wild animals, even mice, and mice droppings can spread disease, use hand cleaner after cleaning up mice nests. Snakes love tuning houses, generator sheds or just about any building that is not inhabited.
Generators and backup power. Generators pose several hazards; fuel and batteries can be explosion risks, revolving parts, thermal burns, and high voltage.
Access to the site. In some areas where mountaintop transmitter sites are common, access during winter months can be tricky.

Much of this is common sense, remember, a radio station is a radio station, and there is only one you.

Al Fansome, Call your office

Shortwave Pirate broadcasting has been going on for years. While it is illegal to transmit radio signals without a license, it is not illegal to receive those signals. There is something sort of sneaky like you are hearing something you shouldn’t, part of some underground thing, listening to these guys. I am almost remiss to write something about it because I don’t want anyone to get into trouble.

Anyway, on any given day or night, pirate broadcasters roam the shortwave airwaves. Much of what they do is typical sophomoric humor, such as playing a song where the only lyrics are “god damn you” over and over again. Some of it can be somewhat entertaining. A lot of what they tell as jokes are inside baseball, you have to listen and do a little research to get it, the Al Fansome reference is one. There are no set times or frequencies. It is quite common to hear one guy tuning up and getting ready to go on the air when the current frequency occupant signs off (happens often on 6925 KHz).

Most of these guys build their own transmitters based on designs found on various websites. Power levels vary, but 10 to 50 watts is common. Because of this, a good low-noise receiving antenna is required to pull them out of the noise floor. I have used, with good success, a K9AY terminated loop antenna. We are in a rural area, so it is pretty low noise to begin with. Even so, the coverage with a 50-watt transmitter is remarkable when propagation conditions are good. Sound quality can be quite good for a homemade AM transmitter.

There is a lot of focus on FM pirates these days, that particular setup is likely the easiest to attain for most non-technical types. There are a few AM pirates floating about, those are likely the most difficult to construct and conceal once they are on the air. Both of those broadcast bands have the advantage that there are many kits and or instructions on how to build a pretty good-sounding transmitter. Shortwave seems to be a small cadre of dedicated hobbyists that simply like to fool around on the radio.

In any case, with the FCC stretched thin, it is unlikely that a SW pirate will be busted but not unheard of. One SW pirate station was busted in Florida about a month ago. Even so, that was the first one in almost five years.

For the most part, the activity seems to center between 6850 to 6970 KHz or so. Some others operate around 15055 to 15070 KHz. Here is a brief selection of what one might find on the SW pirate frequencies:

WHYP on 6925 USB “Who Wants To Be A Pirate Radio Operator” at 0156z.
WMPR on 6925 AM “This is WMPR Dancy Party” ID at 0040z.
Captain Morgan Shortwave Radio on 6925AM “Positive Captain Morgan Shortwave ID, email, and twilight zone theme at 2209z.
Radio Ronin Shortwave on 6950AM oriental-sounding interval signal, id at 01:04, Outer Limits intro, “She Blinded Me with Science”, strange version of “SOS”, anti-BP comedy skits, id at 01:19
Indira Calling on 6925AM pop music that I can’t identify, “Rock-It”, Indian music, id at about 00:37, “Beach Party 2000” show, Calcutta mail drop, Beach Boys medley
WEAK Radio on 6925 Shout out to Voice Of Honor. 0048z “Godzilla” 0055z Sabbath.
Channel Z radio on 15067AM 2218z ID and contact info, must be an old show (Blue Ridge Summit maildrop)

And so on. Those call signs are usually spoofs on something. Occasionally, contact information is given out, usually in the form of a mail drop. If so inclined, one might write a letter and receive a QSL card.

There is plenty of information floating around out there about shortwave pirate radio if one cares to look for it. Two of the more popular discussion forums are HF underground and Free Radio Network Grapevines.

Should I renew my free subscription to Radio World?

When I left my former place of employment and set out as a contractor, I also left my Radio World subscription behind. After I was let go, or quit or whatever it was, I was thinking that my days in radio were over or at least winding down and I had bigger things to worry about than trade magazine subscriptions.

I have been checking the Radio World website and find that it gets updated from time to time, usually several weeks behind the magazine. So the question is, what am I missing? As one commenter on the radio info board put it, the magazine keeps getting smaller and smaller, soon they’ll have to rename it Radio Pamphlet.

I’d like to stay abreast of things in the technical end of the radio business, but is Radio World the way? There was a time when it was a technical magazine full of good timely articles well written by fellow engineers. Occasionally I still find something interesting to read, and that is true. Interspersed with that are lots of advertisements, useless information, and many pro-HD radio articles. Is it worth the price? I don’t know, I am still pondering that one.

Radio Ships

Radio London air studio aboard the MV Galaxy

These were broadcast platforms that were usually anchored in international waters broadcasting popular music to several European Countries including Great Britain, Holland, France, and Spain in the late 1960s through late 1980s. The reason for these peculiar operations was strict government control of all broadcast outlets and programming in those particular countries. The BBC was known to be stodgy and repressive of new music, particularly rock music from bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, and others.

At the time, there was no specific law preventing ships anchored in international waters from broadcasting to shore-based listeners, a loophole in the government control was found and exploited. That loophole has been closed in most places, so as they say, don’t try this at home.

At one time there were several ships out there in the English Channel and coastal Denmark. The first and best-known of these was Radio London or “The Big L.” It broadcast on 1133 KHz from December 16, 1964, to August 14, 1967, using a 50,000-watt RCA ampliphase transmitter. The ship itself was the M/V (motor vessel) Gallaxy, a converted WWII minesweeper formerly known as the USS Density. After Radio London went off the air, the ship was transferred from port to port until it ended up in Kiel, Germany, where it was finally scrapped in the late 1990s.

Radio Caroline was the main offshore competitor, broadcasting on 1520 KHz and several other frequencies off and on from 1964 until 1990 or so using several different vessels to transmit from.

One incident in offshore broadcasting that has always fascinated me was the burning of the Mebo II, then transmitting Radio Northsea International off the coast of Holland (this ship moved around quite a bit) in 1971. Later investigations revealed that the staff of an offshore competitor, Radio Veronica, was responsible for the firing of the ship. Apparently, in those days the competition was brutal.

I like the nice calm music with the increasingly frantic DJ (West, no East). In any case, the ship remained afloat and returned to the air the next day. The final European offshore broadcaster was something called Laser 558 on M/V Communicator. It broadcast using to CSI 25 KW AM transmitters on 558 KHz in 1983, again, off and on for several years until 2004. The CSI-grounded grid transmitters may have been inexpensive to purchase, but I’ll bet they cost a lot to run. This would be especially true if one were using diesel generators as the main electrical power provider. As a result, they were usually run at about 1/2 power. Eventually, M/V Communicator ended up beached in the Orkney Islands off of Scotland.

The only such attempt in the US was Alan Wiener’s MV Sarah, known as “Radio Newyork International” anchored off of Jones Beach on 1620 KHz. The owners figured 4 miles offshore was far enough to be in international waters, but the FCC felt otherwise, I believe at the time, 12 miles was (and still is) the territorial limit for the US. Four miles was not international waters, as the broadcasters claimed. These guys were arrested and sent to trial. After several years all charges were dropped.

Anyway, an interesting bit of radio history. Goes to show the lengths that some will go to when feeling repressed.