[Milsurplus] Alexanderson Transmission on Christmas Eve

[C.Whitaker]

de WB2CPN
I thought my friend from my USAF days worked at Marion, so I asked
him about that.  Here is his reply.  (An Alexanderson Alternator may well
be the largest piece of milsurplus to be on this net.
Relayed from George McCombs, who like me is in the 80+ old geezer crowd.
.
Yes, I was stationed at Marion, Mass. And worked on the VLF transmitter. 
It was known as an Alexanderson Alternator. We transmitted a 25.82KC's. 
The antenna was strung along what they called triatics using if I 
remember correctly, six 400 ft. masts. There was aground screen 
consisting of copper wire (about 1/4 inch dia.) laid out in a one sq. ft 
grid that covered probably close to a square mile. I'm sure that copper 
is all gone now, but I sure would like to have it. We had two 
alternators that ran two weeks on and two weeks off. When we took them 
down we changed the oil in them (two barrels). We had a nice swimming 
pool sized tank that pumped water thru them and the return sprayed over 
the pool to cool it before being pumped back thru the alternator. We 
parked our cars under the antenna and you never grabbed the door handle 
with your bare hand if we were operating. If it was raining and even if 
you grabbed the handle with your hat (the standard insulator used by 
all), you still got a very noticeable jolt. There was only one tube, a 
big glass rectifier used in the system to power some of the control 
relays. There were two liquid rheostats used to control the speed of the 
alternator. One rheostat was adjusted to control the speed with the in a 
no load condition and the other in a keyed configuration. We sent an ICW 
signal to ships in the north Atlantic giving the latest wx. reports. We 
had a control panel for each alternator. There were switches behind the 
panel with only long handles protruding to the front of the panel. This 
was a safety factor in case a switch would blow up. The switch handles 
were a couple of feet long and you grabbed them with both hands and 
slammed them into the closed position as rapidly as possible to prevent 
arcing. The whole thing was built by RCA in 1918 and I believe it was 
purchased by the govt. During WW2.We put out 200,000 watts. My AFSC at 
that time was 30450, ground radio maintenance (light)

. 73  Clete
P.S. Trivia.  In the middle 50's it was copied by cargo
ships near the north coast of Alaska.  They were waiting
for the ice to break so they could off-load material for
building the DEW Line.
++++++++++++++++++++++++



On 12/28/2011 10:25 PM, Laura and Jim wrote:
> I have heard that the world record for reception is New Jersey.
> I'm in Northern CA. Should I bother, or do I need a Beverage and a Cray running DSP to pick it up?
> (Hmmm. A beverage sounds good right now, hihi. A have several cold 807's in the fridge)
>
> 73 DE JIM K6FWT
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