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Home › Forums › Everything else › VOA Greenville NC

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    VOA Greenville NC

    Posted by KD3Y on 2024-02-21 at 00:55

    If you’re ever in Eastern North Carolina, stop by and visit the last VOA shortwave transmitting station in the United States ~ Officially known as the “Edward R Murrow Transmitting Station, Voice of America Site B.” I pass it when I go to my V.A.
    appointments.

    VOA Sites A, B, and C were constructed in 1961. The sites were chosen to ensure the best electronic propagation conditions and due to the remoteness of the rural North Carolina area. Six shortwave transmitters were built with two more added in 1986. The station covers nearly 3,000 acres and has over 26 miles of 500KW transmission line. There are sixteen dipole curtain arrays with an average antenna gain 17 dBi and twenty rhombic antennas with an average antenna gain of 15 dBi. The antenna masts are 450 feet high. Two of the dipole curtain arrays can slew azimuth and take off angle, allowing the transmission to be “aimed” at a particular region on the globe. The CIA used this method of directing transmissions to South America and Europe during the 60’s and 70’s.

    Today, Site B includes three General Electric 250 Kilowatt high-level plate modulated transmitters, one Brown Boveri 500 Kilowatt PSM transmitter, and an AEG Telefunken 500 Kilowatt PDM transmitter. Sites A and C were decommissioned in 1989 and today they are used by East Carolina University and the State of North Carolina to store artifacts recovered from Blackbeards flagship “Queen Anne’s’ Revenge”. The antenna switch matrix connects any of the eight transmitters to any of the thirty-six antennas on the site. Today Site B uses at least three of its transmitters for Spanish programming aimed at Cuba. English language news and music is also broadcast to Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and by relays to former Eastern Bloc countries.

    The station has a computer-controlled tuning system for the GE transmitters. Each transmitter can change frequency several times a day. The computer system micro-controllers to set the tuning elements to specific values. A frequency change can usually be done in less than one minute.

    Today the site is no longer broadcasting propaganda (or if it is they won’t admit it). The station has its own fire department as RF energy generated by the antennas sometimes sets the grass on fire. The equipment runs warm enough that no heat is needed in the winter, and in the summer the facility is cooled by air conditioners connected to air conditioning ducts that are large enough to walk upright in.

    VOA_Greenville
    KE8HNK replied 2 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies

  • KD3Y

    Member
    2024-02-21 at 01:12
    31
    10W posting rank

    My shack. LOL
    I WISH!

    VOA Site “B” Greenville, NC
    Photos courtesy Paul Thurst, KH2R

    VOA-curtain-arrays1
    VOA-open-TX-lines
    VOA-towers
    VOA-GS
    VOA-curtain-detail-768x1152

  • KE8HNK

    Member
    2024-03-06 at 15:10
    27
    10W posting rank

    Also Check out the Bethany station here in Ohio If any of you are coming to Hamvention you wont be disappointed.

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