[QuadList] OT: A Day at Mt. Wilson--In the snow and the ice falling

[georgenann at aol.com]

Interesting article Ted.  Was up there one time a long time ago, no snow, but I remember those beautiful Coyotes on the way up.

That is interesting about the generators and the fuel situation.

In the late 60's or early 70's CBS put in a generator at the xmtr in the Empire State Bldg.  It was a 50KW gen, if I remember correctly.  The boss discovered there was a 6" natural gas line running thru. one of the rooms up there which fed a restaurant years ago at the observatory.  So they brought up a B.F. V-8 International engine that ran on natural gas, with a 50KW Kohler generator and hooked it up to the spare TV Xmtr.

Sometimes I would sleep in the generator room if I had to stay up there for any length of time or due to bad weather, making it hard to get home.  Would you believe those were the times my "Buddies" would choose to test the damn thing.  I had a folding army surplus cot up there and I would actually wind up on the floor.

After that they were the only show in town when there was a blackout.  The only problem was they didn't run commercials, seems to me they could have charged whatever they wanted for them.  All they had was news on about the blackouts.  Another problem was that nobody in the city had any power to power up their TV sets anyway.  I think this led to a population explosion later.  The only people who had power and could watch TV were in the "Burbs" and they could almost care about the blackout in New York City, that's why they moved to the "Burbs" in the first place.

A few floors up, on the 86th floor, NBC installed a nice little "Cat" diesel generator for their backup xmtr.  That was nice untill the Fire Dept. told them they couldn't store diesel fuel up there.  So they kept a small amount up there, with the FD's blessings and thought they would just bring up small amounts as needed while it was  running. It is a long trip up 86 sets of stairs, even carrying a pint of fuel at a time, I think you need power to run the elevators.  Later they all moved to WTC, except CBS who maintained the backup transmitter at "Empire". Would you believe they "canned" the CH2 CE for not getting rid of the transmitter at "Empire".  Then a few years later they canned the fellow who took his place for the same reason.  Then came 9/11.  Once again CBS was the only game in town.  Later on I told the third CE of CH2 that he had better get rid of the transmitter at "Empire" or they may can him also. Sure nuf they canned him and replaced him with a gal from NBC, although they offered him a position in Iraq.

DE,

George Keller




Ted







-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com>
To: Quad List <QuadList at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Mon, Jan 25, 2010 5:40 pm
Subject: [QuadList] OT: A Day at Mt. Wilson--In the snow and the ice falling


Nobody was climbing towers with fluorescent tubes to check transmission line when Television Broadcast's Deborah McAdams went up to Mount Wilson with Univision's Ralph Ortiz this weekend:


http://www.televisionbroadcast.com/article/93554


Enjoy, wherever you are and whatever the weather's like.


Ted




Ted Langdell
Secretary




In Nashua, NH on a long, winding trip back to California


= 

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