This is the Continental Electronics Section of
The Broadcast Archive

Maintained by:
Barry Mishkind - The Eclectic Engineer
Last Update 4/24/22

(See also the COLLINS RADIO page).

Continental Electronics was founded by James O. Weldon in 1946, as a spin-off of the consulting firm of Weldon & Carr, to build High Power AM transmitters (including XERA's 500 kW unit for Dr. Brinkley), and custom AM phasors under contract for Western Electric. When the FTC "broke up" AT&T's broadcast group in 1953, the AM transmitter line went to Continental Electronics Manufacturing Company (CEMCO). (The FM went to Standard Electronics, and the audio line to Altec).

Over the years, Continental developed a reputation for quality and reliability that was hard to match by any other manufacturer. It was the owner of Telefunken for a time. Transmitters in the multi-Megawatt range as well as frequency agile shortwave transmitters (capable of being preset and rapidly re-tuned for up to 10 frequencies) were a signature product.

In early 1990s, Omnitronix built solid state transmitters for Continental. They were called the"T" line. The 300 watt was called the 312T, 1 kW was the 314T, 2.5 kW was the 314T-1, and the 5 kW was the 315T.

Starting in around 1994, Lensa (Now RF Broadcast), a company based in South America built transmitters labeled Continental-Lensa. The Lensa AMS (PDM using HEXFETs) series including the AMS-K4 line from 1 kW to 25 kW. These were tall units. Later there was a AMS-K5 series, that much shorter.

Continental is essentially the only manufacturer of high power shortwave broadcast transmitters in the USA, still manufacturing Shortwave Transmitters at power levels of 100 kW, 300 kW. and 500 kW. 

Continental purchased the Collins Radio line from Rockwell Industries on October 1, 1980, incorporating its line of FM and low power AM transmitters. It was then itself purchased by Varian in 1985, and Tech-Sym Corporation (TSY) in 1990. In November  2003, Continental Electronics became a division of DRS, a defense contractor. It was purchased in 2005 by Lonestar and the company name restored to Continental Electronics. 

Along the way, Continental briefly sold lower-powered solid state models from their factory in Chile before announcing they were exiting the AM transmitter business. 

AM Transmitters

(See Dave Hultsman's explanation for the numbering system, below!)

FM Transmitters

Clay Freinwald shares his plans for modifying the air filters for the 816 series.

Information is coming on the different color schemes?
Rockwell Collins CE - Continental - Varian - DRS
Black rails
Red Rails

2004:

Shortwave Transmitters

Continental manufacturers auto-tune shortwave transmitters that can store up to 100 frequencies and change frequency and band and be back to full power in  seconds. (In most cases it is not done this rapidly due to the switching matrixes involved in switching antennas.)

Shortwave transmitters are offered for analog and DRM Digital operations. Their "Digital Step Modulator" is over 90% efficient and is all solid state. Four of the 500 kW transmitters are in Birmingham, AL at WEWN (the shortwave outlet for EWTN Television). Five 100 kW rigs are in Nashville, TN at two stations.

THE NUMBERING SYSTEM

My sincere appreciation to Nelda Hendon, Carol d'Happert, Kathy Stewart, Dan Dickey, Dave Hultsman and Dave Hershberger for their kind assistance in gathering much of the information and graphic content for this section.

Dave Hultsman writes:

The first digit indicated the band or service as follows:

1 - VLF
2 - LF
3 - MW (AM)
4 - HF (shortwave AM broadcast)
5 - ?
6 - HF (non-broadcast)
7 - UHF
8 - VHF (FM broadcast)

The second two digits indicate the "size" in terms of power. 
Powers above 50kW but less than 100kW would get a 17, so any FM transmitter from 
50kW to 100kW from a single amplifier would be an 817 something.  

I used to have a handy chart but lost it somewhere along the way.  
These are the most common power breakpoints from my "memory":

13 - 500W
14 - 1kW
15 - 5kW
16 - 10kW
17 - 50kW
18 - 100kW
19 - 250kW
20 - 500kW

The first change at Collins was the use of the name "The Rock" for the Model 820D-2, 1 kW.  
Which also evolved into the "Power Rock", 828E-1, 5 kW. which became the CE 315R-1. 

Any Continental transmitter with "R" means it came from Rockwell-Collins

        Collins                        Continental

        310-Z2                  510-R       FM Exciter
        831-D2                  814-R1      2.5 kW FM
        831-F2                  816R-1      10-11 kW.
        831-G2                  816R-2      20-21.5 kW.
        831-G3                  816R-3      25 kW.

        831-H2                  817R-2      40 kW.
        831-H2C             	817R-3      50 kW.

        828-D1                  314R-1      1  KW. AM
        828-E1                  315R-1      5  KW. AM
        

816R-2A,B,C 21.5 kw. - 816R-3A,B,C 25 kW. - 816R-4B,C 27.5 kW. - 816R-5B,C 35 kW. - 816R-6C 30 kW.

Also the use of the "D" designation started later at CE. the 40 kW. were 817R-2's, the 50 kW's. 
were 817R-3's and the 55 kW's. were 817R-4's.

All of the single tube transmitters sold with power levels from 33 kW. to 48 kW. 
were Model 817-A Transmitters of which as I recall there were 13 
manufactured.  All have since been returned and disassembled.

The 817-B, was a factory proto-type which was made from one of the units 
in stock by Ken Branton.  The two similar cabinets were just 816R cavities 
installed within the cabinets and combined with a standard hybrid on the 
back. One power supply supplied both PA stages. It was configured to use two 
of the old reliable 4CX15000-A tubes instead of one of 4CX40,000G tubes.  

None of these transmitter were sold.

The 310Z-2 exciter was made a 510-R at Continental (no particular reason), and the next generation exciter at CE was the 802-A which was at 
least a bit more consistent.

But according to Dan's note they put the 5 on it because they didn't know what to do.

HD MODELS:

Essentially all of the CEC HD transmitter are Red. No 816R numbers R stood for Rockwell so the HD is for CEC IBOC.  Their Nomenclature are as follows;
 
Based on 1% Power Levels  (I haven't heard if they are going to change the type number for 6% and 10% levels)
 
812HD-500  500 Watt Crown with 802E-x Exciter   (Crowns are Green)
814HD-1000 1000 Watt Crown with 802E-x Exciter
 
No product between 1000 Watt and 9 kW. TPO
 
816HD  HD    9 kW. up to 22 kW. Air Cooled Self Contained
816HD-25      12 kW to 27 kW.
 
816HD-L        15 to 30 kW.  Liquid Cooled  External Power Supply and external heat exchanger. (I believe 3 in operation) 
 
D-816HD  Combined for 44 kW. TPO  Several on line WQED Pittsburgh, first unit
D-816HD25 Combined for 50 kW. TPO  Several on line, first one to Raleigh NC
D-816HD-L  Combined for 60 kW. TPO  (Non Built)
 
Thats about it
 

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Peter H. writes:

The 317 number is from Western Electric Company.

I believe CE made 317s from WECo parts inventories, while the 317B and 317C were all CE.