These photos were taken at our KWSU 1250 AM transmitter site. See the antiquity? KWSU has a great history. Here is what Wikipedia says:
"KWSU has a long history in broadcasting, dating to 1908 when it was known as Washington State College. NWPR's flagship station, KWSU-AM 1250 in Pullman, is one of the oldest radio stations in the world. It signed on December 10, 1922 as KFAE and became KWSC (for Washington State College) in 1925. For many years, it served a large portion of the Pacific Northwest. It became KWSU sometime in the 1960s, after Washington State attained university status. Edward R. Murrow began his career at the station, as did Keith Jackson and Barry Serafin."
So...KWSU has been around for a while, and as you can tell by the pictures below - it looks old too! But we prefer to call this Retro Broadcasting equipment Originals! Like this generator below! WOW!
And these cabinet circuitry and components! (I totally know what these things do you know...They make radio happen!)
The man in this picture is our Station Manager, Roger Johnson. He is taking a tour of this site - yes, it is in a cow field. One time, a cow actually kicked the transmitter and we were off the air. So many jokes from engineering that day! We now have a fence around the tower to prevent bovines from broadcasting their hooves.
This Blue cabinet is "new" from the ... 70's? I'll check on that. We are in the process of updating many things at this site - which will make you very happy in Moscow and Pullman. I know how frustrating it is to lose the signal during rainstorms.
Behind this panel...is the Broadcast Transmitter....
HA HA HA! It's the bathroom! The toilet doesn't flush during thunderstorms or Mercury Retro Grade. Our engineers should appreciate this joke!
2 comments:
Mercury retrograde! XA! haven't heard that since my mom died!
Good to see your blog. I grew up in Pullman and remember when KWSU's transmitter moved from the hill behind Ortan Dorm to the current "Knot Dairy Farm" site. Sometime around 1970, at the start of my high school years.
The old transmitter was in a house near where the physical sciences building is now. It was kind of across the street from Troy Hall. Cables went across Stadium Way and up behind the vet school where the old tower was. It was self supporting and looked kind of like a sailboat mast.
As cars drove under the cable, KWSU would start overloading on car radios tuned to 1250. Also many WSU telephones had KWSU programming in the background. It came in on the phone system. My dad had an office in Troy Hall.
I remember reading, in some publication, about a strange outage of KWSU. Someone was practicing archery and the arrow hit the cable leading to the tower. That sounds about as funny as the cow outage.
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