[K3PZN-List] Fw: Invitation to view Pete's Picasa Web Album - 20090723 Radio Canada International

[Curt Milton]

Pete

very cool.  thanks for posting photos on your visit.  i guess this station is a little larger than WX3B.  of course if I put 5 watts into one of their antennas i would be bigger than WX3B or VY2SS !  

i listened to RCI as a teen with a shortwave portable i earned in paper route contest ... i guess a xtal receiver would have worked too.  likely i could find an rci listeners club certificate or a qsl if i tried.  

73 curt


--- On Tue, 7/28/09, Peter Morton <mortonph at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Peter Morton <mortonph at comcast.net>
> Subject: [K3PZN-List] Fw: Invitation to view Pete's Picasa Web Album - 20090723 Radio Canada International
> To: "Carroll County Amateur Radio Club" <k3pzn-list at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 1:16 PM
> I'm experimenting here.  Don't
> know if this will work on the reflector.
> 
> Last week while vacationing in the Maritime Provinces of
> Canada, we stopped at the Radio Canada International
> shortwave broadcast station located in the salt marshes at
> the head of the Bay of Fundy near Sackville, New
> Brunswick.  I had toured the station on my honeymoon 41
> years ago.  A lot has changed since then.
> 
> When we arrived (last week) everything was locked up and
> there was nothing to indicate that tours were
> available.  So, son James and I went to the main door
> and rang the door bell.  A nice fellow named Charles
> Guitard came to the door and said that due to budget
> reasons, they no longer gave tours, but if I talked to him
> nicely, he would be glad to show us around.  We
> accepted his offer.
> 
> Charles was the actual operator of the station and seemed
> to be glad to have something to do.  While there I only
> saw him and his boss.  There are more people supporting
> the station, but I didn't see any.
> 
> The station is capable of operating on the 6, 9, 12, 15, 18
> and 21 MHz broadcast bands.  Charles said they haven't
> used the 21 MHz band for number of years.  There are
> seven relatively new Thomson (Thomcast) 250 KW transmitters,
> three older Harris 100KW transmitters, one new Thomson DRM
> (Digital Radio Mondiale) transmitter.  For more info on
> DRfM see the Wikipedia page at:  
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_radio_mondiale 
> 
> At the end of the wiki article are links to how to modify
> receivers to receive DRM using a PC.
> 
> The transmitters are water cooled.  There is a lot of
> plumbing, pumps, de-ionizing equipment, and outside heat
> exchangers to support cooling.
> 
> Each transmitter has its own antenna tuner built in, and
> feeds balanced lines, two air-dielectric coaxes over a foot
> in diameter with a copper pipe center conductor before
> transitioning to open-air line in the antenna-switch matrix
> room.  Charles said the antennas have a maximum VSWR of
> 1.5:1.  
> 
> All antennas seem to be curtain arrays of dipoles supported
> by 460 foot towers, typically an array of two dipoles wide
> by four dipoles high by two deep.  I suspect all
> dipoles are spaced at 1/2 wavelength apart vertically. 
> The feedlines have a 180 twist between each dipole as they
> progress vertically.  Charles said they can shift the
> phase of the feed-lines to the curtain to steer the radiated
> beam about 15 degrees off bore sight if desired.  
> 
> I took a number of photos and hopefully, the Picasa link
> (tinyurl) at the bottom of this email will work.
> 
> Here is a link to the summer broadcast schedule of Radio
> Canada International.  Sites labeled SAC are this
> Sackville, New Brunswick station.  The schedule lists
> frequencies and the areas of the world targeted. Also, the
> DRM broadcasts are listed.
> 
> http://www.rciviva.ca/rci/PDF/2009Summer/RCI-TECH-A09-ENG.pdf 
> 
> 
> The station also has broadcasts to northern Quebec in the
> Inuit language.
> 
> The RCI website is:  http://www.rciviva.ca/rci/en/
> 
> Here is a link to my photos:
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/lfffe5
> 
> -Pete, W3GVX
> ______________________________________________________________
> K3PZN-List mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/k3pzn-list
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:K3PZN-List at mailman.qth.net
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>