May I borrow a machete?
Category: radio
Deep thoughts
Why do we call it plate voltage and not bowl voltage? The plate (anode) of the tube is that radiator-equipped bowl over the top. It’s not a flat plate by any stretch of the imagination.
Plus, saying “bowl on” is more satisfying than “plate on”.
BRAWNDO! It’s got electrolytes!!
Unknown energy drink spilled in very unobtainable telephone hybrid control surface.
The small is like that of old Jolly Ranchers and BRIMSTONE.
Welcome to Monday Night Rehabilitation. Chances of this thing’s survival are probably about 60%. Chances of the survival of whoever spilled their drink down this and said nothing about it until it hardened into foul lacquer—-???
Clearing out the “shitposts” folder
I apparently had a folder of images prepared for technical grade shitposting that were going unused so it’s time for a SHITPOSTING FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS
This shitposting festival made possible by the PTek corporation.
In theory maybe this just means the top cover was put on backwards but I don’t want to open the top cover. Why? I don’t want to know what’s inside this unit because this is what was inside the older FM-500 series and it makes me a sad panda. (Spooling up turbocharger for powerful shitposting of… shit!)
Here’s the PTek FM500 series pallet overall. Not visible, or even particularly accessible, above the top of this photo, is the control logic board buried between the heatsink and the housing. Input (and output) are the tiny white cables to the right. Input’s at the top. It first goes through a buffer/driver stage, a Wilkinson 2-port power divider, through the finals, through some very unusual stripline transformers, then to a Wilkinson 2-port combiner ending with the start of the output lowpass filter, a fourth-order pi network apparatus. Seems legit, but look at those RF FET modules.
Post continues to be image-heavy so I’m going to place a break here to avoid excessive page length
* KG4CYX slaps you around a bit with a large trout!
Q. How do you mount a very expensive FM broadcast low pass filter?
A. Not like this.
Baling wire. Yeeeeeup.
This site is an interesting one. The filter is buried behind this giant failtube that I’ve been authorized to delete. It goes nowhere.
Looking up inside the noggin bonker.
It’s blocked off, if it wasn’t it’d vent via this weird open soffit. Considering the number of wasp nests I’ve seen out here in warmer months, I’m glad it doesn’t.
Coming soon to this site: a brand new PTek…..
No, this was not my choice.
………. I’m gonna need a bigger trout
Linguini Mountain, Part II
This post is to be assumed to be to the tune of She Wants Revenge – Out of Control. available on YouTube here. So I was up here again and was asked to check the generator and fuel level. Fuel was fine, generator started, amazingly, with only minor reluctance, and immediately filled the shack with exhaust, so I left the vent fan on and walked away for a while, came back, ran in holding my breath, shut it down, and left for a while more. It urinated on the floor… 
Sure looks like one of the CrapsackWorld props from Idiocracy, doesn’t it? But then I heard a buzzing that didn’t sound right after the generator was shut down and traced it to a pair of relays oscillating. I unplugged the power supply to them and a nice fireworks show of good ol’ arcy sparky happened for a moment, ending with a power strip breaker tripping. Beautiful. 
I then got to work…… 
None of this was functional anymore. Especially not after the fireworks show…. Now I’ve just gotta rewire the remote to one of the transmitters to eliminate a final layer of relay bodge and I can start over with better control. 
How do I come to inherit these things??!! Sadly, off air time may be required. What a thing to greet my operations manager with when he returns from vacation! “Welcome back, I need to nuke your stations!” Actually he’s a really awesome guy and he won’t be mad at all. 
Salty Ham post.
I’m a little salty, or perhaps just bitter, or both, that the South Florida Hamboree seems to have disappeared again.
A few years back I got it restarted after a long time missing in action, and it was going very nicely. Last year was its first time taking place in a neat venue in Fort Lauderdale, since the Miami-Dade Fair Expo Center would much rather host a far higher paying gun show every other freaking weekend.
But it’s almost December and I saw not a peep from them other than that someone within the club was whining about a financial loss that happened back in two-thousand-and-smegging-three. I guess everyone there would rather just sit around and whine than hold a useful event.
No announcement of a show this coming year, and since the date would have been in late January, it just isn’t happening. The website isn’t even loading anymore.
It may be strange I’m this disappointed considering I now live on the other side of the country but damn it I didn’t put my passion into this to have it just laid to waste again.
Image not related at all: ShitpostBot 5000 template transmitter-594c4f02e4685 in action. One guess as to who created this useless template 😉
Over the hill
From today’s adventures… 
Now that’s PA efficiency!
My theory as to what’s happening when a Crown Broadcast transmitter reports a VSWR below 1.0* is that it’s managed to oscillate in such a way that a wormhole has opened up around the antenna system that’s actually sucking the radio waves right out of the system and porting them into another dimension, where listeners are happily enjoying the mysterious signals.
Be sure to inform your sales department that potential sponsors can be heard in alternate dimensions!
.dronF
deep thoughts
I’ll always take “Sorry, we just don’t want to spend the money” over “Sorry, we won’t spend the money…. But here, enjoy this rococo piece of rushed to market garbage we bought sight unseen at the NAB show after the vendor bought us a fancy lunch and we’re expecting you to deploy in the facility.”
Random stolen transmitter meme related? I forget who I lifted it from but it’s so true
