The fellow is a great example of a broadcast engineer... has difficulty explaining things, but clearly knows exactly what is going on.

50kw from such a small transmitter. I remember the hughe 50kw broadcast AM transmitters with huge final tubes. My Dad used to be a radio engineer at WABC and then WHN in NYC.

The DX-50 is an amazingly reliable transmitter. I once had to 'shotgun' all the blue capacitors Mike was showing us that filter the power modules when I noticed some of them bloating. Another mod we had to do on the DX-50 was very simple: we swapped the red & green LEDs for the local/remote switch. Normally the transmitter is in "remote" mode, but the LED was red as the Harris default. Once we didn't catch that it was in "local" with a green LED and went back to Hollywood. Naturally, there was a power failure that afternoon, and we couldn't turn the transmitter back on remotely, so had to spend 2 hours driving back to the site just to turn the transmitter back on. So we reversed the LEDs, and before leaving, we installed a big red light at the front door that would go on if we left the building with either transmitter in "local" mode. That saved us a lot of trouble over the years because a single red LED really stands out on a panel of all normally green ones.

Nice to see a Belar modulation monitor continuing to serve. I first encountered one in 1969, at KQV (1410, 5 Kw DA-2 five towers) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Classy transmitter site-nothing like all that silver-plated coils and copper tubing to drive corporate accounting crazy. “Wait, you need HOW MUCH silver out there? Can’t you just use aluminum wire?” With the building elevated like that in the near field of the antennas, there’s nothing resembling “ground” inside. Thanks for what is (for all of us burned out AM station engineers) a wonderful nostalgic interlude.

I tested the alternate transmitter by running it on the emergency generator. For redundancy each transmitter (and the building) each had their own power transfer switch. Ron W4BIN

The Nautel ransmitters are incredible. I had the previous version which was twice the size of yours. It just sat there and worked silently. Only failure I remember was when one of the big diodes in the AC input shorted. I think the thing cost over $150 by itself. Quite different from the RCA 50KW Water Cooled Doherty I cut my teeth on in 1962. You could put 8 ot 10 of your transmitter inside that old girl. Sure sounded great, though.

We used to have an lw transmitter here in Ireland for s station called Atlantic 252 ,it used to also make the border fence shake because of its power 500 kw, there's a video here on youtube if you watch it youll a guy put a key in a padlock and it arcs

Hey there, your videos are really informative, regularly watching all your videos. am an engineer and we have NX200 for AM Transmission🙂

I always wanted to get into broadcasting but never had an avenue in so I went into the public safety radio side. A lot of the job is similar to keeping a station on the air, just the RF power levels, etc. are not the same. I love antenna systems and especially AM DAs. I even met and chatted with Jack Layton on the ham bands, one of the authorities on directional antennas.

✌ Hi. This was a very nice site tour. It has been a while that i have been on your channel. When you had to change out some components on a remote fill xmitr. I am fully retired from this business, but was stunned at how small the NX50 AM xmtr is. Compared to the old 50kw Continental 317C that I used to baby sit back in the day. Same power output, but very small foot print and I bet the station electric bill is cut more than half. lol No noisy blowers, No oil filled transformers, chokes and reactors, and crowbar tubes to change. LMAO Great video

Thank you Brother. That was really interesting.

Beautiful facility!

DX50, still a fabulous transmitter!

That's a awesome building

You see elevated enclosures like that all over the place for cell sites here in Thailand.

Flood plain , building on stilts , back up generator on the ground ( 1148 )

You should secure the tower with a fence, otherwise it's at risk of being stolen!

14:00 is when I started to get a headache lol

One afternoon at my last AM before going into TV, we heard gunfire at the transmitter site. Our CE, Maintenance Tech, and I started searching. Our CE found a teenager with a .22 and a scope taking pot shots at our tower lights. We (and a nearby competitor 60 kHz up the dial) had been having problems with lights being shot out until then. The kid's parents knew "somebody" and he didn't even get a slap on the wrist. The other problem with the site (63 acres) was teenagers "parking". Particularly on Friday & Saturday nights. One Friday night episode was hilarious! The 'Mitter Sitter, our Maintenance Tech and I watched two sets of headlights crest the hill by the site and go in different directions. Gary and I coordinated on the output of our two-meter repeater that was on Tower #2. (Ever see an isocoupler for 147 MHz?) Gary was rock-bound with his GE Progline and I was QRP on the repeater output, So, what Gary said went across parts of four states while I was probably not going more than a mile. But, Fitz at the transmitter could hear everything. It was quite hilarious! I chased one car while Gary went after the other. Finally, after it was all over with, the CE got on the repeater and asked what was going on. We told him that we "couldn't talk about it on the air" and we'd tell him on Monday. When we did, he laughed his ass off! My first AM had similar problems. But, being a daytimer there usually nobody there at night. My second AM was co-located with a "secure" AT&T Long Lines site. So, there was never a problem.

The fence is modulatin' the RF? That's wild!

Interessante, o mau contato elétrico do portão fez com que funcionasse como um diodo retificando a RF.

At 2:00 he states "if (you're) silence, it ramps up to 50Kw..." that is negative modulation. Wow, I didn't know modern AM transmitters did that.

Everything on the second floor for high water is cool, but the ATUs and the generator aren't gonna do you much good when the flood plain fulfills its destiny.

Yes a very nice site, and a very dedicated engineer there, who wants to be giving the best most reliable signal as possible, come what may. just wonder what will occur in a big flood when that switch room gets wet.

Interesting how he talks about the Harris DX-50 Transmitter while the Nautel is providing flawless performance and saving a pile of money on electric bills. The Nautel is FET output and sounds glorious as well. And the Nautel takes up far less space. 🙂

So interesting ~! SO modulation lowers the dead-key from 50K to 32K ish... and makes total sense - thus saving a lot of energy while "modulating"

5:34.... like isolinear chips!!! hahahaha

Nice tour. I have been in radio sense I was nine (ham radio and all). I would say a dream job would be to work at a powerhouse station like one of these, but in truth it would be more like the VLA of some other large radio telescope. Peace

Whatch out for those Phone Cops. They play hardball.

KLAA 830 kHz. Owned by the Los Angeles Angels baseball club.

Really fascinating. I wonder if the technician is also a ham radio operator?

The ATU fence isn't grounded well enough if it's arcing to the door latch on such a hot tower. That could easily burn you while unlocking the gate on a 50,000 watt tower (days).

I got a chance to tour WCCO 830 AM back in the 70s. It was about then I figured out to get that job, I'd have to wait until someone died.

If my cell tower poles are just going straight up how do I install the guys without the tower falling over

Nothing against chief engineers at all. I've known a number of them. They live in a world of their own

"Clear Channel" doesn't seem to mean what one would expect. WCCO in Minneapolis is the only station on 830 KHz listed as a clear channel station, but there are 8 other stations broadcasting nighttime on the frequency. KLAA is the most powerful of those, with a nighttime power of 20 KW.

How do radio stations know how many ppl are listening to them ...I hear it talked about..but it's over the air it's not like you can count how meny cables are connected like old TV channels...I've always wondered this

Why isn't the tuning shed elevated also?

2:05. So with no audio sideband power, the power meter reads higher?

So let me guess, KLAA is a sports station (I confirmed that), and I’m guessing it either once aired or is airing Angels games?

Also... did that man not learn? NEVER wear a red shirt!

What is the output power level after sunset ????

4:45 he states that environmental conditions can change the pattern. How do they know what the pattern is at any given moment?

Mod monitor looks a little wimpy...70% modulation???

This is not a healthy job!

I occasionally enjoy your content, but I do not enjoy you being featured so prominently in the video. I'm choosing to unfollow channels that seem to feature the author as the subject matter in favor of channels that focus more on the content I'm interested in. I have no desire to learn anything more about you personally.