What happened to the old analog TV transmitters?

[radiotvnut]

Even after the 6/12/09 extension, our local ABC affiliate had originally planned to turn off their analog transmitter on the original 2/17/09 cut-off date. However, I think the FCC wanted them to stay on, since they are the primary news station in the area.

At about 3 AM on the morning of 6/12, the old analog transmitter went off the air. I think they got it back on around 6 AM, only three hours before the 9 AM analog signal shutdown. Just before the shutdown, the station GM mentioned that, after the deadline extension, they hoped to be able to keep the analog transmitter on the air until 6/12 and that it decided to drop off the air just a few hours prior to it's scheduled shutdown. Then, they showed the old test pattern from '53; followed by a shot of the engineer pushing the button to kill the transmitter. Since that transmitter was from '74, I'm sure it probably was on it's last leg and I doubt they went to much expense maintaining it, since they knew the days of analog were numbered.

BTW, this station was the only one who did an "analog send-off". The other stations simply killed the transmitter during the middle of programming.

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

BTW, this station was the only one who did an "analog send-off". The other stations simply killed the transmitter during the middle of programming.

We had one local Ch8 that did a pretty good transition program. Still up on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obZcfZcbSCU

[cork]

[B]I can tell you what happened to one analog tv transmitter here in
Spokane. The station owner gave it to me if I would remove it from
its mountain top building. It was a UHF GE transmitter of the mid 1960s.
Even though I am a ham radio gear builder, there was nothing of use
that came out of this transmitter. There was some 6000lbs of stuff
not including the power transformer. It used a quad of Amperex
klystrons which were made of berylium, which in itself is a first class
hazard. Other not-so-nice stuff was gallons of glycol which had become
very corrosive, and lots of rat stuff. This thing had to be a model
of inefficiency. The station engineer allowed as to how the plate
power in was about 1/4MW and the PEP out was in the order of 40KW.
It took a 50HP blower to cool the glycol heat exchanger. The analog
transmitter's dig replacement was smaller that a refrigerator, and
had way less power output.

[NewVista]

Originally Posted by cork

[B]I can tell you what happened to one analog tv transmitter here in
Spokane. The station owner gave it to me if I would remove it from
its mountain top building. .

A few thousand dollars worth of junk steel, copper, motors.