The author has been the certification chairman of SBE Chapter 79 in Austin, Texas, for more than 35 years. He is currently an instructor for the Texas Association of Broadcasters.
Many of you may still see this transmitter in operation today as mains or backups in markets all over America. I know because there are still over 6,000 of these in the U.S. alone, and thousands all over the world. What you may or may not know is that we are losing engineers capable of repairing and maintaining these transmitters today, and for the unforeseeable future.
Their replacements may not know how they really work, or how to repair them. I’m talking about the legendary Continental 816R series single-tube/solid-state transmitters from A to HD, which were and are produced by Continental Electronics for over 40 years. You can imagine how many of these left the factory every day in those 40 years, weighing over 1,800 pounds and producing the high-power RF required to cover a market area.
We are now moving quickly into the full solid-state transmitter field with plug and play for repairs and upgrades, but don’t overlook that these 816Rs are ready for the electronic pasture. I know they will still be running long after many of us are gone. My concern is that the new or younger engineers have not been given the knowledge or training to fully understand these high-powered, dependable transmitters.
All we have done with the advancement of technology is move over to transmitters with many transistors working together to take the place of this one high-voltage tube that can produce the high-powered license required.
Granted, the solid-state transmitters of today have been refined for high efficiency and dependability, requiring little knowledge from the engineer to pull out a circuit diagram to understand the issue, see computer alerts indicating what is wrong and just replacing the modules to get back up to full power.
Just so you know, I have worked with Nautel, Gates-Harris, BE, CCA, Continental, etc., for most of my 55 years, and was one who wanted to promote many of these solid-state transmitters. I felt they were a blessing in keeping my stations on the air and easier to maintain.
When it came to the 816R in the early days of my broadcasting career, I was sometimes nervous in working on them since most of the ones I had were very reliable for many years. When it had an issue I had to re-educate myself on what could be the problem or contact the manufacturer quickly for more serious issues. Those days may be long gone.
Remember, these transmitters had many safety features you had to know about since over 8,000 volts were present in different locations of the transmitter and its interlocks — something a novice engineer may overlook with this high voltage factor.
So, here we are today, and many of you reading this might want to consider this last of its kind 2-day complete repair and maintenance course featured at the TAB convention this August 6th & 7th.
The 2-day course not only features the videos, study guides and instructional sections, but the ability for attendees to have hands-on experience with a full 816R series transmitter. Your instructors will be Steve Hasskamp, who you might know was the field engineer for many years at Continental, and traveled the U.S. and world with his more than 50 years in the field of radio and TV broadcasting.
Your second instructor will be Bob Stroupe, a PBESBE, a chief engineer and a regional engineer in Texas with iHeartMedia.
Bob also brings over 50 years of his expertise in audio processing and RF, having worked with every tube and solid-state transmitter produced in the last 70 years. Those that take this course will have the knowledge to maintain and repair this legendary transmitter with its long record of reliability.
Remember, this will be the last complete repair and maintenance course you will ever have in your lifetime on this legendary 816r series transmitter. A certificate with your name will be presented by mail to attendees a week after the course is given.
I’m hoping that those who take this course will become gurus — or at least very knowledgeable engineers — to pass this information on to those new engineers in the field of FM for the future.
Let’s make sure you and our future engineers have the information needed to repair and safely work on this transmitter and others.
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