Carl Sturdy
CARL STURDY
KFI’s ‘Wireless’ Engineer
By Newcomb Weisenberger
Carl Sturdy |
CARL STURDY KFI’s ‘Wireless’ Engineer By Newcomb Weisenberger |
Earle C. Anthony didn’t need a wireless operator for his 5,000-Watt AM Transmitter. (That long ago only shipboard operators / Radio Officers, had the needed, commercial radio experience.) Mr. Anthony made a good choice, having selected Carl with his Ship’s operator’s license and wireless transmitter, logged, experience.
Carl Sturdy had seen service as Radio Officer aboard one of the Great Lake’s Iron Ore boats. When Carl told me this story, it was not about a spark transmitter, it was about the water in the Great Lakes. Carl sent and received all the radio messages about the business of the boat and it’s captain. That is, Cargo, docking, weather, schedule etc.
Fact: Prevailing winds actually “tilt” these State sized lakes, affecting the tonnage being delivered.
Maps show the depth of water along the traffic lanes and at the docks. Captains are paid by the ton for the ore delivered.
The draft of the boat is adjusted to clear the bottom safely. The trick is to predict that clearance as the water depth varies. A strong, on-shore wind will increase the depth a number of feet! The captain may load extra tons of cargo to take advantage of deeper water. These will mean bonus dollars that profit the captain and crew. I was content with Carl’s story and didn’t ask whether or not the ship owners knew of the risk taken or if this was a common practice.
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Carl was very neat in appearance and in his lifestyle. It followed he that wanted the Buena Park, KFI transmitter kept “shipshape” as well. Brass was kept shining. (Over-head, copper tubing co-joined the high voltage and RFequipment.) Perhaps over 150 feet total, that tarnished week by week. This could only be polished when KFI was off the air. KFI used gallons of copper polish. The oxide turned the wiping cloth black. There was a flagstaff on the roof where the American flag was flown during daylight hours. It was raised at sunup and lowered at sunset every day. This was done from the balcony outside the front door. The metal railing, high on the second floor, was like a ship’s bridge. The first floor, busy with rotating machines, looked and sounded like a ship’s engine room below decks. The water tanks and pumps with their duplicate plumbing added to the ship-like setting. The machine shop, with its lathe, drilling, grinding and milling machines was kept ready for inspection. The workbench also served as our lunch table, the shop served as our kitchen. Metal ladder rungs were attached to the shop’s north wall. These led to a trap door to the roof, its domestic water tank and the searchlights. The metal lockers, the toilet room and shower’s metal panels, reminded one, of the U.S. Navy. All of this metal on both floors, was painted Ship gray. One transmitter engineer, Ray Walling, was a ranking Naval reserve officer. Often those Engineers climbing the interior metal stairs, would pause at the second floor and call out, “Permission to come aboard”. (Whether or not Ray was on duty.) |
Early Pioneer radio stations were assigned three letter calls from ships taken out of service. (We are told that sailors don’t want to sail in a ship carrying calls from wrecked or sunken ships. The abandoned radio calls were assigned by the FRC to land stations instead.)
We were proud of the old; three letter call, (It has been my privilege to open a mike and announce the identification of KFI, its frequency of 640,000 Hertz and power of 50,000-Watts, its owner Earle C. Anthony.)
This, self-motivated, team of transmitter engineers maintained the clearest, strongest, most accurate, un-interrupted, AM radio signal possible.
As one approached the gray hulk of this two-story building of a foggy morning and found it standing alone in open lands of pasture or wheat, we were reminded of a ship at anchor.
Carl was good at everything I saw him do. Whatever success I have had with the shop’s machine tools, is due to the hours we have spent together there. Several stories come to mind:
Carl, very patiently, made a special template of aluminum to use with the milling machine. This would precisely position the machine to make equidistant, identical marks and spaces on the edges of transcription turntables! The many hours spent on his template were rewarded as each, studio, mixer, turntable was rapidly made to strobe the 60-cycle light at the 33 1/3rpm used for recording. This could be read at any time with the recording blank in place on the table.
KFI had printed strobe disks to place on the turntables to measure speed. However, these could not be used while a blank was in place or the table was under load.
(This may have been done at CE Blatterman’s request.) Carl, later fabricated tone arms for transcription pick up heads.
Mr. Blatterman designed these and experimented with the damping. Should the playback table be bumped, the tone arm would re-seat itself in the same groove.
Grease, of the required viscosity, was only available in 55 gallon, drums! KFI needed but ten, thimbles full! (I think that our C.E. obtained ‘free’ samples from local, auto service companies.)
(Properly damped tone arms easily track the groove but resist rapid lateral movements. The balanced arm is allowed to move vertically as it follows variations of table or disk.)
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Shop work always littered the floor with metal turnings or chips. Once, while working with Carl Sturdy, I took up the broom and metal dustpan to sweep the shop.
As neat as Carl wanted things kept, he asked me not to do it! (We had an assigned janitor for this building and grounds.) It would be a disservice to him should we do his work!
Author: Please read through the detail to the successful conclusion!
The serious auto accident, that cost Lyman Packard the loss of a limb,
Prompted: my re-assignment to the KFI transmitter at Buena Park.
Earle C. Anthony to secure his own doctor for Lyman
Carl Sturdy to fabricate a modern vacuum fitted, prosthesis for Lyman. In this setting, we three (Lyman, Carl and I) came together in the KFI machine shop at the 50,000-w transmitter site at Buena Park.
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This story is very much a part of Carl’s story and a small part of mine as well. We will see Carl bring several disciplines to bear while completing this project.
“The prosthesis”, (we didn’t call it that), became a part of our life over the months before it was finished, adjusted and worn to work. I watched the transmitter, kept the logs, cared for things outside and down stairs while Carl worked wonders in the KFI shop.
We must look at some detail if we are to appreciate what Carl accomplished. Yes, it was a full success. Like all projects, there is more to it than we want to know:
I will spare you part of it.
First, allow me to describe what is being made. We have seen pictures of Pirates with peg legs for a hundred years. These required a leather harness to keep the peg in place. Carl was making a vacuum appliance that is kept in place by atmospheric pressure! (About 15 lbs at sea level.) The KFI engineering staff became oblivious to the naked, stump and its care.
I will only say, that as far as I understand, the patient doesn’t stand on the stump. The weight is, mostly supported by the sides of the custom fitted bucket.
I watched while Carl wrapped Lyman with wet, plaster cloth, bandages.
These hardened into a tapered cast that could be slipped off. Carl used this to make a copy of Lyman. It in turn was the form on which the Fiber Glass/Resin bucket was built. (This is boat-building material.) It uses Sun Catalyst to cure. This was fitted with an air, check-valve and the end of the metal knee joint. (Both parts were purchased.)
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Lyman’s artificial knee used two metal shafts to mimic the natural action. One-to-one ratio, meshed gears joined these shafts. Each shaft had a small brake lining with an ‘Allen’ adjustment.
The casting of the lower leg required that Carl use another technique. The shape of Lyman’s good, lower, leg, being larger at the calf, than at either end, required that this cast be retractable!
Carl Sturdy made up a core of small, 1” X1” finished sticks. These were painted with a blue slip (Like Acetate.) He bundled these so that they could be turned as one piece, in the lathe. He turned this core so as to copy the shape of Lyman’s good lower, leg.
This was fitted with the upper knee fixture. Now he was ready to apply the fiberglass cloth and resin. This was placed in the sun to cure. Much like the upper cast, we have described.
Carl easily tapped out the separate sticks from the hollow resin cast!
The spring loaded, artificial foot is ordered for the proper shoe size. The shoe and sock are left on it.
A thin cushion filled with flax seed is placed in the bucket. A woman’s stocking is pulled onto the patient. The stocking is threaded down and out the air valve in the base. This is pulled gently as the bucket is slipped on. The sock is then drawn on out to clear the valve.
Lyman stands up! The join is automatic! The air is forced out like a piston in a cylinder. The valve automatically exhausts and closes. He takes a step. Inertia sends the new leg ahead for its first step. Lyman is walking! I adjust his two brakes to his gait. When he wants to remove the “Leg that Carl Built”, he presses the relief valve and stands the leg against the wall, shoe and sock included.
Note: The brakes need to be adjusted about once a week. Especially if Lyman has taken a hike!
On Mondays, he would ask me to blow out the open, knee joint with the compressed air in the shop and perhaps tighten the adjustments. He would take a few steps and ask for more or less friction. (This would have been difficult for the wearer to do.)
If you have read this far: Here is a shorter story of Lyman’s PEG leg. (Also made by Carl Sturdy)
Lyman enjoyed free diving from his boat. (There are other stories of second hand French diving lungs and the like). After Lyman’s accident, he found that he was now too buoyant and he couldn’t take his new leg into the water.
Again, Carl solved both problems! He made Lyman a diving leg. This had a metal peg that replaced the lost weight. It had no knee machinery and he could make this second bucket from the first form!
Carl even modified Lyman’s diving steps. This is a metal ladder hanging off the stern. It is used to climb into the boat or into the water. The steps were made for feet of course. These treads were modified on one side with half moon sockets to keep the wet, peg leg from slipping.
Like many Fire House men, the Buena Park Engineers cut hair! It was done in the shop of course. There was a set of tools for this service. It had been purchased by a fund provided by those involved. The kit included, professional, clipper, scissor, comb and a KFI, shop coat, drape. The brush was a nice new paintbrush dedicated to this purpose. (There was common outcry when a relief engineer used this paintbrush for paint!)
The triple, KFI, shift rotation placed the two-man, shifts in various combinations at various times. This happened at about the same interval that required a new haircut.
Carl was also the best KFI barber! Ted Cooper was a close second. I was the worst and being left-handed and colorblind, didn’t cut hair at all. I did contribute to the common fund.
(Carl was a fly fisherman and tied his own flies). Some one suggested that the cut hair, from the barbering, would make good gray hackle. Carl fixed some to a fishhook and it looked professional. (We don’t know if it was ever used or if it was a good lure.)
Trouble happens! And airtime is expensive. There is a rush to save on-air time. Most of us would hurry up and down the transmitter room, trying to scan the many meters and interpret their combined, message, then diagnose where and what the trouble was as soon as possible. This fault might be in one of several rooms up or down stairs, between the building and the tower or at the tower itself!
I saw Carl Sturdy, standing still in the confusion and in the silence of the dead transmitter. He carefully read each meter. Was it a water pump or bias or filament machine on the first floor? The 17, 000V DC power supply vault? Various tube failures? Or some failed interlock. Perhaps part of the transmitter was still working? Sometimes we had to go inside the transmitter to see and fix the fault.
Soon, Carl calmly said, “There is no filament voltage to the 50 KW amplifier” (That meant that there was no voltage to the door interlocks and that the HV was automatically shut down. We could go downstairs and shift to the spare filament machine and re-power the transmitter.)
Engineers were furnished with a powerful binocular used to inspect the tower and its lights. Powerful searchlights played on the tower’s three, guy anchors.
Carl sometimes, set up his own telescope on the balcony. He showed me the windows of the buildings on Mount Wilson! We could tell whether they were open or closed!
Our best view of sunrise was the east window of the input room. Carl was interested in the flashes of light from the atomic testing at Yucca Flats, Nevada. Just before sunrise, we might see the sky brighten and fade with those, far away, massive explosions.
One engineer kept a chart of the eastern horizon. Plotted there was the precise point of sunrise for each day of the year! I had watched some of them myself!
(We were country people and identified with the outdoors. We were up day and night every day in the year. We spent more waking hours with each other than with our families.)
Carl Sturdy brought more to KFI than wireless transmitter experience! He remembered how fast iron ore ships sink! He had been below decks before. He knew why the wireless room with its emergency batteries was on the top deck…
AM Signals like KFI, have an important ground wave. Damp, high conductivity ground produces a more powerful, ground wave. This is saleable to advertisers.
KFI at Buena Park is sited on lowland between the south bank of an east/west, drainage channel and the north bank of Coyote Creek to the south. Normally dry, California has cycles of wet winters. One of these appeared in the mid 1950s.
The rains came. The storm front stalled. Water flooded the orange orchards to the north and the freeway ditches to the south. The low part of Trojan Way and its bridge were hidden by the run off. Coyote Creek was tumbling over itself. As the water deepened, the overflow widened, reaching our mailbox and the gate. The sheet of water was moving up hill, on beyond the Edison Substation, toward the freeway.
Water was covering the parking. Our cars, parked in the garage, couldn’t be moved. The water was up to the hubcaps and was even deeper at the gate.
The circular stair tower at the northwest corner of the transmitter building was accumulating floodwater! We could see it rising upwards, step-by-step!
KFI was on the air, ignoring the flood! (I don’t know who saw this first.) But, when Carl looked off to the right of the inside stairway, It looked as if the “SHIP” was sinking!
Floodwater covered the cement floor. The machines, on their pedestals, whirled with their electric power, still out of the water’s reach.
The grille covered, floor drains were NOT draining. Instead, they were mini, vertical, fountains of dirty water.
Carl Sturdy was on shift! THIS is WHAT HE DID. With help, he shaped large tapered, wooden plugs for each floor drain. The grills were removed and the plugs tamped into place. The large double doors to the east are metal clad and their casings are metal too. Carl tore up wiping rags and caulked the threshold and leaking doorjambs, making them water tight! (The doors could not be opened while caulked.) All access to the building was up the partially flooded spiral stairs! The yellow, inflated raft was moored there.
At least two feet of floodwater now surrounded the transmitter building,
I don’t, now, know how the floor was bailed out. The water could have been dumped out the windows or down the sink. (A siphon could work here.)
The long rains stopped but the flood continued to rise. We left our cars at the side of the freeway and walked to work! The water was still at three feet deep near our gate.
Again, Carl was a fly fisherman. It was his waders that I wore. He sent them out to me with another engineer with these important instructions…WEAR THESE SHOES OUTSIDE, OVER THE WADERS!
Once inside the building, we stayed there. Shifts were covered without thought of a schedule or who might be on duty. (Most of the staff chose to stay or had no way to leave anyway.)
I slept beside the massive, roaring, 50/60, cycle changer. (My head below the level of the water outside.) Some things were both funny and serious. This memory is one of those things.
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Engineer Ed Wood had been crippled by polio at the age of seven (One leg had stopped growing at that time.) He wore an expensive built-up shoe attached to a metal knee brace with a locking ring. (Ed didn’t get enough exercise and was carrying too much weight).
Two men were trying to keep the brace dry while helping Ed thru the flood.
They were using an inflated boat / raft. Ed had to board while the boat was beached. His weight caused the flexible boat to drag bottom in several inches of water. The men (both were wet) were attempting to drag him to deeper water, nearer the gate. I couldn’t help them or stay and watch.
There was no one to tell what happened next, and I didn’t want to ask!
As far as I know, there was no residual damage to KFI. Nor was there transmitter failure or loss of airtime.
The plant’s septic system and leach lines were under water but not damaged.
Note: Coyote Creek is now a cemented; flood channel with control dams up stream.
I don’t think there will be another KFI flood. Nor will there be another Carl Sturdy.
Posted and Edited by Steve Blodgett
Earthsignals.com