{"id":2294,"date":"2011-02-10T10:58:05","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T14:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2023-04-30T14:52:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T18:52:37","slug":"the-nautel-nd-5-transmitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/02\/the-nautel-nd-5-transmitter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nautel ND-5 transmitter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This transmitter is about 10 years old. In ten years of service, there have been no failures. \u00a0Not one transistor has gone bad. \u00a0It is connected to a three-tower directional array on 920 KHz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"389\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter.jpg\" alt=\"WGHQ Nautel ND-5 transmitter\" class=\"wp-image-2301\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter-150x89.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter-300x179.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Nautel-ND-5-transmitter-400x239.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">WGHQ Nautel ND-5 transmitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sadly, this model transmitter is no longer made. \u00a0They were built like tanks, heavy gauge steel cabinets, well-designed, well-grounded circuit boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is dirt simple; RF power MOSFETs on drawers, combined and tuned with the output network. \u00a0A power supply, exciter, and simple control logic and nothing else. \u00a0No serial port to plug a computer into, no ethernet ports, no digital read-outs, fancy efficiency optimizing computers, etc. \u00a0In the meantime, it does what it is supposed to do, stay on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was reading, with interest, the idea of &#8220;energy star&#8221; transmitters. \u00a0I think that good radio station engineers already take electrical efficiency into account when buying a new transmitter. \u00a0 That being said, electrical efficiency is not the only measure of efficiency an engineer should be considering. \u00a0Reliability, redundancy, and repairability must also be considered. \u00a0If the station spends an inordinate amount of time on the old backup transmitter while the new, super-efficient main transmitter is off line is counterproductive. \u00a0Not to mention the time wasted troubleshooting which could be better spent on something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This transmitter is about 10 years old. In ten years of service, there have been no failures. \u00a0Not one transistor has gone bad. \u00a0It is connected to a three-tower directional array on 920 KHz. Sadly, this model transmitter is no longer made. \u00a0They were built like tanks, heavy gauge steel cabinets, well-designed, well-grounded circuit boards. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2011\/02\/the-nautel-nd-5-transmitter\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Nautel ND-5 transmitter<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-2294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-stuff","category-uncategorized","tag-am-transmitters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11873,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions\/11873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}