this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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KGEI Transmitter Building, Redwood City, CA, 2024. (fedia.io)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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KGEI Transmitter Building, Redwood City, CA, 2024.

All the pixels, straight from the ionosphere, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/54131707918/

#photography

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Captured with the Rodenstock 50mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens (@ f/6.3), Phase One IQ4-150 digital back, Cambo 1250 camera (vertically shifted -5mm).

This modest but handsome, art-deco-accented building was built in 1941 to house the transmitter for "KGEI", a commercial shortwave radio broadcast station whose programming could be heard across the Pacific. It shut down in 1994.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

KGEI was a 250KW commercial shortwave international radio broadcast station. Originally constructed, owned and operated by General Electric, the station opened in 1939 on San Francisco's Treasure Island. In 1941, it moved to a permanent site in Redwood City. This building housed the transmitter and control facilities; the exterior walls are three feet thick, to better resist any WW II enemy bombings. At the time, KGEI was the only US broadcast station capable of reaching across the Pacific.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In 1960, the station was sold to the "Far East Broadcasting Company", which changed the format to chiefly Christian religious programming. The station ceased operation in 1994, and its antenna field was razed soon afterward.

Fortunately, the transmitter house remains in excellent condition. It currently belongs to a wastewater treatment plant now located adjacent to the site. I believe it is now leased out as office space.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected] that is a truly glorious looking building.

If it housed the transmission gear, the walls may have been that thick to prevent explosions getting out rather than in!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@[email protected]
250kW is a lot for a radio transmitter right?
I vaguely recall growing up listening to the radio some stations boasting that they were broadcasting with their 100kW tower but I didn't understand what they were saying other than thinking, it's a hundred, that must be a lot 🙃

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected] Yes, though not uncommon for international shortwave broadcasters (who want to achieve maximum coverage for their signals).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@[email protected] I am constantly impressed at the way you capture what looks to this untrained eye like orthogonal projections of buildings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected] Painters have to work hard to master multiple points of perspective, while photographers work hard to eliminate them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@[email protected]

As the son of a GE lifer, seeing old things like this, esp. given what the GE remnants look like now, is a tiny bit heartwrenching. (Only a tiny bit, however...)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@[email protected] As a child of parents from Schenectady, NY (and whose grandparents were GE and Alco), I feel you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@[email protected]

Whoa! My grandpa worked at GE Schenectady (yes, Dad was a 2nd-gen GE lifer)!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected] Hey, if it was good enough for Kurt Vonnegut...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

@[email protected] quite good looking