WICEN Vic: Fascinating technology

John & Bronwyn jandbmorrissey at gmail.com
Mon Oct 25 01:27:27 CDT 2021


Thanks Don, it's a fascinating video.

The Alexanderson Alternator was a pretty serious piece of electrical and 
mechanical engineering.

It's interesting that the same basic principle - of variable reluctance 
in the magnetic circuit - is used in modern stepper motors.

Electrical control equipment like this was still being supplied even in 
the 1950's and 60's - the open control panels are very similar!  Keep 
one hand in your pocket!

Apparently at least some of the Alexanderson stations generated Morse 
Code or even AM using magnetic amplifiers - another fascinating but 
largely forgotten piece of technology which was still being installed 
into the 1960's and was still operating at industrial scale until quite 
recently.

Thanks for this.

Cheers,   John

On 25/10/2021 08:31, Donald Fraser wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Details of the recent  transmission from the historic SAQ Grimeton transmitter? I never seen a better example of Steampunk Radio than this. I watched the YouTube video and was amazed at the complexity of the generator for the carrier wave, its oil pumps and variable water resistors, and the relays which all work to generate the constant 17.2 Khz carrier.
> Main page: The Alexander association - Grimeton SAQ veteran radio friends
> YouTube video: https://youtu.be/f6cEm9A71g8
>
> Cheers
>    [Don:25/10/21]
>
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