I drive past this transmitter every day on my way to work, passing through Mason. Several times my son has asked what would happen if someone snapped on the support cables.
WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how that much power would affect someone with metal fillings in their teeth.
Sounds like a short story I read as a kid ...
I believe Lucille Ball claimed she helped zero in on a Japanese spy during WW2 as her root filled teeth chattered with the morse code sent by the nearby clandestine transmitter.
Just a tall story, of course.
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#33for national security it would be best to shut this puppy down because it is broadcasting our position to extraterresterial civilizations, not all of whom may be friendly.
We'd need to blast a radio signal at about 100 million watts for it to hit the closest star with the same strength that Voyager is sending to us right now. Something like 4 light years away. If we consider how quickly signal strength decays, it's pretty easy to picture just how quiet we are. Our loudest tv stations are like 5% of that.
We think we're blasting a firehose off into space but we're spitting from a straw.
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#34for national security it would be best to shut this puppy down because it is broadcasting our position to extraterresterial civilizations, not all of whom may be friendly.
We'd need to blast a radio signal at about 100 million watts for it to hit the closest star with the same strength that Voyager is sending to us right now. Something like 4 light years away. If we consider how quickly signal strength decays, it's pretty easy to picture just how quiet we are. Our loudest tv stations are like 5% of that. We think we're blasting a firehose off into space but we're spitting from a straw.
good points, but signal strength decay in the semivacuum of space really has to do more with the geometry of your emitter path vis a vis a fixed target (earth). so we get attenuation from the voyager but you can bet your sweet patootie that voyager is broadcasting our business to a gajillion other star systems even with a weak signal.
in which case deflections from the intergalactic ambient hydrogen is the only hope of mankind that they don't invert the signal back to our solar system with our primitive space force.
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#35> enough power to supply a town of one hundred thousand coursed through an 831-foot tower That would mean 5W per inhabitant. In 2020, this would barely be enough to charge a phone, and in 1934 that would have been a light bulb per 20 citizens.
The power input to the transmitter is much larger than the power coming out of it. All those tubes generates a lot of heat.
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#36Grew up listening to the Reds on WLW - it's current slogan is
"The Big One" and it used to call itself "The Nation's Station".
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#37Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#38> People living near the transmitter site often got better reception than they wanted; some lights would not turn off until WLW engineers helped rewire houses. Gutters rattled loose from buildings. A neon hotel sign near the transmitter never went dark. Farmers reported hearing WLW through their barbed-wire fences. That is pretty amazing. I wonder if there were any health impacts from that level of ambient power just…
I wonder how that much power would affect someone with metal fillings in their teeth.
You obviously never watched enough Gilligan's Island :-) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230840/
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#39Of course, for most broadcasters and regulators debating these broad delivery systems, “listeners” meant Americans who were white and middle or working class. Programming reinforced presumed middle class values. While some local stations offered programming targeted to ethnic groups, occupations, and even political beliefs, black Americans and other minority groups were largely left out of national radio, except as c…
Half the article is about the cultural context; see also the stuff about rural access.
Re: WLW: America's 500,000 watt radio station (2015)
#40I go camping once a year at the base of a 1.2 Mega Watt transmitter (It is a Navy Camping ground). Not AM, and at a Very Low Frequency, but still impressive! So far, I have not noticed any ill effects. Fingers crossed.