Anyone have a spare 50Kw SW Transmitter ??

[staticlistener]

Yea the story Allan told was that due to where they are and other factors no insurance company wants to even think about touching them. He also said that transmitter had just had a bunch of work done to it a few weeks prior to it deciding to have a complete meltdown to get it back up to good working condition (I think a lot of things up there are getting run down by the sounds of it). 7490 was the only frequency they have that was a full carrier AM, the others are reduced carrier SSB so they only need to make 50 kw PEP by fcc rules, not 50 kw of carrier for full AM SW stations. As far as I can tell from various websites with pictures of the transmitter site, they had the Gates MW-50 for 7490, then there was an old Collins of some sort in that same building with the Gates and also a TMC GPT-40, then in another building was another transmitter that appeared to be a hybrid of a TMC exciter with a Collins amp, then I believe I've heard on Allan's show that there was a third building that has the new Harris MW-50 for 3265 in it (this is a newer version of the transmitter that burned up). From some old info I found that Collins was the 9330 rig and the GPT-40 was used for their higher band service (17495?, 18910, 15420 I believe, possibly others) and the TMC/Collins was the 5130 rig, but then a recent episode of AWW he said that the 7490 transmitter building had the 5130 transmitter and the backup 7490 rig in it, so one of those (the Collins or the GPT-40) is 5130 and the other is now being run on 7490. Anyway, to make things even more interesting in the world of WBCQ, get a load of this:

http://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/0002/ampegon-installs-shortwave-array-antenna/340965

EDIT: Not to mention all of this is going on right around the time that they loose what was probably their biggest income source (brother stair).

[Azimuth Coordinator]

That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range   WBCQ will have some signal with that antenna array.  I wonder if it also comes with a combiner..

[ChrisSmolinski]

That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range   WBCQ will have some signal with that antenna array.  I wonder if it also comes with a combiner..

Did Allan win the lottery? 

[staticlistener]

You know, now that I think about it, I find it kinda ironic that they would have such an advanced piece of antenna technology, but at the same time Allan is adamant about running only old transmitters after what happened to that MW-50. I imagine that array takes some hefty electric motors or something to rotate it, ought to be interesting up there seeing how the only power available onsite is single phase. 

[ChrisSmolinski]

So what's going to happen first... WBCQ gets that antenna, or WMLK finally gets back on the air?  There's always the chance that neither happens 

[staticlistener]

Don't know, but both of them have deals going with Ampegon it looks like...

http://ampegon.com/news/?id=91

[KaySeeks]

That Ampegon Antenna has to be in the $200 - $300K range.

I suggest that it might cost more than $300K US.

$150k US might cover the labour cost of two engineers (one electrical and one mechanical) coming from Switzerland to install along with the labour of the team of construction crew and riggers who will actually pour the concrete, install the motors, assemble, put the thing up and ensure mechanical functionality. Maybe the riggers will come from Switzerland, maybe they won't.

Not covered by the above: any NRE, cost of shipment, cost of materials, cost of partial assembly in Switzerland, profit margin (which won't be less than 50%).