Good to know our government is always here to help!!!
I liked that Steve.
Thanks.
PatAt 09:18 PM 11/17/2011, you wrote:
>Pat,
>
>Even as late as 1969, our college station had an official EBS monitor.  It
>was a rack-mounted AM receiver which was supposed to be tuned to one of the
>designated EBS stations.  So the story goes, when the EBS alert sequence was
>broadcast, relays in the receiver were tripped and the monitor speaker would
>come on and broadcast instructions from the EBS station.  We thought the
>whole thing was pretty funny since there was no antenna hooked to the
>receiver, and even if there had been, our campus was too far away from any
>local stations for the receiver to be of any use.  But we all felt better
>knowing that our 10-watt FM and closed-circuit AM station was in voluntary
>compliance with the FCC rules regarding EBS.  Well, maybe not full
>compliance, but close enough.
>
>Steve
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pat Byrne" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 18:49
>Subject: Re: A Bit of Radio History
>
>
> >I think that the grand discovery was made that A M radio wouldn't
> > cause the end of the world!!  Technology got ahead of CONELRAD pretty
> > quickly I think.
> > For a lot of years after I got my license we were supposed to monitor
> > broadcast radio and shut down if they did.  I just let a very quiet a
> > m radio run in the shack.  Now I couldn't hear it!!!
> > Pat, K9JAU At 11:50 AM 11/15/2011, you wrote:
> >>There must have been some significant issues with that system because it
> >>was
> >>abandoned after a fairly short period.  Interestingly enough, AM radios
> >>made
> >>at that time actually had markings for the two frequencies 640 and 1240.
> >>
> >>Steve
> >>
> >>
> >>----- Original Message -----
> >>From: "Martin McCormick" <[log in to unmask]>
> >>To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >>Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 12:32
> >>Subject: Re: A Bit of Radio History
> >>
> >>
> >> > I do remember the CONELRAD tests.
> >> >
> >> > Radio and television stations would broadcast an
> >> > introductory message as to what was about to happen. The carrier
> >> > would go down for 15 seconds. Then, it would come back up for
> >> > another 15 seconds. It was down for yet another 15 seconds and
> >> > when it came back up, there was a 1 KHZ tone for maybe another
> >> > 15 seconds. CONELRAD receivers had to detect the two drops in
> >> > carrier plus the tone and that initiated the CONELRAD condition.
> >> >
> >> > My father was a science teacher at a school in Tulsa,
> >> > Oklahoma at the time and had gone in to the teachers' lounge or
> >> > maybe the school office for something and turned on the radio.
> >> > He first thought the radio was broken because there were only
> >> > two signals on the air. Then, he was reminded of the test which
> >> > went for half an hour or so and then all other stations came
> >> > back on and things were normal.
> >> >
> >> > I think the test was done every year for a while. I
> >> > don't remember the first test, but the one in 1957 or 1958
> >> > featured a talk by our state's governor at the time.
> >> >
> >> > I bet the station engineers loved this test if their
> >> > station was one of the CONELRAD stations because they had to run
> >> > all this stuff that you couldn't test any other time and it had
> >> > to work perfectly this one day and, of course, be ready to
> >> > switch in on a moment's notice.
> >> >
> >> > Tulsa had a 50,000-watt station KVOO at 1170 which was
> >> > one of the CONELRAD stations so they had to electrically chop
> >> > off part of their antenna to tune it up on 1240. I am sure this
> >> > was accomplished by large contactors which are just huge relays,
> >> > but still, when else could you make sure it worked?
> >> >
> >> > The other 50,000-watt station in Tulsa was KRMG at 740.
> >> > I have no idea, for sure if they were the 640 CONELRAD station,
> >> > but they would have had to add some electronic length to their
> >> > masts to reach 640.
> >> >
> >> > It did work, however, so it just shows you what people
> >> > do when they need to.
> >> >
> >> > Something else you might find interesting during those
> >> > days was a plan to use AM broadcast transmitters as data links
> >> > for RTTY and Morse.
> >> >
> >> > There was an article in "QST" several years ago about
> >> > WSM 650 in Nashville TN. They actually had a FSK encoder on
> >> > their 50-KW transmitter which shifted the carrier maybe 50 HZ
> >> > and would have let them send RTTY to suitable decoders. An
> >> > average citizen listening to WSM would have noticed nothing
> >> > unusual. The article described the test transmission as a loop
> >> > sending the call letters and the word "test."
> >> >
> >> > Lloyd Rasmussen writes:
> >> >> I don't remember hearing any of those celebrity PSA's, but they aren't
> >> >> very
> >> >> different from what FEMA tells us today at ready.gov or other
> >> >> websites.
> >> >
> >