I spent this morning at WFMU's transmitter, assisting Chief Engineer John Fogarazzo, or "The Fog Machine", as we affectionately refer to him around here at the Magic Factory. Our transmitter is located in a heavily guarded bunker in East Orange, and accessing it requires a complicated series of fingerprint verifications, retina scans, and the presentation of multiple forms of identification.
Over the years, I've been sent on many of these missions with John, and I look forward to them because he often bestows some of his considerable knowledge of radio science upon me. As someone who still doesn't really understand how the little bumps on the record make the music come out when they touch the needle, I'm hopeful that these lessons will one day transform me into the Edwin Howard Motherfuckin' Armstong of my generation. This is what I learned today:
This:
doesn't do the same thing as this:
Would that tube be a Klystron tube? A very important tube, isn't it. Or maybe I am thinking of tv...
And the second pic is of foam? (insulation?)
Posted by: Lipwak | June 07, 2005 at 06:48 PM
Not just foam, expanding foam. One of the most beautiful building materials in my mind.
Posted by: Ed Word | June 07, 2005 at 11:17 PM
Looks like a steep learning curve...
Posted by: Ome Ko | June 08, 2005 at 05:56 AM
The first photo is of a 4-400 C vacuum tube, a classic in the relm of RF amplifiers that is capable of 500 watts output in class C operation.
Kewl!
Posted by: HLRose | June 08, 2005 at 11:13 AM
Wow, HL Rose nailed it! That is indeed a 4400C tube, the kind that glows all purple when it's cooking!
-ken
Posted by: Station Mantaray Ken | June 08, 2005 at 02:51 PM
I thought it was Mammatus clouds.
Posted by: krokus | June 08, 2005 at 03:58 PM
That secound photo looks to be the beige variety 3M Expanding Foam DP900. It's a two-component semi-rigid polyurethane foam, common on the adhesive and sealants market. It appears to have been originally packaged with a 1:1 mix ratio. Nice stuff.
Posted by: Jeff T | June 09, 2005 at 02:35 AM
I once had to carry a 100kW AM transmitter tube. A 100 pound block of copper that was. It took just a couple of minutes for similar foam to appear from my mouth...
Posted by: poesboes | June 11, 2005 at 01:00 PM
Shucks, I missed out on the contest. Do I get points for IDing the tube as an Eimac? Anyway, 4-400 Cs that glow purple when cooking are indeed too well-done and need to be taken out of the oven. The only glow you should see in a healthy tube is either red or orange.
Posted by: toober | June 12, 2005 at 12:35 PM
have you seen the pics of the girls playing bass?
they're not very good
Posted by: p.ski | June 21, 2005 at 08:06 PM
Excellent post and wonderful blog, I really like this type of interesting articles keep it up.
Posted by: Video Conferencing | January 30, 2013 at 05:22 AM