[Milsurplus] Conelrad

[Michael J. Clarson]

 Ray: Memory is a bit fuzzy, but I do recall listening to a MAJOR Conelrad
test sometime in the early/mid 60's. I was 11 or 12 at the time. This was
part of some kind of drill, and was much more than the usual 10 second test.
AM stations went off, and the Conelrad Station came on. I listened to the
announcements on 640 in the Northern New Jersey (NY) area. I did know ahead
of time it was going to happen. I believe the way Conelrad was supposed to
work is that once activated, AM stations could not be used to home in on
because "the enemy" would not know which ststion they were listening to.
Also, the stations would be changed during the broadcast to confuse anything
that was homing in. --Mike, WV2ZOW

-----Original Message-----
From: milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Ray Fantini
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 9:50 AM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Milsurplus] Conelrad

This is not exactly mil radio related but it is radio. For the last several
years I have worked part time for Clearchannel radio as a transmitter
engineer. over that time I have had to rebuild three different AM sites and
this included replacing old Gates ( Harris) transmitters of the BC-5 (5Kw)
and BC-1 (1Kw) series. all of these transmitters were from the late forties
and early fifties and were equipped with the dual crystal selector for the
second "Conelrad"
crystal. Asked a couple of the old timers around here and no one remembers
for certain if their were any occasions where they actually tested the
system, their is some speculation that once a year or so they would do a
national test and everyone would switch to that channel then but that would
be a test with no audio, but the question I have is if you had to operate on
the Conelrad channel don't think you would have much output unless your
regular broadcast channel was close to the Conelrad channel. The narrow
tuning range of the transmitters and antenna tuning networks would probably
give you only twenty or thirty watts or so, and all the old transmitters I
have seen have no provisions for a second set of networks for Conelrad. Its
amazing how almost all the people working in broadcasting now have no idea
that this system ever existed, many don't remember the EBS system and the
red authenticating envelope or how you were not allowed under penalty of law
to open the envelope before it expired. and last but not least everyone has
heard the story of how the Japanese were able to receive the AM broadcast
from Hawaii and possibly use that for tracking towards Pearl Harbor, but is
their any evidence that the Russians twenty years later would have used
commercial broadcasting for target location? would have thought they had
systems more advanced then that?
Ray Fantini KA3EKH