WLW's 500,000 Watt Transmitter

That was one specific station - the infamous WLW / W8XO - the first and only US station authorized to operate at 500kW of power.[1] To give you an idea of how powerful that is, take a look at their coverage map: [LINK] The back story is kind of interesting. It was run by Powel Crosley - a sort of 1930's version of Elon Musk. Advertising revenues from the station were so successful he applied to increase the limit from 500kW to 750kW(!). It's a big deal in the ham community, but I only learnt latter that while US stations were limited to 50kW - other parts of the world didn't have such restrictions. Parts of the Middle East have 2,000kW stations. [2] You can get a full download on the Crosley WLW station in this video: [VIDEO] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK]

The links at the bottom of the article are also excellent. At the 2013 Dayton Hamvention, there was a tour of the facility shown here: [VIDEO] . Apparently, the engineer who first designed the transmitter was barely 21.

Was randomly recommended a video on YouTube a few weeks ago which was a recording of a tour of the WLW broadcast transmitter facility. You get to see the high power equipment in detail accompanied by lots of history about the facility. Was a fun watch. [VIDEO]

There's a fascinating tour of WLW on YouTube, too...[1] back when radio was the cutting edge and all the young engineers would go balls to the wall with RF. [1] [VIDEO]