When Long Distance Telephone was Shortwave Radio
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- For information on the complete MUSA system see:
ia802603.us.ar...
Cooling Radio Station was at the UK end of a point-to-point, shortwave signal beamed from Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The site of the station was carefully selected as the antenna, MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna), upon which it depended to receive the incoming transmission, had to be: directly aligned with Lawrenceville NJ, USA; two miles long; comprised of an array of 16 individual rhombic antenna; and have an area of three miles in front of the MUSA that would be free from radio interference. The 16 rhombic antenna were strung between 60ft high telegraph poles; each side was 315ft long with internal angles of 140 degrees. The signal from each antenna was sent to the station via a core coaxial cable sheathed in a watertight copper tube and buried in a central trench.
This vital communications link, between the US and British governments at the very highest level, operated from 1942 until the early 1960s. Although a transatlantic telegraph cable had been in use since 1866, there was no telephone cable until 90 years later, in 1956. An initial shortwave system was set up in 1929, but was of poor quality. The Post Office set up and ran Cooling Radio Station solely for the reception side of two way, shortwave, voice channels with the United States. Land was purchased in 1938 and the building was completed in 1939. The receiver used 1,079 valves and was considered to be the most complex radio built. It was connected to the adjacent MUSA (Multiple Unit Steerable Antenna) and could receive 4 incoming radio telephone channels. It was officially in use on the 1st July 1942. This may well have been because German intelligence services were able to break the scrambler / encryption device available in 1939. By 1943, Bell Laboratories in the US had developed SIGSALY, a far more secure scrambler system. (This system was so well screened and secure that German records captured at the end of WW2 showed that they were not aware that transmissions were person to person, direct voice contact.) SIGSALY was installed in the basement of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street with extensions to 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet War Rooms and the US Embassy amongst others. The US transmitter was located at Lawrenceville, New Jersey, while UK transmissions were made from Rugby to the US receiver at Manahawkin, New Jersey.
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I had two 500 foot rolls of #18 copper clad steel wire which I put into a rhombic shape over the family farm during fallow time, winter. The feed point was fed with transmitting grade thermoplastic twin lead of the shape that was like used for TV antennas. The wire inside on either side was 16 or 18 AWD. One side of that feed line went to the right side of the rhombic and the other to the other side. That was at 50 feet at the feed point and then the wire slope downward to 30 foot standing water pipes on the corners and then on up to about 70 feet at the far end in a big tree, not terminated. It was pointed at the southern part of Africa and Asia the other way. My SX99 exploded with signals from Africa and I had a regular sked with a lady in South Africa which work almost like a telephone.
I drove it with a Johnson Viking Valient, 250+w. My rhombic delivered huge crashes from lightning that you could not see, and deafening blasts from that you could see. I disconnected the kW twin lead outside my window and tossed the end out into the grassy yard. After a thunderstorm at some distance, even, there would be a burn spot in the grass around the end of that twin lead lying out there. The rhombic was a magnificent receive antenna, but had to come down when the land under it was due plowing and planting. I may still have some of the copper clad steel wire in my junk box.
Thank you for sharing
Every step done by hand. Today people would say this could not be done without heavy equipment.
Funny thing is, those guys would have made a dollar a day maybe?
The problem with signal fading was the reason for the Hallicrafters dual diversity radio, model DD1.
It used two antennas, two receivers and a section that used the stronger audio signal, so you did not hear much, if any fading. If you have time, look up dual diversity radios, it was a fascinating effort to eliminate the problem.
Two efforts that ham do not do explore or use at the antenna, are diversity receiving and/or changing the height above ground of yaggi's and other antennas. My one radio FT-9000 what do diversity receive with separate receive ant socket. More along these lines could be experimentally done, but the age of twiddling with such exotic things is over------- turn it over to the handheld HT.
Bell System and Western Electric certainly were cutting edge. The history calls carried by the transatlantic radio system is incredible. Roosevelt Churchill phone conversations with the aid of simple scramblers, yet I've heard stories the Germans actually intercepted those calls from Norway. The first transatlantic telephone cable with the sub miniature tube repeaters incredible.
Wouldn't I like to hook up a radio to that! Excellent film.
Tell me about it! Me too.
Where do I plug up my 7600 boys?
Lawrenceville NJ was informally called "The pole farm". The site, razed a while ago, was on Cold Soil Road just north of Lawrenceville.
You can walk and hike all through the site now as it's part of the Mercer County Park System. There is 1 pole still standing and you can find cables and insulators embedded in trees. There is also a large plaza at the end of one of the trails that lays out all the rhombics.
Gotta love the random windows alert sound that butts in around 9:22
Oh boy, I thought that was my PC sounding an alarm!
Amazing analog phase shifting and synchronization system! Didn't know about it. Thanks for posting it!
@@WirelessMuseum It was. Thanks 🙂
@John Cliff Yep. Impressive efforts with the means available.
Love videos like this! It's beyond amazing to see just how far communications of yesterday have progressed up to today!
This is great. I especially appreciated the depiction of the angry ionosphere at around 3:20.
A great historical video. Used to work with PO radio stations in the 60s.
Its amazing the effort and calculations used in combatting the fading problem.
Thank you very much, very interesting and I have not seen this before!
A excellent Film but like everyone I would like to see the Whole Film,
This was a great film loved it. Interesting how they did things back then very cool now how times changed
Nice production values.
Why is it that a British accent always makes it true...
2 things
We used to call it RP = Received Pronounciation which was virtually required for any Brit Empire operative in executive levels….Empires are Globalists - everyone speaking the same meant one was ‘in the club’ ( see. George Carlin)
its meant to carry Royal authority ….as you say even Yanks are still susceptible
and until 30 years ago was all you heard on radio via state monopoly BBC
It is of course tied in with class and education -
That's a transatlantic accent.
Radio has something magical to it. Tubes and antennas feel like alchemy. Totems and wands, crystal balls, voices from far away summoned like spirits. Wizards doing wizard stuff.
Wow ! Thats some deep building . Great to see this
Excellent ! Thanks for sharing !
EXCELENTE DOCUMENTÁRIO 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷👍👍👍
Really cool video thanks! I love this history
Yes double devesity some auto fm radios also used it
Just amazing vintage radio technology !! ..... Probably a form of effective Space Diversity anti-Fade system....Was it Combined with Frequency Diversity for even Better fade-free reception ??
Fascinating!
It’s on the Diversity receiving principle I believe.
Yes. Radio astronomers employ the same technique now. Except they are listening to outer space, and their antennas are all over the USA, and beyond. Rather than mechanical signal delays, it is all done with software, but the end results is the same. A highly amplified received signal.
Not a pair of work gloves in sight for the capped workmen. Tougher back then but not as sure-gripped.
Coaxial 1.0
someday I want a big rombic for my ham
Good God. This was less than 100 years ago. How silly are we going to look with our lasers and fiber optics 100 years from now?
1964 the satellite propaganda was a smash hit. Evert Dirkson sure thought so.
didn't say anything about SSB
@@WirelessMuseum Thanks! From the link you provided I downloaded the .PDF file -- very interesting.
I use USB/LSB on my Tecsun PL-680, it has a decent SYNC detector but using SSB works better, it has a really good effect at reducing fading and of course interference from interfering sources such as noise or another station close by.
The sad reality today is that most modern radios have a DSP chiip that destroys the audio quality of SSB meaning using SSB on an AM station sounds pretty bad compared to the Tecsun PL-680 due to it's pure analogue design, DSP radios are cheaper to make and need far less alignment if any so there is no incentive to make a radio with good sounding SSB.
Radios like the Tecsun PL-880, 990x, S-8800, PL-330, H501 and the XHDATA D-808 + the ATS 25+ all these radios and pretty much any DSP radio has been ruined by DSP.
The Sangean ATS 909 X2 is another really good sounding radio on SSB.
SSB can work much better than the filters alone on DSP radios because you can eliminate one of the sidebands giving far better selectivity but this only really works if the audio is good.
Using SSB on an AM station is called ECSS or zero beat.
I want to watch the article, not all these lengthy commercials with no means of skipping them!
Pay for youtube premium. I never see any ads unless they embedded by the maker.
Imagine if there were a way to block ads.
some sort of ad block program.
Or even an add on for your browser.
Sadly I can't install one on my subminiature vacuum tube computer, maybe you'll have more luck.
Those "brakes" - what do they mean, delay lines?
They were delay lines, but this film was made for the general public, and everyone knew what brakes were.
A e ignoramus here asking an ignoramus question
Were they basically making Co-ax cabling with all that copper pipe within copper tubes?
That waterproof tape they used will last 20-25 years in the right environment…i bought one roll and it has lasted me 40 years and is still potent when fresh… made of Linen utterly impregnated with a heavy tarry glue…
You're right, they are making rigid co-ax cable.
@@WirelessMuseum Wave guide...
@@Look_What_You_Did Not wave guide... Wave guide does not have the smaller conductor suspended in the center of the larger conductor. As Naradaian suspected, they are making rigid co-axial cable.
Later called diversity reception.
Between 4:30 and 5:00 he mentions 3 unrelated units: miles, feet, and yards. One might have believed the US would evolve between 1938 and 2022, and yet they are still the only one developed country that would use this rather than meters.
True that, but most of us yanks in the engineering or machinery fields have s-l-o-w-l-y gain some working knowledge of the metric system and of course there is always Google to help us when converting units of measure. I know adding, dividing and multiplying fractions of an inch can be terrifying to the old world but over here we grew up with it. The history of measurement units is a fascinating topic but it hasn't stopped us from creating some awesome engineering feats all over the world.
That's because Americans have enough common sense to know NOBODY eats a 0.125 slice of pie, it's an EIGHTH of a pie.
And the USA is the only country which landed men on the moon.
@@dowjones3886 A German Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun did. And yes, he did use metric system when designing his rocket.
@@thecriss88 Says the clown claiming three units of measure as "unrelated".
This makes it very clear just how much we now take for granted. Also , that's the way a President of America should speak. Take note, Mr. BIDEN.
Awww.... How cute, you got your narrative in. On the upside you will get to claim your president as probably one of the most successful presidencies in your lifetime.
Riiiiiight. “I heard from the president of Finland, tremendously smart man! He told me that over there, they rake their leaves very often and that prevents most of the forest fires over there. I think if we did that in the great state of California, the forest fires would decrease a tremendous amount.” “Frederick Douglas is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.” Covfefe. Amonymush. Injecting bleach. I could go on......