Last of the coal-fired broadcasting stations in Newfoundland still transmitting on the AM band.
The Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland (BCN) runs the transmitter (with repeater station on the Twillingate Islands for a Long Wave relay serving the Doreymen on the Grand Banks and Greenland fishery).
Recent budget cuts mean that come July 1st,the coal furnaces, boilers and turbines (salvaged from the former German battleship, Tirpitz) will be scrapped and a new FM transmitter placed on line.
Seventy-eight rpm vinyl fans expressed sadness, saying that only 'coal-fied electrons' could do justice to Guy Lombardo and Anne Murray, eh?
wow.at first i thought this was a prank post attar.hell i live in canada and never heard of these coal fired transmitters.so i googled it and lo and behold they were real.thanks for this post.funny how you can live in a country and find so much about it you didnt know.would add here that the one pictured was in st johns newfoundland and was designed by renowned architect, Duff Wheeler.
Wheeler of course was a Newfie by birth: raised in Come By Chance by a colony of Portuguese scallop draggers who were marooned there by the outbreak of the Great War.
His tragic death in 1949 in Dildo (the town's name being a perennial source of mirth for persons of the lower classes) when he was run over by a lady driver from Chicago who was attending the bi-annual conference of the Silken Daughters of Sappho, was sensational news in the Dominion and caused the then Governor General, Viscount Alexander, to declare three days official mourning.
BTW, it should be noted that the official reasons given for closing the last coal fired transmitter (a supposed shortage of lignite from the Happy Valley mine in Labrador) is viewed as a smokescreen, as it were, by the unions representing the staff at the Broadcasting Corporation.
Originally posted by attar: Wheeler of course was a Newfie by birth: raised in Come By Chance by a colony of Portuguese scallop draggers who were marooned there by the outbreak of the Great War.
His tragic death in 1949 in Dildo (the town's name being a perennial source of mirth for persons of the lower classes) when he was run over by a lady driver from Chicago who was attending the bi-annual conference of the Silken Daughters of Sappho, was sensational news in the Dominion and caused the then Governor General, Viscount Alexander, to declare three days official mourning.
BTW, it should be noted that the official reasons given for closing the last coal fired transmitter (a supposed shortage of lignite from the Happy Valley mine in Labrador) is viewed as a smokescreen, as it were, by the unions representing the staff at the Broadcasting Corporation.
