{"id":6208,"date":"2013-01-30T09:46:12","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T13:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=6208"},"modified":"2023-04-08T20:12:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T00:12:02","slug":"goodbye-you-piece-of-junk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2013\/01\/goodbye-you-piece-of-junk\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye you piece of junk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We are scrapping several old transmitters these last few weeks as part of a site upgrade&nbsp; A couple of Harris FM20 and 10H transmitters are out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large wp-image-6227\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"487\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H-650x487.jpg\" alt=\"Harris FM20H transmitter, circa 1970\" class=\"wp-image-6227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H-650x487.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Harris FM20H transmitter, circa 1970<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Some people like these transmitters. I am not one of those. I found that they were of dubious reliability, tended to drift out of tune and have AM noise problems, and had multiple catastrophic failure modes. If it was not tuned just right, it also had a tendency to have HF oscillations and internal arcing in the PA cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large wp-image-6230\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"398\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod-650x398.jpg\" alt=\"Harris FM20H3 PA cabinet modification\" class=\"wp-image-6230\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod-650x398.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod-150x92.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod-300x184.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod-400x245.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM20H3-mod.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Harris FM20H3 PA cabinet modification<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This transmitter had a non-factory authorized modification installed as a tuning aid.\u00a0 Tune for best efficiency, and minimum AM noise then check and see if it is arcing.\u00a0 It is also advisable to wear hearing protection during the tuning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large wp-image-6228\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"524\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3-650x524.jpg\" alt=\"Harris FM20H3, circa 1972\" class=\"wp-image-6228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3-650x524.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3-150x121.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3-300x242.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3-400x322.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Harris-FM30H3.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Harris FM20H3, circa 1972<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This particular transmitter was my nemesis for a couple of years. It <em>is<\/em> actually possible to hate an inanimate object, I can tell you. Goodbye, you piece of shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We tend to scrap these instead of dumpster them.\u00a0 It saves the client a little bit of money on dumpster charges.\u00a0 If all the metal is sorted out by category, e.g. all the copper windings are cut from the HV transformer and PS filter inductors, and all the brass, aluminum, and wiring harness are separated, then it is almost worth the time and effort.\u00a0 Personally, I&#8217;d rather see all that material reused than landfilled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are scrapping several old transmitters these last few weeks as part of a site upgrade&nbsp; A couple of Harris FM20 and 10H transmitters are out the door. Some people like these transmitters. I am not one of those. I found that they were of dubious reliability, tended to drift out of tune and have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2013\/01\/goodbye-you-piece-of-junk\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Goodbye you piece of junk<\/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":[3],"tags":[82,15],"class_list":["post-6208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-fm","tag-fm-transmitters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208","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=6208"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11455,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6208\/revisions\/11455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}