[Milsurplus] Even Worse

[C.Whitaker]

de WB2CPN
Imagine a very young man who is attending a medium
size USAF HF Transmitter Site in 1946.   The site has
a pair of 100 KW Cummins Diesel AC generators.  He
goes to the diesel shed to place the site on emergency
power.  He checks everything over, then holds the throttle
while he pushes the start button.  She runs at an idle.
He does the same with the other engine.  After a short
warm-up he brings both engines up to speed. (50 Hz
in Berlin), on the vibrating freq meters.  He then activates
a small bulb that's connected from Phase 1 of one generator
to Phase 1 of the other generator.  Then adjust the speed
of the engines to cause the bulb to slowly stay totally dark.
That means the generators are in synch.
Then quickly transfer part of the site load to one generator,
reestablish synch, then bring in the other generator.  Bring
up all the site load, and watch the little Synch Bulb. 
Make very sure that both generators are indicating identical
currents.  The don't get out of synch, but if the load is not
balanced one generator will be pulling the other.  We didn't
have torque meters then.
Now you know how it's done, think about the National Power
Grids and their synching systems.  Without computers we'd
be back to a bunch of 50 KW Cummins's in every village.
73  Clete