RE: Let's Talk About Transmitters

["Hakim Madjid" <HMadjid@mindspring.com>]

Interesting. The thing that strikes me though, is the 1930s style of press
release writing. Full of technical statistivcs and comparisons. [1,000,000
pound compression strength insulator!!! Yea!!! Wow!!!]. Back then radio was
really the hi-tech frontier - the same for avation, that's why they put the
part in about the aviation beacon.

Nowadays, seven decades later, this is not the way a radio station would put
out PR about a new transmitter/tower setup.

73, de Hakim (N1ZFF)

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
[mailto:owner-boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org]On Behalf Of Donna
Halper
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 10:50 PM
To: boston-radio-interest@bostonradio.org
Subject: Let's Talk About Transmitters


This press release oughta make you guys nostalgic (or excited...):

22 August 1931, from the files of Shepard Broadcasting Services

"WAAB's vertical half-wave radiator at Squantum, Mass is the first antenna
of this type in the world to be used by a broadcasting station.  The whole
tower is the antenna and rests on a porcelain insulator tested to a
compression of 1,000,000 pounds.  The four guy wires, each of which carries
a strain of 50,000 pounds, hold the tower in place.  The steel giant is 430
feet high and weighs 30 tons.  A 75 foot pole at the top can be raised or
lowered in tuning the antenna.  Six insulators in each guy wire weigh 450
pounds each.  Guy wires are moored to four anchors, each of which contains
50 tons of cement.  The tower is 18 feet square where the guy wires are
attached and one foot square at the base.  The cromium ball at the top of
the mast is twice the size of a man's head.  An aviation beacon of 2,000
watts power will flash from the top-most part of the fabricated structure
which will also carry stationary aviation lights.  WAAB alternates with
WNAC as key station of the Yankee Network."