Nearing 80 years old, still doing contract engineering. What others have posted, i agree with. For the present, keep the day job and those great benefits......try doing the bcst stuff on weekends. The downside of this life is the "on call 24/7/365" stuff that can make life miserable at times....espe...

Old age strikes again.......forgot to mention, you need a real clear path. If there are any trees in the way, you're gonna need to do your Paul Bunyon imitation.

Fossil

Hey Chuck: I just remembered something..... there is some gig-a-herz like STL, UNLICENSED, that you could set up? As I recall, the range is pretty decent, and I don't think the cost is real heavy. According to my contact, (who I just spoke to) , there is the unlicensed version for 2.4/5ghz available...

I seem to remember that a radio station in Tulsa had either the sign-off sponsored by Cain's Coffee, or maybe the silence afterwards. Always got a chuckle out of it. This was in the dark ages of the 50's.

Fossil

Going out on a limb here.....but been there before. IIRC, back in the day, the 450mhz could be used as a TSL - transmiter - studio link to return metering info, etc. back to the studio, as well as an RPU. I can't remember if it could be used/licensed as an STL for permanent situations. Deep Thought ...

TV? We used to refer to those TV sales guys as "purveyors of "mirrors and voodoo". Radio used "real - hot air".

Yeah, I recall that VP cooling was used in the UHF TV rigs. I don't recall ever saw one in operation.......maybe in the final test area however.

Fossil

"Water vapor cooling" is a super simple system and very elegant. Harris built several xmttrs using this technique calling it "VAPOR PHASE COOLING". Only problem was that due to the dislike of water cooling, the US engineers instantly disliked it. This thinking was based on bad experiences in the pas...

During my "draft dodging days" in the USAF, we referred to that "gentle touch" as " brogan maintenance". Long before those days, while working in radio and TV, I used the "give it a whack alongside the head" technique frequently. It still is a very effective troubleshooting technique I continue to u...

Bad news today....KMSU TV Springfield, MO. lost an 1,891 ft twr today. Twr crew on twr at about 105 ft level when it went down Fox News reporting one dead several injured with non life threatening injuries. Report states they were working on tower.

Fossil

It's "day juh view all over again"!!!! Our FM-3.5K just blew a solid state relay on the plate ckt. This rig is a later version with a mechanical contactor. We got hit two days ago with a weird power surge that somehow affected the plate current metering circuit. While two other guys were working on ...

Well done. That one goes in the notes for the one I work on.

Fossil

Ahhhh, yessss-------I remember the NAB. Sore back, sore feet, hardly a chance to get lunch. 16 hour days. Actually, it was a bit of fun in spite of the pain.

Fossil

This is a real big SWAG!

Take a board, a real dry one, and lift the HV filter choke completely off ground to see if it will stay on. Totally insulate it from ground. It could also be something breaking din in the plate xfmr. But definitely do the filter choke test first.

Fossil

Don't recall if I ever posted this before..... Installed a Harris HT-5 waaay back in the early 90's. First factory new tube lasted well over 38,000 hours. Second tube - a rebuilt - lasted a year, third lasted back up in over 25,000 hours. Recent years, life has been pretty good with rebuilts. Lately...

Yuppers, that's the one. They transferred the manufacturing process to another state, but somehow there was some slight of hand technique - unwritten - of course, that didn't get to the light of day and xmttrs were blowing up all over the country. Some lasted a whole 8-12 hours after tube change, so...