At 17:37 26/07/2011, you wrote:
In message <[email protected]>,
[email protected]
writes:
>Would someone tell me, please, if the Master, at Sellia Marina,
>or the Slave X, at Lampedusa, of the 79900 Mediterranean Chain
>are still in operation.
As far as I know, they are not, and have not been since the USCG
left them approx 20 years ago.
I confirm by direct experience. I went to Sellia Marina on Dec. 30th,
1997. The station was almost abandoned, and had been handled to the
Italian Coast Guard since several months.
One of the two 300 kW transmitters had been cannibalized, and the
other one was out of service with a defective cooling system. The
antenna mast was in good shape, and the equipment, including the
atomic clocks, was switched off. I was impressed by the station
control computer (a PDP-8). The station timer was also out of order
and needed extensive service.
At the time, the Turkish station was out of service, the mast was
down because of a tornado. A replacement mast, arrived from Japan,
was never erected. The two transmitters in Lampedusa Island were off
service, one cannibalized, in the other a rat exploded into the HV
power supply.
The Spanish station in Estartit was closed, and the Italian Coast
Guard had not been able to inspect it.
The Sellia Marina mast has been dismantled since then. I still have
the schematic diagrams of the transmitters, I had to restore them in
operation, but the project was cancelled. The extimated cost of the
transmitting tubes (mainly old glass triodes by ITT), to be purchased
to restore the transmitters and have a reserve for the network, was
then approx 1 million Euro.
So, R.I.P. chain 7990 :-(
73 - Marco IK1ODO
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
