The Godzilla of home raddios

[jr_tech]

And some great photographs of the transmitters and tubes here:

http://www.theradiohistorian.org/wlw...wgallery2.html

jr

[vortalexfan]

I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with this or not, but there was a Ken Burns documentary at one point in time that talked about some of the old 500,000 watt stations in the US and in Mexico where the signal was able to be heard on electric fences and what not, I think it was the documentary about the early history of country music in America.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with this or not, but there was a Ken Burns documentary at one point in time that talked about some of the old 500,000 watt stations in the US and in Mexico where the signal was able to be heard on electric fences and what not, I think it was the documentary about the early history of country music in America.

Are you saying there were other 500-kW flamethrowers in this country (and elsewhere in the 1930s) besides WLW? My goodness, I would have thought one such station would have been enough, given the interference WLW's transmitter and towers caused in the Cincinnati area, let alone much of the rest of this country and the world.

BTW, the idea of being able to hear a radio station over, of all things, an electric fence, the burners of an electric stove, etc. seems almost incredible; this would make an excellent story line for a science-fiction book. I personally cannot see, for example, how it would be possible to hear radio signals over electric stoves' burner coils, as these are simply round spiral steel coils, with no visible means to detect an AM radio signal (let alone reproduce the audio from one). How on earth would it have been possible to hear these signals, anyway, without some way to reproduce the sound? I can understand how things such as tooth fillings could detect and reproduce AM radio signals, but good grief, I cannot see how even a 500-kW signal can be heard over a wire stove burner coil or an electric fence; after all, neither of these would have any way whatsoever of reproducing sound, even if they somehow managed to detect the radio signal.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

good grief, I cannot see how even a 500-kW signal can be heard over a wire stove burner coil or an electric fence; after all, neither of these would have any way whatsoever of reproducing sound, even if they somehow managed to detect the radio signal.

There'd have to be some degree of 'diode' action occurring to provide enough rectification of the signal. The 'demodulated' audio would then magnetically vibrate the metal stuff.

(Edit) A good example of fortuitous rectification is seen in a foxhole radio. Several vids on UTube.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Are you saying there were other 500-kW flamethrowers in this country (and elsewhere in the 1930s) besides WLW? My goodness, I would have thought one such station would have been enough, given the interference WLW's transmitter and towers caused in the Cincinnati area, let alone much of the rest of this country and the world.

BTW, the idea of being able to hear a radio station over, of all things, an electric fence, the burners of an electric stove, etc. seems almost incredible; this would make an excellent story line for a science-fiction book. I personally cannot see, for example, how it would be possible to hear radio signals over electric stoves' burner coils, as these are simply round spiral steel coils, with no visible means to detect an AM radio signal (let alone reproduce the audio from one). How on earth would it have been possible to hear these signals, anyway, without some way to reproduce the sound? I can understand how things such as tooth fillings could detect and reproduce AM radio signals, but good grief, I cannot see how even a 500-kW signal can be heard over a wire stove burner coil or an electric fence; after all, neither of these would have any way whatsoever of reproducing sound, even if they somehow managed to detect the radio signal.

The interesting thing is that in Mexico they still have 500kW stations active to this day, and that's because Mexico's version of our FCC didn't clamp down on the maximum broadcasting power of its radio stations like we did here in the U. S. of A. and so because of that in Mexico they still have the ability to license out new 500 kW stations.