Thursday, April 24, 2008

What The Old KAAY Transmitter Looked Like

AJ, for those interested, here is a photo of a RCA-50F RCA-BTA-50F transmitter, the same model used at KAAY during the 60’s and 70’s. This transmitter was retired and replaced with a Harris transmitter in the 80’s.
KOMO Seattle – RCA-BTA-50F transmitter
(unknown source) The transmiter was so big you could walk inside several of the cabinets!

This door opens to allow access to the power supply control section. All doors were interlocked

To shut off power to prevent accidental shock.

At full power the power supply produced about 10,500 volts DC .

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To tie this back in with programming, this is the same transmitter that Clyde Clifford sat in front of when he was doing the Beaker Street programs! The background sound effects when Clyde was speaking was to help cover the fan noise coming from the tranmitter, only a few feet away from Clyde's microphone.
/Dave M/

Anonymous said...

Holy Smokes! What a dream transmitter for Ham radio operator! It'd just loaf along, since we're only allowed 1500 watts PEP, buy, hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

Some stations are letting old transmitters go just for someone to pick up and get out of their way...lots of AM afficianados on 80 and 160 meters rescue these transmitters and put them into service at their QTHs ( operating locations), refurb and retune them and use them at proper power levels for the service...and they sound GREAT! Bud, KC4HGH, Mobile, AL