SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX018
ARLX018 Oldest LW transmitter
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QST de W1AW
Special Bulletin 18 ARLX018
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT October 15, 1996
To all radio amateurs
SB SPCL ARL ARLX018
ARLX018 Oldest LW transmitter
The world's only working Alexanderson alternator will broadcast this
month from Sweden on 17.2 kHz. A nostalgic Morse code transmission at
0900 UTC on October 23 from station SAQ in Grimeton on Sweden's west
coast will commemorate the declaration of the radio station as an
historic building. The RCA Alexanderson alternator was built in 1924.
The SAQ site, complete with six antenna towers and the 200 kW
transmitter, are under the care and management of Telia Mobitel, a
Swedish mobile telephone company, and the radio museum of the Radio
Historical Society of West Sweden, which operates club station SK6RM.
Ulf Sjoden, SM6CVE, has helped to organize the event.
SAQ also will transmit a test on October 21, at approximately 1100
UTC. SAQ requests listener reports of both the test and the
commemorative message via telephone at 46-340-74251 or fax at
46-340-74195. Callers will be reimbursed for the cost of the call.
The operator at SAQ is Bengt Dugaas, who is not a ham.
The Alexanderson alternator was developed during the early years of
wireless by Ernst Alexanderson, a Swedish-American. The device is
essentially a large, electromechanical high-frequency alternator with
a high-speed rotor that's connected directly to an antenna system. A
similar station once operated on Long Island. The circuit was used to
transmit telegrams and messages between Europe and the US.
Last fall, Amateur Radio station 7S6SAQ operated from the SAQ site to
celebrate 100 years of radio and the 70th anniversary of the radio
station (see ''Up Front,'' QST, Nov 95 , p 14, for a picture of the
Alexanderson alternator and the antenna system). During September
1995, SAQ itself transmitted a message to England which was relayed
via landline from a BBC monitoring station to those attending a ''100
Years of Radio'' conference in London.
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