FM – Engineering Radio

A nice pair

I am reminded of a Pink Floyd compilation album from the very early 70s. The music dates back to the late 60s and Syd Barrett. Poor Syd; shine on you crazy diamond!

I recently finished installing these rather nice GatesAir FLX-40 transmitters:

WXBK-FM New York, GatesAir FLX-40 x 2 installation

Audacy New York decided to move 94.7 from the East Orange, NJ location down to the WOR transmitter site in Rutherford, NJ. Acting as contractors for GatesAir, we installed these two transmitters. I can say, I like the liquid-cooled transmitters for several reasons. First, once installed, they seem to be very stable. I believe that the cooling scheme helps prolong the life of the RF devices by keeping the junctions at a constant temperature. Those semi-conductor junctions are tiny for the amount of current that they need to handle. Second, they cost less in the long run to operate. Anytime a refrigerant cycle can be skipped, that reduces or greatly reduces the electrical use. The Heat Exchangers in this system use VFD’s for fan motor control. That means more constant control over the HTF temperature and reduced electrical use on the fan motors themselves.

The pump stations have backup pumps as well. In the newer transmitter firmware, the pump control needs to be set up to automatically failover to the standby unit. It is a couple of clicks in the GUI to do this.

We didn’t have anything to do with the antenna installation, however, it is a good-looking antenna! ERI 4 bay 3 around mounted on one of the WOR towers.

Overall, this was a good project. Lots of moving parts during the installation, but we were flexible working with the client and other contractors and sub-contractors on site.

Radio Guide; The Magazine

As some of you may have noticed, recently I have been writing some articles for Radio Guide. There are several good reasons for this, but the most important one is education. I believe that terrestrial radio will be around for a few more years. As others have noted, there are fewer and fewer broadcast engineers. Those that understand high power RF and all its intricacies are fewer still. It is important that a cadre of knowledgeable broadcast engineers carry on.

The internet is a great thing. However, it depends on cables of some type to exist. As we know, cables can be damaged. In addition to cables there are routers, core switches, servers and so on. All of that equipment can fail for various reasons. People have been working hard to improve the resiliency of the internet. That is a good cause, to be sure. However small it may be, there is still a chance that the internet can fail. Worse still, this can happen during some type of natural disaster or other emergency. Thus, during such an emergency, Radio can and will function as a vital information source provided that the station is on the air and has a program feed. That is also a good reason to keep the current RF STL paths in place as much as possible.

The Radio Guide articles are a great way to pass along some of that hard earned experience to others. I also want to put supplemental information here for those interested to download. Things like charts, forms, pictures, videos, etc.

What I am planning on is to list the articles here, then put links to any supplemental information provided below that sub heading.

The GatesAir FLX-30

This is the second time I have installed one of these liquid cooled transmitters. This time, it is for WVPS in Burlington, VT. WVPS is the flagship station for Vermont Public Radio. The station is a full class C, a rarity in the North East. The transmitter is located on Mount Mansfield giving it a HAAT of 2,717 feet (828 Meters), which is a good ways up.

This transmitter replaced the previous backup transmitter, a Harris Z16 unit from the early 00’s. There was nothing really wrong with this unit, it just was not a full power backup.

The new transmitter came in two pieces, which is typical for the 30 and 40 KW GatesAir liquid and air cooled transmitters.

New Transmitter, being placed in Radio Transmitter room

For the cooling part of this installation, 1 1/2 inch type M copper pipe was used. This matches most of the other TV transmitters down the hall. In the same building are the transmitters for WCAX-TV, WPTZ-TV, WFFF-TV, and WVNY-TV.

FLX-30 Heat Exchanger, outside with all the others

Liquid cooled transmitter piping, WCAX’s left pair, WVPS right pair

Air purge valve, sight glass, cross connect and distribution manifold, above the transmitter

The highest point in the liquid cooled system is the air purge valve and distribution manifold just above the transmitter. From here, everything slops down to a few low points; the heat exchanger outside, the pump station and the power blocks. This is to make it easier to drain, if that ever needs to happen. There is also an air inlet valve to aid in draining.

All of the cooling work is controlled by the pump station. The fans are connected to VFD modules, which control the flow of air though the Heat Exchanger.

All of this plumbing work was greatly sped along with the use of this Pro Press pipe press tool. This thing is great! No more sweating connections. Dry fit a section to make sure that it is all cut correctly, then go to work with this and it is done in a matter of seconds. Of course, there are no re-dos, so the dry fit procedure is a little more important.

Prior to filling with with Heat Transfer Fluid (50/50 water/antifreeze mix), the system was first pressure tested with air, then filled with clean water for a 12 hour flush. The water was drained out and the filter screen cleaned, then it was filled with the appropriate Heat Transfer Fluid.

Testing into dummy load, TPO is 25,995 watts with -14 dBc HD Radio

Final system checks, remote control test, and HTF top off and the transmitter is ready to go pending the HD Radio installation.

WEZF and WVPS four bay three around panel antenna

Almost Eighteen Years

I do not know what the record is for the longest tube life, however, this particular tube lasted 17 years, 11 months and 23 days. That’s 157,596 hours.

I had written about this almost five years ago: https://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/2014/12/longest-tube-life/

The last one was last fall: https://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/2018/09/i-almost-hate-to-say-anything-but/

Eimac 4CX12000A power tube, serial number RHH108

This was installed new in a Broadcast Electronics FM20T transmitter which was placed on line on June 6, 2001. It lasted until May 28th, 2019 with almost no down time. Towards the end, the emissions started dropping off and we increased the filament voltage up to 10 volts. When you have to increase the filament voltage, that really is the end for a tube.

The new tube was put in and I carefully marked out the date in the maintenance log. The hour meter on the transmitter stopped working several years ago.

Prior to this, the longest tube life I’d experienced was an EEV 4CX35000C from an MW-50B transmitter RF section. When that tube came out, it looked like it have been on fire.