Intendi come prendere il progetto e tracciare i binari quando costruisci la tua ferrovia? Spero che Google Translate faccia un buon lavoro sulla mia domanda.
Great video, very informative and thorough. I imagine most large market radio stations have redundant systems for everything. The KCBS transmitter station is clean, almost like computer data center other transmitter facilities look like laboratories or mechanics shops. I found it funny when you said something to the effect "the 50,000 watt transmitter doesn't just have one big transistor" I imagined a 4 foot x 3 foot x 2 foot TO220 transistor package with a big heat sink stuck in the transmitter cabinet!!! I noticed you mentioned something about diesel generator backup, how often is the diesel fuel changed? Untreated diesel fuel degrades after about 1 month, while diesel fuel treated with stabilizers and biocide can last up to a year. How well is the KCBS transmitter protected against EMP damage? Some radio stations have an EMP proof FEMA emergency transmitter with diesel tank and diesel generator (I think the diesel generator is also completely enclosed in an EMP proof shelter) Though once again the diesel fuel will have to be replaced on a regular basis. You know how food goes bad, gets all rotty....well diesel fuel and even gasoline goes bad, gets rotty as well.
Dear Steam Powered Radio, congratulations for all the videos! I'm trying to learn how to use AnyRail well and your Channel is a great resource. I love American railways, but being Italian I lack some information; I hope you can help me with this data that I'm missing: 1. For a double track main line, in H0, what is the correct distance between the centerlines? I think 2" (5.08 cm.) if I examine the Walthers and Peco double crossovers. 2. Generally, what is the width of a platform in a station and what is the recommended centerline for the too tracks at its sides? I apologize for the inconvenience, but I have some doubts... Thank you so much, see you soon!
This is the cleanest transmitter facility I've seen in 77 years. Nice documentary and I salute you for your great work! (from a former FM DJ and TV camera operator and USN Tradevman [1965-69]).
I don’t have logic behind why, other than a) I want easements, and b) I want to save space, but I decided that the total angle of the entry and exit easements should be about 1/3 of the total angle of the curve. Not sure how it’ll run, but it makes sense in my head.
First I want to thank you for doing these videos Because the manual is not user friendly. I was placing my track on my new layout. I have a around the room three track main with 2 dble crossovers. and the added some turnouts to start stubs for yards. When I came back the next day to do more work all the track had changed from basic clear to red and I can't figure it out.
Hi George. That is unusual. I can't really think of anything other than somehow, you created a section that is colored red. Click anywhere on the track and the Ribbon bar will change to the Track tab. Then look at the right side of the Ribbon and see if the "Remove Sections" button has popped up. It will have a little colored line at the top and a red X above the Remove Sections text. Click on that it will remove the section and color and put it back to normal. I am assuming you can still edit the track plan? It has only changed color. Hope this helps. If not maybe ask someone in the AnyRail forums. Dave
Thank you for your reply I kind of feel a little embarrassed I don not remember touching the color ribbon but I must have and would not have even thought to look at that even if I knew it was there. Thank you very much.
The introduction of high frequency mos-fets really helped the solid state scene, especially for FM transmitters. The DX50 that KCBS uses was introduced around 1990. There were several other earlier solid state am transmitters but I don't really recall the exact history and they weren't very successful. There were also some early, 1970 or so, hybrid solid state. The Gates Vanguard 1 comes to mind. It had transistors all the way up to the final output section which was a tube.
Hi Dave!! I agree with @derekalexander4030, I've been looking for you. lol. Sorry you've had a rough go of things but completely understand how life gets very busy for all of us sometimes in so many ways. As Derek said, Hoping you're doing well and we'll be looking forward to your productions when you have time to get to them. You're videos have been a MASSIVE help to all of us and give us hope and inspiration as we navigate through anyrail!! Best wishes for ALL you do!!!! Paul
Hi Paul, AM radio stations use ground radials buried in the, well, ground. The radials are typically as long as the tower is high and spaced every three degrees. Where you have a directional station, like KCBS, where the radials from the towers meet, they are bonded together with a large copper cable or sometimes copper strap. Some stations, like KCBS, also use what is called a counter-poise. This is a raised copper screen or wires, that extend around the base of the tower 40 feet or so and then the buried ground radials attach to the end of the counterpoise. The counter-poise tends to reduce changes in the resistance/reactance of the tower itself under varying weather conditions of the soil around the tower. Dave
Derek, Oh that made me laugh. No, I don't think she died but is probably on life support. Seriously, most of last year was taken up with a lot of personal stuff and I just didn't get back to doing any videos. Then I had a rather annoying medical issue that I think is finally resolving itself. I am actually working on a track plan for myself that is a bit unusual in design and have been thinking it might make a good video for plans that aren't quite the norm. It is from a published track plan. Hopefully the medical and personal problems will ease in the next couple of months and I'll go back and refresh my memory on all of the things I talked about previously and make some more videos. I want to tackle printing the plan sometime. Thank you for your concern. Dave
Dave, thanks for the tour. I've always been confused when KCBS promotes HD1. How can a AM, or KCBS FM, station broadcast a digital signal and have it be received by standard analog radios? I thought HD1 was marketing hype. That difference was clear to me when we converted from ch5 analog to ch29 digital. But I'm still not clear with "digital radio.' PS: did you ever make part II ?
Hi, When KCBS says HD1 they are talking about the FM. FM hd consists of several things. The first is the standard analog signal, just like everyone has been receiving forever. On top of that, we add a digital signal. The digital signal allows us to allocate a certain amount of bits per second to each of the audio channels we wish to add. The HD1 refers to the first digital stream which mirrors the analog audio. This way if you have a digital radio, it will switch to the HD1 signal, away from the analog, but, if the digital fades, the radio will blend the audio back to the analog signal. It will stay on the analog until the signal strength on the digital is strong enough and it is receiving enough digital data to decode properly. The digital signal has a lot less power than the analog. If I remember right, KFRC FM was 80,000 watts and the digital was in the 1500 watt range. Been 5 years since I worked on those transmitters. In addition to the HD1, you can have other audio channels as well, HD2, HD3, etc. There is also room in the data stream for information like artist, song title and album artwork. But each time you add a HD channel you use more of the data. The most we ever had on any of our stations was an HD3 and this was at 16kbps, so the audio bandwidth was only 8khz mono. Not high fidelity but good enough for the programming.
Although I don't understand much of what's going on in there, I'm fascinated by it all and more so since I recently discovered the antenna array for KBRT in the hills of Orange County while hiking some popular trails and that got me started learning more about these installations. Thanks for creating this tour!
Michael, There is no 3B. When I recorded that video I thought there would be but I discovered that I covered most of what would be in 3B in Video 3 and in another video. I should change the title card to reflect that. Dave
I have been struggling with Anyrails for quite a while till I discovered your set of tutorials, and you have demystified the difficulties I was having. Thanks for a great set of tutorials
Its been said before, but I just discovered this, excellent explanation. I recently purchased the package and have gone through the first 4 video's. I would like to darken my grid but from what I've seen, I just need to adjust the terminal I'm working at. Right?
In Video 5 at about 6:15 you disconnect and shorten the left sloping track segment. I can't see where/how you performed the "disconnect" before moving the end. To simulate the same action I need to highlight, right click and select "disconnect" from the drop-down. Thanks, PHIL (love the videos so far!)
Yep. There was no coffee up there. Mountain Dew was my goto caffein source and our Director of Engineering drank tea. I am one of five people in all of radio who don't drink coffee. we're all on a first name basis. Dave
Damn, you’re always a step ahead of me, lol. In the last video I asked if you could tell us how big your railroad room was and if you could share your ideas for a track plan and I click on this video and it’s your layout and room. This was another great tutorial video. Thank you for getting back into it.
I believe that Angle in the Tolerance group is how many degrees off of the same center axis the joining piece is from the existing piece. Too large a setting could cause attachment to another piece close by. Just thinking out loud from common sence.
Sorry I didn't catch your name my friend, but Thank you very much for a most absorbing station tour. Also, I caught your "Way Back" machine joke earlier. Loved it Mr. Peabody! Actually, I'm just bearly old enough to remember that cartoon, but I got it! Loved the explanation about the"Common Point" in the "Phasor" cabinet. Take care... Jeff
Hi. Thanks! I keep promising to do Part 2 and maybe this summer will be the time I get to actually get back out to the transmitter and do it. Things have changed a bit in the four years that I have been retired. Big fan of your channel. Thanks for all of the nice restoration videos and tips and tricks. I have a large collection of old broadcast gear that I want to do a series of videos on but I just haven't had the time or figured out the best way to actually record what I am doing. Hopefully soon. I want to bring some old audio consoles back to life. Thanks again and looking forward to your next video! Man, you have a lot of test gear! Yikes! Take care, Dave
Good day Dave. I like your show so I would like to know more about how I can follow yor video step by step to do my layout HO Scale. I am from SAUDI ARABIA. Thank you for your support to my request.
I have found your tutorials via AI Chat! Your videos and explanations are brillint. I have struggled with AnyRail, trying to figure it out myself. This is soo useful! Thank you very much for taking the time to produce these tutorials.
This is so interesting, especially switching patterns. How is the atmospheric condition considered for the switch...simple time of day or something else? Thanks for the tour, I wish the other sites had been included. I knew Dave McElhatton and his family off the air and still remember hearing him on KCBS as a kid. What a great guy he was.
Pattern change times are spelled out by the FCC on the station license. It is the monthly average sunrise and sunset times at the transmitter site rounded off to the nearest 15 minutes.
Alex, that box was a custom design by the engineering department. It used some off the shelf components and also some custom circuitry and circuit boards designed by us. It was pretty handy to have. Dave
You can get rid of the curve where the river meets the edge of the benchwork entirely by selecting just those points and changing them from “curved” to “normal”.
Hi Steven, yes that is correct. Another viewer pointed this out as well. When I get around to the next video I will point out how to do that. Thanx, Dave
Thanks for the quick reply. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. I can see where you would need such a big generator if you need to run both transmitters at the same time. There is nothing like loving attention and care to keep an engine, big or small, running into its old age.
The generaor was spec'd to run the old GE transmitter, which was a power hog. When we installed the DX-50 we found it was large enough to run it and the MW-50 transmitters at full power without breaking a sweat. Maintenance was contracted out to a company that also maintained the diesel engines on the Golden Gate ferries.
When I worked for a unnamed railroad the fouling point (by definition in the rule book) was of an adjacent track was 4 1/2 car lengths from the switch points of a switch. A standard boxcar is 50' feet long so that distance would be 225' from the switch points. Sometimes in order to gauge if a car was in the clear I would stand next to the car and the end of the ties of an adjacent track and swing my arm up and down and see if I could touch the railcar next to me. If I could not touch the car then it was in the clear. Later on management painted the clearance points and all cars had to be behind the paint marks. The managers not understanding the rules would apply the paint 225 feet from the frog of the switch thus making the new clearance point maybe 325 or 350' from the switch. This made the yard lose a lot of space and also made switching cars much harder for crews.
You said there is a 210 THOUSAND watt generator. A 210 KW generator is a BIG gen set, about $127,000 big. Did you misspeak or is 210 KW accurate? Great video. Thanks.
Hi. That's right. It is a 210KW gen. We could run both 50KW transmitters at full mod without having to do any load shedding in the building. It's an old generator too. I started there in November of 1988 and it was there then and it is still going strong today. We were very careful about regular maintenance on all of our generators. Dave
Hi JR, yes it is a 210 Kw Caterpillar diesel genset, a real beast of a generator. When the site was built after WWII KCBS only had the 50Kw GE transmitter and no backup transmitter or generator. Then around 1960 they installed a 10Kw Continental transmitter and a 50 Kw diesel generator to run it. The generator was replaced in the late 1970s by the 210 Kw Caterpillar so they could run the 50 Kw GE transmitter (it was a real power hog) instead of having to cut back to the 10 Kw transmitter during power outages. It had a 4000 gallon fuel tank that would run the GE transmitter for about two weeks, When the MW-50 delegated the GE to backup status it used less than half as much power so the generator just loafed along and used considerably less fuel. In the early 1990s FEMA chose KCBS as one of the EAS Primary Entry Point stations. They built a fallout shelter with a studio inside by adding 12" thick concrete walls and ceilings to one of the back rooms. They wanted to replace the generator but we turned them down since the Caterpillar was far better than the lowest bid generator they wanted to install. FEMA said having 4000 gallons of fuel on site wasn't enough (they wanted the generator to run for a full month at maximum load) so they installed a second 4000 gallon fuel tank next to the first one. Since the generator runs at less than half load those tanks now hold about 2 months worth of fuel.
That second tank is the only one still in use. We decommissioned the original in 2014 or so. 5000 gallons of fuel is still enough for KCBS to run for about a month. The original tank was a single wall with a containment wall around it. The newer tank is double walled.
Vertical curve of the grade at the ends should not be a turnout (switch) or a curve spiral. The combination of curving and grade change on a locomotive and cars can result in a derailments. The length of either a spiral or vertical in small scales should be six plus inches and 12 to 18 inches in ,larger scales. Google spiral curves for the formula and caluations Old Pete Silcox Old Pete Silcox.
Kind of disappointed - I've now watched all the videos and got up-to-date. Enjoyed them tremendously but now you've left a void until the next one! Great series, thanks. Congratulations on making it all so accessible. All I have to do now is bite the bullet and start my own design. Any idea where to get 00 gauge UK track plan inspiration?
Hi Andrew, glad you liked the videos. I know, I have been really bad about getting more done. I have been working on a couple of complicated electronics projects lately that have been consuming my time along with other things. I promise I will get to the next one soon. I also have some other ideas that will get into more minutiae of the program. As for ideas, I always just look at published plans of any scale and then see if they can be adapted to what I want to do or maybe I can grab bits and pieces here and there. Right now I am putting the finishing touches on the room that will house my railroad and looking at that blank space, I'm thinking it's redesign the track plan time. Good luck with your project! Dave
