[BC] KSMU McLendon History Dallas

[ChuxGarage@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/4/2006 12:04:11 AM Central Standard Time, 
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:

> >KMEC  (the original Channel >33)
> 
> >Ahh, yes  Jim Maxwell and broather of Maxwell Electronics  Corporation.  
> They 
> >built a beautiful 55 kW. UHF TV transmitter for Channel  33.  It used a GE 
> 2 
> >kW. UHF transmitter as a driver.
> 
> >He was quoting me a transmitter for the KLIF-TV C.P.  then Channel  29.
> 
The entire station was more or less home brew, with lots of help from GE.  
When I came on board, we were still installing equipment.  As a college kid who 
knew which end of a soldering iron to hang on to, it was very interesting to 
actually help build a TV station.  I learned a lot. 

Among the many hats I wore there was Master Control engineer.  One afternoon, 
right after I came on duty, I got a call from the transmitter engineer to 
tell me he was pulling the main power.  It seems that a site glass on the 
Klystron's cooling pump system had broken, and there was about 4-6 inches of water on 
the floor with a prodigious amount gushing out of the broken glass.  That 
incident took us off the air for a day or so, until W. W. Graingers could supply 
a replacement.  A couple of months later, about the same time of day, the off 
air monitor went to snow.  I called the transmitter to see what happened.  It 
seems that the wave guide coming out of the transmitter had melted down.  That 
was certainly not good news.  We were off the air for about a week until a 
new one could be made.

As I recall, it was during a Laurel & Hardy film, which was one of the few 
decent movies we'd run in the afternoon.  Usually they were stinkers.  The 
station went dark on its first anniversary. 

Chuck Conrad
KZQX Radio
www.kzqx.com