6 ms·

Vintage radio broadcasting equipment

89 points by _teyd 5y ago

j4yav 5y ago
My father was a radio DJ and so I grew up after school in local radio stations during the 80s and 90s. I hope someone else gets a kick out of seeing this old radio broadcasting equipment.
- technothrasher 5y ago
  I definitely get a kick out of seeing it, very nostalgic. I had a few shows on my college radio station (88.5 WRUR in Rochester, NY) back in the early 90's, including the 9am news slot on Friday mornings and a brutal 3-6am slot on Wednesday mornings where I did whatever the heck I wanted (nobody was listening at that hour anyway).
  - j4yav 5y ago
    I love the old consoles in particular.. the ones at https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/ba.htm https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/ba.htm are just beautiful.
  - antihero 5y ago
    I remember DJing a drum & bass hour...at 9AM on a Monday morning on my uni radio station. I don't think I had many listeners.
    - anthk 5y ago
      Today if you head to SDF or some tildes you can DJ online to a streaming server, among other geeky stuff inside (those are public Unix machines to learn and share). SDF has Anonradio: https://anonradio.net/ https://anonradio.net/
  - zevra 5y ago
    I'm currently at WRUR. It is not the same as it was in the 90s but we're still here. If you have any cool stories I'd love to hear them. They are a little more strict these days.
    - technothrasher 5y ago
      I was back on campus about two years ago and the studio was almost unrecognizable, although the rest of Todd Union looked about the same! Yeah, we weren't very strict back in those days. You just had to do so many hours in the AM booth and then you were given access to the FM studio. So you just did your AM time by playing album sides while you did your homework; nobody was listening to AM anyway. Not too many exciting stories. I got the opportunity to sub for somebody in the 5pm Friday slot one week. I had no idea what the slot was, but I just went in and did my 3am show. The phone lines quickly lit up with people saying, "What the hell is this Sh#!? You're complete crap. Where's the Jazz hour?" Lol. On the other end of the spectrum, one of the UR bus drivers recognized my voice and told me he loved my 9am news slot and always tuned in. I always did the top stories off the AP feed and then finished with some weird off-the-wall story, before turning it over to my buddy to do the sports.
jmacd 5y ago
In the late 90s, while in high school, I built an FM transmitter and with a few friends ran a weekend pirate ration station. (AMF - Anonymous Mother ....) The kit was sold by a company called Ramsay Electronics. It was 1 watt and with the right antenna (which was quite visible on the roof of my friend's house. They lived right at the top of a hill) it did a good job of covering our small town. There was a brief time when we would get word of several house parties all tuning in when we started to play more dance music late at night. There would be requests from people all through the week at school to play this or that, or call a certain number because someone wanted to say something. This time also coincided with the very first MP3s and I was a "Vice President" of an irc "courier" group, so we could get all the latest stuff! It only lasted one school year and my friends loved the notoriety, but I used to just sit there and day dream about the audio passing through the low and high pass filters that I had been constantly tweaking, and then being modulated and then re amplified before being pushed out. I still get an excited sensation just thinking about it.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  We had a baby monitor that apparently broadcasted on AM, a cassette player, and a lot of shouting and we weren't afraid to use it :p. I'm not sure it even worked outside the confines of our own house.
- myself248 5y ago
  > excited ... Peak in-joke, right there.
- resters 5y ago
  great story! I believe 1 watt may actually be legal, so it was not actually pirate radio from an FCC perspective, only an RIAA perspective.
  - alamortsubite 5y ago
    The output of the original Ramsey kits was about 25 mW, which was FCC-compliant. The one watt kits used a MRF557 transistor (rated for up to 1.5 watts) and were definitely illegal to operate in the U.S. without a license. They were sold in the U.S. as "export" models for overseas use only. I may be wrong, but I think this eventually got them in hot water with the FCC and led to them discontinuing the kits.
mikewarot 5y ago
A friend of mine bought the transmitter from an AM radio station that went out of business to use as a ham radio transmitter... how they managed to shove it into his basement is beyond me. He ran it on its low power setting, and everyone loved the quality of his audio.
- MrRadar 5y ago
  Mr. Carlson has one of those, and had a video demonstrating it: https://youtu.be/ZzpVhCL5aPg https://youtu.be/ZzpVhCL5aPg
- 8bitsrule 5y ago
  One night I tuned into the most beautiful-sounding AM signal I ever heard in a two-ham QSO (on 80 or 40?). One of the guys was a gear-fanatic using pro gear and a top-grade mike. I'd never heard such AM voice quality. The other guy had a much newer, commercial ham rig, and the difference was so obvious.
marcodiego 5y ago
Spark gap transmitter were (one of?) the first form of radio broadcasting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter . Since it is not very selective - its signal spreads through the whole spectrum - its use is forbidden today; think a single radio station which transmitter over all frequencies, like you can turn the dial and it will always interfere and you can't get rid of it. Because tuning was a known "phenomenon" and having the possibility of using the radio spectrum for multiple transmission was desirable, efforts began to make transmissions more selective so they wouldn't pollute the whole radio spectrum. Radio pioneers didn't have anything close to modern small, powerful, solid state, very close to sine oscillators at the time. They had to use what was available so they could modulate their transmission. In a simplified model, a radio transmission be thought of as an antenna whose electric potential varies with the sine of time at, for AM broadcasts, the order for hundred of kilohertz. This oscillation is then "multiplied" by the signal one want to transmit. Better results occur when the "transmitted signal" (think about it as something close to a payload) has a much lower frequency than the "carrier": the frequency at which the potential of the antenna would oscillate to transmit a constant value. Now, early broadcast really worked around the technology available at the time. To oscillate the electric potential of the antenna, they resorted to eletromechanical methods. Very interesting solutions were developed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter#Rotary_gap_transmitters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter#Rotary_g...
- seiferteric 5y ago
  I actually made a spark gap "receiver" when I was a kid following some plans I found. I used a rubber tube with a metal rod in one end, then filled partially with iron filings I made from filing a pipe, then stuck another metal rod to plug the other end of the tube slightly compressing the filings. I then placed a LED, resistor and battery in series with the device. If the LED turns on, flick the device until it is off. Then place next to my gas stove and click the gas spark igniter. If all goes well, the spark will iron align some of the iron filings to create a conductive path and the LED will turn on. Flick again to turn off.
- st_goliath 5y ago
  > Spark gap transmitter were (one of?) the first form of radio broadcasting AFAIK this is also the reason the German language uses the word funken for transmitting wireless broadcasts, derived from Funke (spark). And of course the corresponding noun Funk, often embedded in typical, lengthy noun constructs. The German company Telefunken also has a couple mentions in the Wikipedia article you linked to, as one of the early manufacturer of commercial radio equipment.
tyingq 5y ago
Signal generators (common test equipment) can also be used as broadcasters. I recall doing this a long time ago with an old HP 8640B. It has both AM and FM modulation. Not much output power, but the output power is adjustable so that you can experiment without creating issues for anyone else.
- bdavis__ 5y ago
  HP 8640B puts out a clean and precise waveform. wonderful piece of test equipment from the world of RF. put a short wire on the output, and tune it to 146.34 (for a second). bang, the local repeater will kerchunk.
IndySun 5y ago
Of similar interest... http://oldradios.com/radios/index.htm http://oldradios.com/radios/index.htm Not quite abandoned but not recently updated.
imroot 5y ago
The first job I ever had was at a Radio station, where we were transitioning away from Harris 90 automation to an AudioVault/BEI controlled automation. The only reason I got the job is because I could figure out how to use the interface: the other two kids from high school who went with me couldn't manage to record audio from the interview. I remember so many late nights running football, basketball, and other games during the summer...only to turn around and do an afternoon game the next day, then my usual 4-midnight station rotation, all while making around $5/hour.
h2odragon 5y ago
great resource. random click led me to this 150kw vacuum tube: https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/WE320A.htm https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/WE320A.htm
WalterBright 5y ago
Caltech had a pirate station when I was there, naturally dubbed "KCAL". The equipment was all custom designed and built by the local EEs. What I remember most about it was the lovingly machined panels made for it. It was a beauty. I wonder whatever happened to it.
BigTuna 5y ago
I'm currently working on getting a retired Broadcast Electronics 2100C cart machine from my old college radio station and as I expected the parts appear to be very hard to come by. If anyone has a suggestion/lead I'd be grateful.
aidenn0 5y ago
HF ham amplifiers seem to still be tube based; not sure if transistor amplifiers are just more expensive at 60dBm...
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
  Many newer HF ham amps are not tube based, especially kits

89 points by _teyd 5y ago

My father was a radio DJ and so I grew up after school in local radio stations during the 80s and 90s. I hope someone else gets a kick out of seeing this old radio broadcasting equipment.

technothrasher 5y ago
I definitely get a kick out of seeing it, very nostalgic. I had a few shows on my college radio station (88.5 WRUR in Rochester, NY) back in the early 90's, including the 9am news slot on Friday mornings and a brutal 3-6am slot on Wednesday mornings where I did whatever the heck I wanted (nobody was listening at that hour anyway).
- j4yav 5y ago
  I love the old consoles in particular.. the ones at https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/ba.htm https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/ba.htm are just beautiful.
- antihero 5y ago
  I remember DJing a drum & bass hour...at 9AM on a Monday morning on my uni radio station. I don't think I had many listeners.
  - anthk 5y ago
    Today if you head to SDF or some tildes you can DJ online to a streaming server, among other geeky stuff inside (those are public Unix machines to learn and share). SDF has Anonradio: https://anonradio.net/ https://anonradio.net/
- zevra 5y ago
  I'm currently at WRUR. It is not the same as it was in the 90s but we're still here. If you have any cool stories I'd love to hear them. They are a little more strict these days.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    I was back on campus about two years ago and the studio was almost unrecognizable, although the rest of Todd Union looked about the same! Yeah, we weren't very strict back in those days. You just had to do so many hours in the AM booth and then you were given access to the FM studio. So you just did your AM time by playing album sides while you did your homework; nobody was listening to AM anyway. Not too many exciting stories. I got the opportunity to sub for somebody in the 5pm Friday slot one week. I had no idea what the slot was, but I just went in and did my 3am show. The phone lines quickly lit up with people saying, "What the hell is this Sh#!? You're complete crap. Where's the Jazz hour?" Lol. On the other end of the spectrum, one of the UR bus drivers recognized my voice and told me he loved my 9am news slot and always tuned in. I always did the top stories off the AP feed and then finished with some weird off-the-wall story, before turning it over to my buddy to do the sports.

jmacd 5y ago

In the late 90s, while in high school, I built an FM transmitter and with a few friends ran a weekend pirate ration station. (AMF - Anonymous Mother ....) The kit was sold by a company called Ramsay Electronics. It was 1 watt and with the right antenna (which was quite visible on the roof of my friend's house. They lived right at the top of a hill) it did a good job of covering our small town. There was a brief time when we would get word of several house parties all tuning in when we started to play more dance music late at night. There would be requests from people all through the week at school to play this or that, or call a certain number because someone wanted to say something. This time also coincided with the very first MP3s and I was a "Vice President" of an irc "courier" group, so we could get all the latest stuff! It only lasted one school year and my friends loved the notoriety, but I used to just sit there and day dream about the audio passing through the low and high pass filters that I had been constantly tweaking, and then being modulated and then re amplified before being pushed out. I still get an excited sensation just thinking about it.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
We had a baby monitor that apparently broadcasted on AM, a cassette player, and a lot of shouting and we weren't afraid to use it :p. I'm not sure it even worked outside the confines of our own house.
myself248 5y ago
> excited ... Peak in-joke, right there.
resters 5y ago
great story! I believe 1 watt may actually be legal, so it was not actually pirate radio from an FCC perspective, only an RIAA perspective.
- alamortsubite 5y ago
  The output of the original Ramsey kits was about 25 mW, which was FCC-compliant. The one watt kits used a MRF557 transistor (rated for up to 1.5 watts) and were definitely illegal to operate in the U.S. without a license. They were sold in the U.S. as "export" models for overseas use only. I may be wrong, but I think this eventually got them in hot water with the FCC and led to them discontinuing the kits.

mikewarot 5y ago

A friend of mine bought the transmitter from an AM radio station that went out of business to use as a ham radio transmitter... how they managed to shove it into his basement is beyond me. He ran it on its low power setting, and everyone loved the quality of his audio.

MrRadar 5y ago
Mr. Carlson has one of those, and had a video demonstrating it: https://youtu.be/ZzpVhCL5aPg https://youtu.be/ZzpVhCL5aPg
8bitsrule 5y ago
One night I tuned into the most beautiful-sounding AM signal I ever heard in a two-ham QSO (on 80 or 40?). One of the guys was a gear-fanatic using pro gear and a top-grade mike. I'd never heard such AM voice quality. The other guy had a much newer, commercial ham rig, and the difference was so obvious.

marcodiego 5y ago

Spark gap transmitter were (one of?) the first form of radio broadcasting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter . Since it is not very selective - its signal spreads through the whole spectrum - its use is forbidden today; think a single radio station which transmitter over all frequencies, like you can turn the dial and it will always interfere and you can't get rid of it. Because tuning was a known "phenomenon" and having the possibility of using the radio spectrum for multiple transmission was desirable, efforts began to make transmissions more selective so they wouldn't pollute the whole radio spectrum. Radio pioneers didn't have anything close to modern small, powerful, solid state, very close to sine oscillators at the time. They had to use what was available so they could modulate their transmission. In a simplified model, a radio transmission be thought of as an antenna whose electric potential varies with the sine of time at, for AM broadcasts, the order for hundred of kilohertz. This oscillation is then "multiplied" by the signal one want to transmit. Better results occur when the "transmitted signal" (think about it as something close to a payload) has a much lower frequency than the "carrier": the frequency at which the potential of the antenna would oscillate to transmit a constant value. Now, early broadcast really worked around the technology available at the time. To oscillate the electric potential of the antenna, they resorted to eletromechanical methods. Very interesting solutions were developed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter#Rotary_gap_transmitters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter#Rotary_g...

seiferteric 5y ago
I actually made a spark gap "receiver" when I was a kid following some plans I found. I used a rubber tube with a metal rod in one end, then filled partially with iron filings I made from filing a pipe, then stuck another metal rod to plug the other end of the tube slightly compressing the filings. I then placed a LED, resistor and battery in series with the device. If the LED turns on, flick the device until it is off. Then place next to my gas stove and click the gas spark igniter. If all goes well, the spark will iron align some of the iron filings to create a conductive path and the LED will turn on. Flick again to turn off.
st_goliath 5y ago
> Spark gap transmitter were (one of?) the first form of radio broadcasting AFAIK this is also the reason the German language uses the word funken for transmitting wireless broadcasts, derived from Funke (spark). And of course the corresponding noun Funk, often embedded in typical, lengthy noun constructs. The German company Telefunken also has a couple mentions in the Wikipedia article you linked to, as one of the early manufacturer of commercial radio equipment.

tyingq 5y ago

Signal generators (common test equipment) can also be used as broadcasters. I recall doing this a long time ago with an old HP 8640B. It has both AM and FM modulation. Not much output power, but the output power is adjustable so that you can experiment without creating issues for anyone else.

bdavis__ 5y ago
HP 8640B puts out a clean and precise waveform. wonderful piece of test equipment from the world of RF. put a short wire on the output, and tune it to 146.34 (for a second). bang, the local repeater will kerchunk.

IndySun 5y ago

Of similar interest... http://oldradios.com/radios/index.htm http://oldradios.com/radios/index.htm Not quite abandoned but not recently updated.

imroot 5y ago

The first job I ever had was at a Radio station, where we were transitioning away from Harris 90 automation to an AudioVault/BEI controlled automation. The only reason I got the job is because I could figure out how to use the interface: the other two kids from high school who went with me couldn't manage to record audio from the interview. I remember so many late nights running football, basketball, and other games during the summer...only to turn around and do an afternoon game the next day, then my usual 4-midnight station rotation, all while making around $5/hour.

h2odragon 5y ago

great resource. random click led me to this 150kw vacuum tube: https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/WE320A.htm https://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/WE320A.htm

WalterBright 5y ago

Caltech had a pirate station when I was there, naturally dubbed "KCAL". The equipment was all custom designed and built by the local EEs. What I remember most about it was the lovingly machined panels made for it. It was a beauty. I wonder whatever happened to it.

BigTuna 5y ago

I'm currently working on getting a retired Broadcast Electronics 2100C cart machine from my old college radio station and as I expected the parts appear to be very hard to come by. If anyone has a suggestion/lead I'd be grateful.

aidenn0 5y ago

HF ham amplifiers seem to still be tube based; not sure if transistor amplifiers are just more expensive at 60dBm...

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
Many newer HF ham amps are not tube based, especially kits