[BC] Some historical questions - vertical radiator

[nakayle@gmail.com]

 Thanks for the info on the Tuckerton Wireless Station, Bruce.  It does
appear that series fed tower radiators were known back in 1912.  But there
must have been more than expensive delaying their adoption by the domestic
broadcasters.  I base this on what I've read about WEAF, which (then)
wealthy AT&T built in 1922 "sparing no expensive to obtain the finest
equipment available" (to quote one article), and I think the same could be
said about Westinghouse's KDKA, WBZ, KYW and General Electric's WGY, KGO,
KOA.  Yet all these stations used flat-top Ts.

 - Nat

On 6/19/06, brew at themode.com <brew at themode.com> wrote:
>
>
> I suspect that series fed vertical towers were known, but too expensive to
> be used by a start-up industry which had yet to become a viable money maker.
>
> As proof I offer Tom McNally's (of NJ's Millenium Broadcasting WFPG, WPUR,
> WIXM, WKOE, WKXW, etc.) webpage:
>
> http://mcnally.cc/tuckmain.htm
>
> Note that the Wireless station in Tuckerton, NJ, built in 1912, appears to
> be series fed.  I think it was a Hi Power VLF station, built by the German
> government. One picture is captioned, "Charles Buelow looks at one of the
> glass insulators used at the tower base".
>
> However, the picture is from circa 1964, taken after the tower was
> dismantled, but it's my guess that the tower was series fed from the
> begining.
>
> I'd only heard about the Tuckerton Wireless Station; I thought it was a
> Short Wave Rhombic.  One day I was driving around and figured I'd check
> out 'Radio Road'.  I drove by a huge concrete block, as big as a small
> house, right in the middle of the road, in what's now a residential
> neighborhood.  I passed it twice before I realized it was a guy anchor! The
> tower base concrete block *IS* as big as a house.
>
> Another of the anchors is right next to a house where THREE hams live,
> N2GUU, N2NFH and KA2PFL.  I don't know them, or if they know what that huge
> cement block is next to their house, I only saw the antennas and ham call
> license plates on a truck.  Guess I should have stopped and rang the bell,
> maybe next time!
>
> After I got back home I did research on the web and found my friend Tom's
> webpage about the Tuckerton Wireless Station.
>
> brew
>
> Bruce Schiller at CBS-TV NY Master Control Maintenance and WA2ZST
>
>