radio045

KPO Radio, San Francisco
500 Watt Transmitter
1923

radio045

The transmitter room of KPO was located on the sixth floor of the Hale Brothers Department Store. On the operator’s desk is a radio receiver which was used to listen for distress calls from sea for five minutes’ an hour (during which time, the station was required to be off the air!). Behind the desk on the left is the generator control panel, which operated a 5-1/2 horsepower motor which drove a 2 KW 1600 volt DC generator. To the right of the control panel is the Western Electric 500 watt transmitter. At the right of the operator’s desk is the speech input panel which amplified the program audio and allowed the operator to adjust the modulation level of the transmitter.

Voices Out Of The Fog

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All articles copyright © 1997-2006 by John F. Schneider. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with the generous permission of the author.

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