Finishing up a transmitter site rehab. The BE FM20T is nearly 20 years old. The BE FM2C transmitters are new. There is also a rack of new fiber equipment and CODECs. This site has good utilization; there are three stations on one tower with a shared STL antenna and generator.
Energy Onix ECO-6
Energy Onix ECO-6 tube-type transmitter. One of Bernie’s better designs; a grounded grid tube with a solid-state driver section. This one needed some fans replaced and a new tube.
AM transmitter site. Looks like these vines have not been cut in a couple of years.
I wonder how much the guy tensions have changed…
Noticed this after some particularly strong thunderstorms
The reason why you do not use a POTS line phone during a thunderstorm.
USS Slater radio room
I took a tour of the USS Slater, a museum ship in Albany, NY. The museum has painstakingly restored the ship to its WWII configuration. The main transmitter is the RCA TBL-8 seen in the left/center of this picture. This unit put out 200 to 400 watts CW or 150 watts AM phone. During the hostilities, it was turned off as allied ships observed radio silence unless they were sinking (and sometimes even then).
A little ChiFi tube-type RIAA phone preamp.
I have been fooling around with this little 6AK5 preamp. I find it works very well and sounds better than the built-in phone preamp on my Kenwood VR-309. The FU-29 tube amp did not come with a phone preamp.
This is a short video clip of an audio processor at one of our transmitter sites. The fancy lights around the control knob are designed for the program director. They are saying “Buy me… Buy me…”
ATT bucket trucks, , mobilized via landing craft to Pleasure Beach
We loaded a couple of ATT bucket trucks on a landing craft and waged an assault on Pleasure Beach. This is to finalize the repair work from Hurricane Sandy last year. The other factor is the construction taking place on the Island. The City of Bridgeport is constructing a park, which involves extensive repairs and renovations to the buildings. Construction vehicles driving under the old lines have ripped them down several times, thus repairing the lines on the new utility poles was necessary.
ATT truck offloadingATT truck offloading
ATT is the LEC for the Bridgeport area, something they don’t do in most other parts of the country, from what I am told.
Landing Craft Challenger
It took approximately four hours to complete this work and reload the trucks back on the landing craft. The boat itself looks like a slightly modified LCM (Landing Craft, Mechanized), which was produced from 1943 onward. This is an LCM-8.
WICC towers
WICC towers almost in line, I was about one second too late with this shot. This would be “down the bore” of the daytime pattern into downtown Bridgeport.
WICC towers
Another shot of the WICC towers. These were designed to hold up a horizontal T top wire antenna strung between the two of them. At some point in the early thirties, somebody realized that the tower itself could be excited as a vertical radiator and the antenna configuration was changed. Up until the mid-1970s there was a horizontal wire which supported a third wire element hanging between the two towers, making it a three-tower directional array. This was removed and it was then that the current phasor and two-tower DA-2 system was installed.
The imminent demise of ISDN has been talked about for some time. There now appears to be a date attached which makes it semi-sort of official. As of May 18, 2013, Verizon will no longer accept orders for new ISDN lines. They will also not make any changes to existing lines and will start charging more for the service.
Taking the place of ISDN will be a variety of Ethernet/IP-based audio transmission methods. As technology evolves, this makes sense. The quality of ISDN and the bidirectional nature was a vast improvement over the old system 5/7/10/15 KHz point to point analog lines. The one downside, ISDN equipment was expensive and the service was expensive to install and operate.
High-speed internet is available in almost every business and venue. Many times, there is no cost to access it and equipment is relatively inexpensive. Depending on the equipment, CODEC, and speed, it can sound almost as good as ISDN. For those opposed to using the public network due to reliability issues, there is always frame relay.
Over the years, I have collected many pinouts for all sorts of interfaces, connectors, jacks, etc. These are all stored on my laptop and on my smartphone. It is easy enough to look these things up online, however, there are occasions when the internet is not available for whatever reason. Thus, this is my collection of pinouts, many of which have been adapted from Wikipedia articles. Many times I put things here for my own use. However, if I have spent ten minutes looking for the USB pin out on my smartphone, someone else has done the same thing. Most of these images have higher resolutions available.
Enjoy!
EIA/TIA 568a and b ethernet cable standard
Standard networking connectors for Ethernet connections. Rumor has it that only the “A” standard is accepted for government work and the “B” standard is being depreciated.
803.3af Power over Ethernet, imposed on EIA/TIA 568 a and b
Power over Ethernet pinouts. More and more commonly used in VOIP phone systems, but can also be found in wireless access points and other things of that nature.
10/100 base T cross-over cable
Ethernet crossover cables are useful for connecting to similar pieces of equipment together, e.g. a computer to a computer, or a switch to a switch. Many new switches have port sensing, which will automatically cross the connection if a straight through cable is used. Others have a specific port or a switch for a specific port which will cross over the cable. Gigabit Ethernet uses all four pairs, thus a 1000 base T crossover looks a little bit different.
10/100/1000 base T Ethernet crossover cable
This type cable is backwards compatible with 10/100 base T systems.
Registered Jack 11/14/25
Telephone system equipment jacks.
Registered Jack (RJ) 48, commonly used on T-1 and ISDN circuits
RJ48 and 48X used on T-1 (DS-1) and ISDN connections. Since BRI and PRI ISDN are two wire circuits, the active pins are 4/5, which is the same as an RJ11. I have often used RJ11 jacks for ISDN and found no issues with doing so.
T-1 (DS-1, DSX-1) crossover cable
Crossover cable for T-1 (DS-1 or DSX-1 interface). Note, this is different from an Ethernet crossover cable, which will not work for in a DS-1 interface. A T-1 loopback connector goes from pin 1 to pin 4 and pin 2 to pin 5 on a 8P8C connector.
RJ21 and 21X color code.
RJ21 and 21X connectors are often found on the side of punch blocks and make for quick connections on cabling trunks.
25 pair color code
The generic 25 pair color code, which is always a good thing to have.
RS-232 data pins out for various connectors
RS-232 is still commonly used for data transfer in broadcast facilities. RS-485 is also used, however, that standard is often used with screw terminals or some other generic connection.
Null modems, cables and pinouts
Null modems for connecting equipment together and testing.
Universal Serial Buss (USB) connections and pinouts
Various USB connectors and pinouts. USB has replaced RS-232 data ports on most newer computers.
VGA connector and pinout
Computer graphics card pinouts.
Computer Parallel port pinout
Computer parallel port pinout, not used very much anymore, replace by mostly USB devices. Can also be used as a limited GPI/GPO interface. Some small automation software programs use pins 10,11,12,13 and 15 for closure information and pins 1, 14, 16, and 17 for output switching, machine starts and the like.
PS2 mouse and keyboard connector
PS2 mouse and keyboard connectors, again, replaced by USB but still found on older motherboards.
RJ-45 to balanced analog and digital audio
RJ-45 to balanced audio. This is a fairly standardized audio application for RJ-45 connectors developed by Radio Systems/Studio Hub. It is also used by Telos/Axia and Wheatstone, although often the +/- 15 VDC power is not included.
XLR connectors, old technology, still used
The ubiquitous XLR connector, still used for analog audio and also AES/EBU digital audio.
