Another Big Find for KWD

[The Reno Kid]

I collect vintage broadcast equipment and over the years, I have managed to put together most of the stuff (RCA, of course) to set up a small-town radio station from the 1940-50 period. A while back, I was able to acquire this:

RCA BTA-250L

Here's a photo from back in the day, showing what I am going for:

WMRN, Marion, Ohio circa 1941

At this point, I have most of the stuff you can see in the photo, with the exception of a couple of things in the rack to the right of the transmitter. My mixer, turntables, and transmitter are all actually early post-war. However, they are virtually identical to their pre-war counterparts, except for a few internal differences.

I will probably re-tune the transmitter for use in the 160-meter ham band. In an ideal world, I would like to set up a working vintage broadcast station/museum with strictly period programming. In the intermountain West, there is actually still room in the AM spectrum for a 250-watt local station. But this really isn't practical. In any event, the whole project will have to wait for a while as I'm currently living overseas.

Maybe I should have posted this in the "Our Own Vintage Town" thread...

 

[LizzieMaine]

I collect vintage broadcast equipment and over the years, I have managed to put together most of the stuff (RCA, of course) to set up a small-town radio station from the 1940-50 period. A while back, I was able to acquire this:
View attachment 9753 RCA BTA-250L

Here's a photo from back in the day, showing what I am going for:
View attachment 9750
WMRN, Marion, Ohio circa 1941

At this point, I have most of the stuff you can see in the photo, with the exception of a couple of things in the rack to the right of the transmitter. My mixer, turntables, and transmitter are all actually early post-war. However, they are virtually identical to their pre-war counterparts, except for a few internal differences.

I will probably re-tune the transmitter for use in the 160-meter ham band. In an ideal world, I would like to set up a working vintage broadcast station/museum with strictly period programming. In the intermountain West, there is actually still room in the AM spectrum for a 250-watt local station. But this really isn't practical. In any event, the whole project will have to wait for a while as I'm currently living overseas.

Maybe I should have posted this in the "Our Own Vintage Town" thread...

That brings back some real memories. The first radio station I worked at used that exact transmittter -- until one of the big vitreous resistors shorted and burned up. The kid who was working the night shift threw a cup of Coke in the back to try and "put out the fire", so you can imagine the results.

Our chief engineer got in touch with RCA and thru them got hold of one of the engineers who had originally designed the transmitter, and was able to rebuild the damaged sections, and it continued to work for many years until the station went off the air. I have no idea where it ended up after that. By any chance is your unit tuned to 1230kc?

 

[The Reno Kid]

Actually, I believe it is on 1230kc right now. You gotta love an era where even fairly mundane industrial equipment is designed not just to last forever (my station equipment still works, unrestored), but to look like someone cared about how it looked. Those turntables are massive but they are beautiful examples of industrial design. I saw a photo a couple of days ago of an air compressor from the '30s with a cylinder housing that looked like an Art Deco sculpture. Outstanding!

 

[LizzieMaine]

That sure looks like our transmitter, except for those rust patches down at the bottom. The station went off the air in 1986, amidst a certain sort of financial confusion -- the station owner skipped town, and when we jimmied open his office door his desk was piled high with unpaid bills. And he'd never paid any of our Social Security payments either -- my SS income record for 1985 shows zero, even though I worked full time for him that entire year. So I suspect the transmitter and all the rest of the equipment got liquidated very fast.

In addition to the BTL-250A there was also an RCA board of similar vintage -- I think it was a 76-C, but I can't remember for sure -- and a couple of Gray Laboratories turntable units. Most all of those turntables were indestructible, and usually the only thing they need to get them into working order today is the replacement of the rubber dampers, which have almost always turned to goo.

I'd like to have my hands on all that stuff now, but at the time I had a fight going just to get the six weeks pay I was owed when the station shut down...

 

[The Reno Kid]

As it happens, my board is a 76C. Probably not the same transmitter, though. This one did its time in a little station in Arizona. And the rubber dampers on my turntables are actually in fine shape. They need re-painting and new felt but otherwise, the turntables work.