EEVblog #569 - Tour of an Analog TV Transmission Facility

[jzoeller]

Really enjoyed this.

Thanks Dave!

[Dave Turner]

A point to consider is that some high power transmission valves (albeit between from long to short wave frequencies) have lasted longer in service than any of the latest silicon based technology.  Whether that remains to be true is yet to be seen.

[Dr. Frank]

Brute Force Electronics!

Very impressive. Very interesting.

Simply beautiful.

Thank you, Dave and David!

[DrGeoff]

Great video Dave, I haven't been at this facility since the mid-80's, where a friend was installing a lot of the equipment. I think he was doing the 20kW systems for the 2MMM and 2DAY FM radio stations at that time.

[johnh]

how long do the valves last?.

Forgotten. I was told that when i was trainee that these transmitter value could be refurbished. Especially the big power valves that were steam cooled.
 

[VK3DRB]

The ERP will be much, much more than 10kW.

Check out Melbourne's channel 10 transmitter...



More modern, but has NEC stuff in there, too.

[EEVblog]

Check out Melbourne's channel 10 transmitter...

Nice find.
That does show some stuff that shouldn't have been shown :->

[Polossatik]

Check out Melbourne's channel 10 transmitter...

Nice find.
That does show some stuff that shouldn't have been shown :->

care to explain a bit? it's not common stuff to see, but I don't see what can be "secret stuff" in this place.
Or what someone can do "wrong" with knowing what's inside.
Just watched that video and not saw something really weird or labeled "secret service"

[EvilGeniusSkis]

@ 56:26 why is there a chip missing from a socket?

[rolandpenplotter]

Check out Melbourne's channel 10 transmitter...

Nice find.
That does show some stuff that shouldn't have been shown :->

That's what we like to see; a bit of corporate paranoia being proved as pointless

[BillyD]

David Kilpatrick did a great tour, easy to listen to and informative. Two thumbs up as they say.

An overall excellent excellent video in so many ways.

He was a good guide, but I can't help feeling he was holding back a bit; he didn't exactly seem enthused and very driven about it (mind you, it's his daily job - he's seen it a thousand times); it may just be the bloke's character though. I loved the video, but I'm more looking forward to being back in the lab, with Dave's infectious excitement and passionate enthusiasm - I'm one for details - EXCESSIVE details, and David seemed to only skim over the basics, although I can appreciate HOW much there is to talk about for a limited amount of time in a place like this... maybe I'm wrong, who knows

Don't know what you're on about there. He explained everything we saw, didn't interrupt, volunteered extra info wherever it was relevant, you really couldn't ask for a better person to give a tour of the place.

[rolandpenplotter]

David Kilpatrick did a great tour, easy to listen to and informative. Two thumbs up as they say.

An overall excellent excellent video in so many ways.

He was a good guide, but I can't help feeling he was holding back a bit; he didn't exactly seem enthused and very driven about it (mind you, it's his daily job - he's seen it a thousand times); it may just be the bloke's character though. I loved the video, but I'm more looking forward to being back in the lab, with Dave's infectious excitement and passionate enthusiasm - I'm one for details - EXCESSIVE details, and David seemed to only skim over the basics, although I can appreciate HOW much there is to talk about for a limited amount of time in a place like this... maybe I'm wrong, who knows

Don't know what you're on about there. He explained everything we saw, didn't interrupt, volunteered extra info wherever it was relevant, you really couldn't ask for a better person to give a tour of the place.

He's a good guide, no doubt. So long as I know my own mind, it doesn't really matter that much. That's the good thing about points of view - we can all have different ones

[atw60444]

The guy in Melbourne seemed to have free reign with the camera. It's a pity they showed the Microwave link antennas but not the terminal equipment. Looked similar to 12GHz links I've worked on with a pair of diversity receive dishes and single transmit dish.

[rolandpenplotter]

The guy in Melbourne seemed to have free reign with the camera. It's a pity they showed the Microwave link antennas but not the terminal equipment. Looked similar to 12GHz links I've worked on with a pair of diversity receive dishes and single transmit dish.

I particularly liked the "kinetic energy store" flywheel; did he say four tons? I couldn't make it out. That's a really clever idea, which makes perfect sense in every way. Love this

[atw60444]

The flywheel was neat! Yeah he said 4 tonnes (metric). I noticed it was called a "continuity set". Traditionally that would have been a DC motor running on batteries driving an alternator.

[rolandpenplotter]

Nothing like a pretty face to make the transmitter switch off more enjoyable :



Sandy Heath, UK, switching off:



More Sandy Heath:




Funny how we have all this "better" digital technology, and yet they still don't seem to be able to improve on the age-old vacuum tube valve

[atw60444]

Makes a nice change to see a young lady technician. I taught my daughter how to solder, but she's now at college designing & making dresses 

[rolandpenplotter]

Makes a nice change to see a young lady technician. I taught my daughter how to solder, but she's now at college designing & making dresses 

Ah you made a classic mistake. Now you see, if you'd taught her how to "sodder", she'd be able to get a job in America; she probably wanted to travel

[RetroSwim]

Is that just plain old, garden variety composite video that goes in at the front end there?

If so, is that a raw feed of what you got over microwave from the broadcaster? Or did they perhaps send you something like YC/RGBs/Y-Pb-Pr which got combined in a different rack there at the facility?

[Rasz]

If you've never heard a Strowger exchange, it's high time you did:

and another one, this is from a Polish comedy:

care to explain a bit? it's not common stuff to see, but I don't see what can be "secret stuff" in this place.
Or what someone can do "wrong" with knowing what's inside.
Just watched that video and not saw something really weird or labeled "secret service"

scada
Old tech used to be remotely managed over the phone by a meatbag flipping big switches. Modern one can be hijacked if you know what is on the other side. Not to mention tons of NDAs.

[SeanB]

The flywheel was neat! Yeah he said 4 tonnes (metric). I noticed it was called a "continuity set". Traditionally that would have been a DC motor running on batteries driving an alternator.

The alternative is a diesel genset with a multipack clutch that is normally freewheeling, and is force started when the power fails for more than 5 seconds. AFAIKR the alternator section was fed an AC excitation via a rotary transformer so that the AC output could have a constant frequency as the rotor speed varied from either mains variations or the diesel set running. The diesel was pretty much guaranteed to start as it was always fed with pressurised oil from a pump on the output side as well, which also fed the bearings of the alternator and the synchronous motor that drove both. 4 ton flywheel is pretty common, there are some that use a flywheel of around 10 tons that run at around 30-100k RPM in a sealed helium fill that are used as a storage medium for large data centres. Those have an armoured housing with kevlar bands that can contain the pieces if the flywheel fails. They generally are not fixed after failure as there is pretty much nothing left after the 100kWh or so of power is dumped.

I remember using mobile power plants with a 6 cylinder Diesel and the alternator acting as a flywheel for the engine. Bit difficult to drive a vehicle where the flywheel is a 4 ton rotating mass that takes around 4 seconds to change speed. Generally I drove around in second gear and slowly. That genset supplied 28VDC and 115VAC 400z at 8kA and 100A respectively. Second use was as an aircraft tractor, seeing as the engine was plenty powerful enough to both tow and start a fully laden 747.

[robbak]

It really must have felt weird - after decades of doing everything humanly possible to keep those machines transmitting, to stand by and watch them just get turned off. And over the next few months, seeing all that equipment unceremoniously loaded into recycling bins. Knowing that you could let Dave just reef out a few boxes and load them into his car must have felt strange enough!

I must admit I was surprised - I expected that the signals would be combined at signal level and amplified together - I guess that amplifiers of this size just can't be made to be wide bandwidth!

I noticed from the Melbourne video that those $30K tubes may well be disposed of - there are just too many analogue sites being turned off that there won't be a market for used tubes, no matter what they cost to make.

[firewalker]

How do they keep the dust out?

Alexander.

[VK3DRB]

Makes a nice change to see a young lady technician. I taught my daughter how to solder, but she's now at college designing & making dresses 

What a shame. Percentage wise, there are very, very few hands-on electronics enthusiast women in Australia. Since before women's lib and equal opportunity until now, the tiny percentage of Australian born women studying electronics engineering has dropped to almost zero. It is pathetic. About 10 years ago I emailed 30 women's rights organisations around the world kindly asking for their opinion why there are so few female electronics technicians, electronics engineers or ham radio operators compared to men and none of them could (or would) answer the question. I would dare say the reason has nothing to do with men.

Australian born female electronics engineers who do still do analogue or digital work in their 50's are, to my knowledge, non-existent. Australian women have always been very rare sight in real electronics component stores, except if they have been asked to run an errand.

What was the reason your daughter went from electronics to dress making?

[Salas]

Mr. David Kilpatrick gave an excellent tour of the decommissioned installation with every Dave's question succinctly answered. I enjoyed his expert calm style. A very good idea to arrange for such a vid Dave, congrats.