This article provides a few behind the scenes insights to a large commercial TV and FM radio tower in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our ham Amateur Radio club (HARC) has one of it’s repeaters (VE1HNS) located in the CBC Radio / TV site on Geizers hill, on Washmill Lake Drive, Halifax. Maintenance on the club repeater allowed me to also gain some amazing insights to the world of high power radio and TV transmission. The commercial transmissions are at over 80kW ERP, on a tower at 261 Meters.
HARC infrastructure:
The main Ve1HNS repeater is the 2nd box from the bottom, where all you can really see are the heat fins. Above it is the Link controller, which contains the female voice you hear when you first connect to the repeater. A friend of Rob’s from out west recorded the voice for him. From Washmill Lake Drive, there are two big towers near the CBC building, with a short 3rd tower on the roof of the building. Our main antenna is about half way up the shorter tower, as depicted in red circle below, oriented on the North Westerly direction. The IRLP (Internet Radio Linking Project) signal is sent to the equipment at Dalhousie University via a small antenna outside the building. A regular IRLP net meeting connects enthusiasts across Canada. A small interior antenna connects the Ve1HNS repeater to the Ve1PSR.
(Click on photos for captions and larger view)
High Power equipment for TV and FM Radio
The equipment used for high power TV and FM radio is very different from the common ham equipment, and very much bigger – take a look at the antenna dummy loads. The many beautiful copper pipes are actually the antenna “cables”, which are hollow with a core. The huge A/B antenna switch is fascinating to see. The Nautel FM 10KW transmitters are actually made by a local company based in Hackett’s Cove, that sell their solid state “modular” designed technology worldwide. Even the tower strobe lights have their own control system rack to change the colour and timing. The TV antennas use a “panel” type antenna! The copper tube antenna cable gets converted to a flex cable to go up the tower.
(Click on photos for captions and larger view)
Conclusion
As a recently licensed ham amateur radio operator ( VA1VAN ) it was an inspiring experience to see the amazing equipment behind he big systems used by TV and FM radio. I am enjoying the journey so far.
A very interesting and rare insight into what it takes to run “industrial strength” infrastructure! As a Telecom engineer I’m pleased to see these stories being published to the internet audience so they can appreciate how much work and how much money is required to keep these networks going. Thanks for the insights Rob.