[BC] Broadcasting as a way of life

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Reflections
Harold Thomas was the owner of Connecticut's 
oldest continuously owned radio station, WATR, 
and WATR-TV, which was assembled as a work of 
love from donated, resurrected, and otherwise 
obtained pieces of junk thrown away by other 
stations and carefully reconstructed by Harold 
and his Chief Engineer. Everything worked. 
However, it was a hodge-podge of RCA, Dumont, 
General Electric, and even Sylvania equipment, 
which probably should have been set up in a museum a decade prior.

WATR-TV used a "colorized" General Electric TV 
transmitter feeding an experimental Townsend 
Associates power amplifier. It was an engineer's 
delight, or nightmare, depending upon whether or 
not it was working. Then Harold's Chief Engineer, 
another Navy Man who had obtained a First Class 
Radio Telegraph License before he was out of 
short-pants, got sick and wanted to retire. 
Harold interviewed prospective replacements.

I showed up for an interview in my work pants and 
an old sweater. I was instantly hired as a "my 
kind of engineer." The love affair with the old 
equipment and this family man, who had taken me 
into his fold started. I learned how to baby sit 
the old equipment, to adjust the Iconoscope 
camera on the film island, and how to tune the 
transmitter for best bandwidth, minimum body 
current, and the correct "black power." It was a 
learning experience that some do not get in a lifetime.

So that the transmitter could be shut down on 
cold winter nights, its heat exchanger had a 
circulator pump, which would circulate de-ionized 
water from a conventional water heater into the 
cooling loop if the water got too cold. Of 
course, the fans within the heat exchanger were 
shut down as well, so the water should always 
remain above freezing temperature even though the 
heat exchanger coils were exposed.

One Sunday morning I got a call from the 
transmitter site, which was also the studio. The 
transmitter was flooded and it would not go on. 
In those days, I used to attend church on Sunday 
morning so I decided to wear my 
"Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes so I could attend 
church after I fixed whatever trivial problem 
existed at the transmitter site. I arrived at the 
site and found that the circulator pump motor had 
shorted out, tripping its circuit breaker. A heat 
exchanger coil had frozen and ruptured. I asked 
the engineer on duty to siphon off the remaining 
de-ionized water while I made a temporary repair to the heat exchanger.

I was in the process of brazing a bypass across 
the section of a heat exchanger coil that had 
frozen and split when Harold Thomas showed up to 
offer his help. There he found me in a puddle of 
muddy water, dressed in my best (and only) suit, 
trying to get the rig back on the air. He said, 
"Let’s drop everything and go get some 
breakfast!" He took the other engineer and me to 
a truck stop and we ate breakfast. Then he told 
me, go home, get on some work clothes and meet me 
at the transmitter site about one in the 
afternoon -- and, by the way, when you get your 
clothes cleaned, bring me the bill.

When I arrived at 1:00 PM, Harold was waiting. He 
had called a HVAC man who he knew from the Navy, 
who came and finished the temporary bypass I had 
started. He had already refilled the cooling 
system and checked it for leaks. He had mounted 
the circulator pump on a board and temporarily 
removed its protective ground so it would run 
without tripping its breaker. Everything was 
ready, but he waited for me, the "Chief Engineer" 
to check it out and restart that transmitter. He 
had great sense of honor. I never brought him a 
cleaning bill because I wanted to return that honor as well.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson