[BC] Gates BC-1F

[Tom]

I've enjoyed reading the comments about the Gates BC-1F.  It 
was the transmitter at WKVA 920 when I worked there in the 
mid sixties.

Every six months or so the fifteen hundred volt transformer 
that provided voltage for the 813 and 845s would short.  We 
kept a spare and would have the shorted one wound by a local 
motor and transformer shop and then it would become the 
spare.  Don't think they ever figured out why this was 
happening.  I suggested it might be the shop doing the 
winding but I never got very far with that argument.  Wonder 
if anyone else ever had this problem?

I think the only other problem that occurred with that 
transmitter was that the RF choke in the plate circuit of the 
833s shorted.  We got one from a local ham and used it with 
reduced power till a replacement could be obtained from Gates.

When the station got authorization to go on at night with 
five hundred watts I was really surprised that to reduce 
power Gates provided a big resister to put in the plate 
circuit of the 833s.  It seemed to me that a variac would 
have been a more practical way to reduce power but I was very 
young and, well, you know how young people are treated 
sometimes.  I think when a question was asked it was taken as 
questioning a decision but my questions were asked because I 
wanted to learn.

I did understand about modulator impedance but it seemed that 
if the voltage and current were reduced proportionally on the 
modulator tubes the impedance would stay the same.

After that job I got out of broadcasting and spent the next 
thirty plus years in computer programming but still love radio.

Tom Dimeo