[bars] [yccc] Interesting OT: 500 Kw AM radio

[Geoffrey Feldman]

OK N1BJ

 

In 1972, I took a course at Hampshire College (the one in Amherst, MA) on “Technology Assessment”.  The Professor was Brian O’Leary who wrote a fun book called “The making of an Ex-Astronaut”.   That book was about the science astronaut program and problems with it. Short Synopsis:   O’Leary was an a Dr. of astrophysics but he didn’t like to fly airplanes.   Hampshire college was not and is not exactly a hotbed of conservative thinking either.  

 

We had three government projects that we examined because there did not seem to be complete public disclosure.  One was the space shuttle and the notion that it was not really the re-usable spaceplane, flying ever few weeks,  that was then claimed (it wasn’t and isn’t).   We looked at the solid rocket boosters and puzzled about the narrow operating window and the o-rings.  The second project was project sanguine.  The third, I’ve forgotten. Clearly it did not make an impression.

 

Side story: I was majoring in psychology but electronics had always been an interest.  A fellow psych student was measuring the ESP of rats.  (Spoiler, they don’t have any) but the experiment involved shocking the rats feet so they could try (futilely) to be on the lucky side of their cage.  Problem was (among many) that the power supply was cooking the rats.  I stepped in as a favor to my friend and introduced current regulated pulses as a solution.  This brought me to the attention of the head of the physics department and thus to his company that was developing and marketing music synthesizers.  It was an awesome, well-paying job off campus with major fringe benefits of frequent trips to Woodstock among other places.  I digress but this leads me to the fun epilog of this story.

 

Back to Sanguine.  We knew that Sanguine had really long (miles) antennas.  We knew that power grids were 60hz and 50hz and lighting typically pulses at about 55hz.  From there we concluded that it’s operating frequency was about 85hz.  It might have been as high as 160hz or so, but not much more than that.  It couldn’t be a harmonic of 50, 55, or 60 either.  As I said, we worked out that it would take a really long time, on the order of an hour to send a useful encrypted message, with sufficient repeats to get through clearly.  We also thought it would kill earth worms and thus there was an environmental issue.  That part, I don’t think is true but … Hampshire College.  Save the worms.   We felt that its purpose was to start an attack, not end it or that for how long a message took, pretty useless in calling off a submarine nuclear attack.

 

Leaving Psychology behind, Music Synthesizers was more fun and less morally troubling than Psychology (another course was on the science of persuasion from brain washing to selling used cars).  This lead to me developing what, to my knowledge, is the only fully electronic vibraphone. Why? Someone wanted it and I had the post adolescent cahones to say I would build it.  I did.  It was then called the “Synthivibe”.  I then started working with Todd Rundgren and Monsieur Frog (his initial synth guy).  Frog released his own album and a song “We are Crazy”.  You can listen to this while you are reading the rest of my story.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCpaoo8iK8M   Also here is the album that featured my electronic vibraphone.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRlqE48JQr8

 

Rundgren was interested in computers and lasers.  I went to professors at UMass Amherst I knew who were doing work with image recognition and computer displays. They referred me to a company called “Ramtech”, and Lincoln Labs which was doing image recognition and display, as well as a laser guy at American Science and engineering.  All that lead to escorted (past the more interesting stuff) tips to Lincoln Labs and AS&E.  Nobody had done a Laser Light show (yet) but Rundgren wanted a raster image of himself dressed as king tut above a large pyramid, at an arena venue. (that would have been the acceptance test).  The conclusion was that the power and control of the lasers could not be done safely and Rundgrens insurer bagged the project (Wisely I might add).  Meanwhile I spent a couple of weekends at his place in woodstock with his very beautiful girl friend Bebe Buell, who (as it turns out) was carrying Liv Tyler in her belly. Yes, we listened and wired an electronic stethoscope to the tape recorder in his home studio.    I don’t think that ever made it to his music but now I digress. I did meet Liv Tyler in utero or at least her fetal heartbeat.

 

While all this was happening (we are getting closer to the end), I was building altair 8800 computers for Rundgren and playing around with a Cromemco graphics board.   All this involved the infamous 4K Dynamic memory boards.   I was visiting the Computer store in Cambridge paying cash for more and more Altair parts, including the memories.  One of the partners, a guy named Don Johansen asked me if I was happy with what I was buying. I cheerfully told him I was.  He then said that I was the only satisfied customer for the memory boards.  So – they hired me as their “Technical director”.  (all that psychology from brain washing to used cars (or flakey computers) came in super handy too.

 

After a year or so I was getting bored.  So that partner who hired me, asked me if I wanted to work at his day job which was “CSPI”, also in Burlington.

 

As many of you may know all computers have a master clock which moves the computer from micro operation to micro operation synchronously.  Not the ones at CSPI. They were asynchronous.  What they were really good at was fast fourier transforms and signal processing.  They were less expensive than a Cray, almost as fast, a lot flakier and relatively portable if you had C-160.  I was hired as a test engineer and plant manager 2nd shift.  That also included taking care of customers (who worked late at night on our stuff).  Ernest Ashkenazi was one of them, later appearing unnamed in the Senate Investigation of gun shots on the grassy knoll in Dallas (but I am really digressing).

 

Back to Project Sanguine… 

I was having lunch with the VP of Engineering for CSPI and that partner from the Computer store (named Don Johansen) and a couple of other people at friendly’s, next to the CSPI plant.   Someone walked up to our table and was asking Don if he could help with the 50 megawatt triacs in Wisconsin.  My ears perked up.  I said, “Oh you work on Sanguine, I have some questions about bandwidth and earth worms.  How long are those antennas anyway?  End fed ½ wave 85 hz???? 

 

I have never seen a human being disappear that fast.  I have no idea what nerve I hit.

 

Don, the officer of the company I worked for, normally a very calm guy was almost red-faced.  He asked me how did I know this?  OK  Reread the rest of the story because that’s pretty much what I told him.    Turns out he had been project manager for Sanguine, then left to work at CSPI (which may or may not have been a vendor for whoever or whatever was building Sanguine).   I was informed that Don was going to be spending the next 48 hours explaining the existence of me and the complete lack of connection between my questions, my employer and Don.  I had never really thought much about who was buying flakey hot rod asynchronous computers (perhaps even used as the first SDRs?) other than No Such Agency.  Whoops.  Well I continued at CSPI, then went on to ITEK and Digital Equipment Corp.

 

While still at CSPI and looking at the offer from ITEK (which was for photo typesetters)  I was asked if I wanted to go to Tehran work maintaining CSPI gear (somewhere near the Russian border of Iran).  I would have had to go through a deep security check but I would have been making a very large amount of money relative to what I was making then.    I was informed that I would not be allowed to leave the USA for 20 years without permission.  I asked them if they could give me an example of a country they wouldn’t let me go to and the answer was “France”.   All this may have been partly to get me under security contract (as well as maintain very flakey computers) … so that I would never discuss Sanguine or Seafarer again.  I didn’t take the job.  I would have been an NSA (or CIA) contractor in Iran when the Shah fell.  Where was the Ayatollah when all that was going on?  France.   I have been told that although “The Hostage Crisis” was in the news there were “People” there as well but they all were rescued safely without making the evening news and that would have been me too. 

 

OK N1BJ – you asked.

W1GCF

Geoff

 

 

 

 

From: William Smith [mailto:w_smith at compusmiths.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2022 4:47 PM
To: Geoffrey Feldman
Cc: Kenneth Weinbeck; p2vradioguy at gmail.com; k1tw at comcast.net; bars at w1hh.org; ne-cw-friends at groups.io
Subject: Re: [bars] [yccc] Interesting OT: 500 Kw AM radio

 

We like better stories, tell us!

 

There was a 24 KHz 2MW (into a -3dB antenna) VLF transmitter in Cutler Maine that got into _everything_ on our boat as we went by there one year.

 

73, Willie N1JBJ





On Jan 26, 2022, at 4:36 PM, Geoffrey Feldman <geoffreyf at comcast.net> wrote:

 

It’s a better story than that.

 

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