[BC] Big Bertha on 990

[Rob Landry]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2012, Dana  Puopolo wrote:

>The 50G was at 990 in Providence.

I remember that rig; in the late '80's, I was hired to build a custom computerized remote control system for WEAN, as WLKW now called itself. There were two transmitters: this one, which the staff called "Big Bertha", and a smaller 5 KW rig which they called "Little Bess".

"Big Bertha" ran during the day at 50 KW. "Little Bess" ran at night at a ridiculously low power level -- 500 watts, I seem to recall -- and my remote control system had to manage the switching back and forth between the two.

"Big Bertha" had a problem in that when you pressed Plate Off, the transmitter usually stayed on; the staff had been told to cycle back and forth between "Plate On" and "Plate Off" until the carrier dropped. I was told to make my remote control system emulate this behavior; station management didn't want me to fix the problem (I don't remember why).

They eventually replaced my remote control, which was built out of industrial process control hardware, with a Sine Systems or some such. I don't recall when "Big Bertha" fried, but it was after my system was replaced. I can't help but wonder if the Plate Off glitch had something to do with the frying.

Rob