Folks, when I visited the transmitter in April 2012 with David B. Treadway and Jerry Sims, we could have carted away a truckload of stuff in the junk pile, if we knew we wouldn't get in trouble. Good friend of this blog Doug Virden visited the transmitter site back in 2017 and grabbed a couple of items and shipped them to me. At the time I received them, there was a lot going on in my life, so I didn't get to mention them and they went into storage. Here's what Doug said in his e-mail to me:
"Let's not forget the reason I was able to visit the KAAY transmitter building, the reason being was to pick up a remnant from the old RCA transmitter for Bud. I ended up taking a meter and some tubes which I sent Bud a few weeks ago. I got to take me home a meter and some tubes too (see pictures below). I will let Bud do the honors of posting what he received, here are pics of mine."
I need to be ashamed of myself...and they got here safe and sound. Here are Doug's:
These pictures are of part of a pre-driver power deck (the tubes) and modulation meter (percent of modulation) that Doug has.
The pictures below are the articles Doug sent me, a kilovolt meter and more driver tubes:
These tubes are sitting on a little different deck than Doug's tubes...
The tubes in my picture are "813" tubes, and are high-wattage tubes many of us Amateur Radio operators "(Hams") use in our high-wattage amplifiers. Our amplifiers for our service are limited to 1,500 watts of power, so I think these had to have been driving the much larger tubes for full 50,000 watts potput.
The kilovolt meter is just that: it measures how many thousand volts are flowing to a particular part of the system. It's no wonder safety switches abound in high-power transmitters, if you touch something in error, you're history!
Thanks, Doug, for sending these to me! I apologize for taking so long in getting them posted...
Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)
The Almighty has poured out a lot of good things to this nation and KAAY was one of the good things that most of us probably took for granted. I appreciate the many hours of entertainment and humor broadcast across the United States. I thank God and the many people who worked here to bring KAAY to us over the years. randaltucker@gmail.com
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