Quote Originally Posted by N2NH View Post
I was on the air and running the transmitter link to the city at WPAT (AM/FM) on the night of the 77 blackout. It was a hoot. We had two transmitters in the city, both went down. Oddly enough, it was one of a few stations with a THIRD backup FM Transmitter. That one was built by Armstrong himself. It hadn't been used in decades, but with the help of the CE and a lot of DPPG, I got it to run 3 watts. About as much as the average CB radio. With the bands totally quiet, I was told you could hear it all over the city and that meant the sponsors couldn't complain.

I'm glad I'm not in the city this Aug. 14th. Ten years ago for my 50th birthday, the great northeast blackout happened on that day. I can't imagine what's in store for my 60th, but I sure don't want to be around there for it.
Years ago I was running an AM Broadcast station when a tanker truck explosion knocked out power to the 50 Kw station and several other large AM stations. I grabbed an old Johnson Ranger and modified it to transmit on the AM band. I got it powered up to about 1/2 a watt and used it to get the station back on the air. I used a bunch of 12 V car batteries in series to power the thing up.