Re: Conalrad (was Re: Oldest Non-Comm in Boston)

[TEBZ17A@prodigy.com ( ROBERT W PAINE)]

- -- [ From: Robert W. Paine * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --

 A couple comments on CONELRAD - the late Granville "Granny" Klink of
WTOP radio (Washington DC) told me a couple things about the system,
which he was instrumental in helping to bring about. 
 WTOP, then and now 1500, went to 1240 for tests and operations. In
theory the idea would work. In practical application....well, chief,
would you believe not quite? Seems they rigged the transmitter for the
switch but they couldn't do much about the antenna mismatch. Accordingly
, the signal quite make it to the edge of their main contour.
 Second one is something either Granny told me or I got somewhere else.
The mismatches between regular operating and CONELRAD operational
frequencies could ( and sometimes DID ) cause a wee bit of overheating
in the transmitters. Not being a technical type, I wonder if it didn't
cause some red glows in several antennas or at least in the transmission
lines.
 I also heard (in the ever popular but indistinguishable) somewhere that
there was a full-blown trial run sometime around 1962. CONELRAD was to
have been made fully operational, radio and TV stations giving over to
the system, sirens going off and people going to shelters or designated
duty areas, etc., etc. But apparently the CONELRAD system didn't work as
it was supposed to. I don't know if it was able to make the national
broadcast as was scheduled. 
 I remember a drill from 1962. We were visiting Bath, Maine and at the
specified time for the CONELRAD broadcast, I heard....your regular
programming. 
 The sirens didn't sound, either.
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 Someone once asked and I wonder what the answer would be (shifting to
Andy Rooney mode) - 
  Did you ever wonder under the CONELRAD system, when stations were
supposed to shift frequency, which way a station would go if it was
exactly half way between 640 and 1240?
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 "This has been a test. If this had been an actual emergency, you'd
never know what hit you!"

 (If there had been an actual emergency when I was on duty, the station
would have gone on auto-pilot. I'd have run for my life in abject terror
.)  












































 I remember one about that time.

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