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Radio tower locations

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k8jd
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by k8jd » Fri Jun 04, 2021 7:32 pm

I recall WJR had an auxilary , shorter tower on the site for emergency outage use. It may still be there with a microwave dish aimed at the fisher bldg studio for a STL. I am sure the FM associated with WJR was always on top of the Fisher Bldg.
Yes I recall seeing the 6 Dearborn towers being different designs, The two farther from the transmitter bldg were thinner. The FM antenna was mounted on the thickest tower next to the bldg. I stopped ther one day in the early 60's when I was still a teen and had a long talk with the transmitter engineer about tech stuff. (sure don't have those any more !)
I know they took down all the towers when 1310 (final call WDTW AM ???) went dark and then not too much time passed when the Mega people bought the license and put up all new towers with the same exact pattern specs.!



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Ben Zonia
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Ben Zonia » Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:18 pm

The new array has shorter towers and guy wire top loading, like 199 feet high so they don't have to be lighted. The ground system is five to six radials per tower above the ground. The field ratios and phases and tower layout are the same. The efficiency is slightly less than the old array.

Sketch. Don't know why some segments representing radials are missing. Narrative says six per tower 20 feet above the ground.

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Att ... &exhcnum=2

Only the very first application for WJR-FM in the 42-50 MHz band specified the 760 tower, and it was quickly modified to Grand Blvd./Fisher Bldg.


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k8jd
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by k8jd » Sat Jun 05, 2021 2:56 pm

One of the landmarks I looked for was the 6 WKNR towers and the red light beacons on them.,on my Greyhound bus trips back home from Chicago.
That sure was a long time ago !



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Ben Zonia
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Ben Zonia » Sat Jun 05, 2021 5:26 pm

ZenithCKLW wrote:
Fri Jun 04, 2021 1:35 pm

So if I understand properly, WKNR-FM moved to the "short" self-supporting tower at 8009 Lyndon, that is next to the building that says 98.7 on the wall, and the faded WBFG calls on the chimney. Then they moved to the much larger tower nearby off Turner St, near Schoolcraft. Exactly when did 100.3 FM move to the taller tower? Some real estate research I found suggested 1985.

According to the History Cards, it seems like that tower at 8009 broadcast a handful of FM and TV stations at some point: 98.7, 100.3, channel 2, channel 50. Are there any others I'm missing?
I recall asking Jim Harper, who had come to host a raffle for a mortgage payment, where the new tower was, and he said it was quite close to the old one. The raffle was fixed, interestingly enough. Although the entries came from far and wide, all over Oakland and Macomb Counties, they pulled all the entries except for the zip codes they wanted to win. No, I don't think Jim Harper knew that, it came out later. He pulled the winning entry. And yes, it was circa 1985. So I looked at fccdata.org to see if there were any license applications that had extra information, and this BLH prefix in 1985 was marked with a red arrow. I clicked and found the following information. Except for the ones with arrows, the detailed information between around 1980 History Cards, and full applications started to appear online from around 1997-2003, is absent.

They seem to be gradually filling it in with information contributed by stations and engineers. From what I hear, when the FCC moved to new locations, the people who cleaned were all too eager to throw stuff into dumpsters. Some FCC engineers rescued some of the information, including the father of one of today's prominent engineering consultants, who is taking up the role of some of the many old timers who have sadly left us.

http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/prod/c ... r_id=74501

http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe ... n_id=80348


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innate-in-you
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by innate-in-you » Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:38 pm

ramboy wrote:
Fri May 21, 2021 9:19 pm
Yes I know current location's, looking for location's in the 1960's
In (I believe the early naughts) that WDET was also on the Macabees Building. They got booted from that spire and built a new self-supporting tower a stones-throw away on Canfield St.



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SolarMax
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by SolarMax » Sun Jun 13, 2021 9:23 pm

innate-in-you wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 2:38 pm

In (I believe the early naughts) that WDET was also on the Macabees Building. They got booted from that spire and built a new self-supporting tower a stones-throw away on Canfield St.
After Wayne State U. (licensee and owner of WDET) purchased the Maccabees, there was concern about the structural integrity of the dated tower/building combination, and engineering studies were done to determine if reinforcement and renovation, or removal, would be the better course of action. The tower remains with WGPR-FM as its tenant. WDET was able to get funding for new transmission facilities and moved to the site on Canfield. It did lose its "grandfathered" 79kW ERP in the process. Studios moved from Alexandrine to the residence hall nearby on Cass.



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Ben Zonia
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Ben Zonia » Sun Jun 13, 2021 9:57 pm

At 48000 watts at 169 meters, WDET is still an overpower grandfathered Class B. It is the equivalent to 61500 watts from 150 meters, close to the equivalent of what WLLZ is at 61000 watts at 155 meters. Along with WDZH 98.7 and overpower grandfathered WRIF 101.1, WLLZ is one of the longest running licensed facilities in Detroit that have remained the same over the years. I remember when the quoted ERP for WXXZ-FM/WRIF was 27200 watts, and WWWW was quoted as 61125 watts. Someone at the FCC finally decided that that was too many digits to be significant, and they started rounding.


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paul8539
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by paul8539 » Tue Jun 15, 2021 5:57 pm

The WBCM tower (both AM and FM) was on Tuscola Road (M-15) just south of the Bay City city limits. In 1978, WBCM-AM moved to a 3-tower array by Freeland Road, just north of Saginaw Valley State College (then it was a state college, it became a state university in 1987).

The old Tuscola road tower was cut down to half its height and is now a cell phone tower. Still the original 4-footed base, non-guyed.

For a while, WBCM had offices in a commercial building on Adams Street in Bay City, about a block from Center Ave.



innate-in-you
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by innate-in-you » Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:26 pm

About 98.7:
The top of the tower has an antenna with five circular-polarized bays, spread equally and widely separated from each tower.

However, about 3/4 way up the tower, there are eight circularly polarized bays, those bays are very close to each other. Whose antenna is that?



Kennelly Heaviside
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Kennelly Heaviside » Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:04 pm



Kennelly Heaviside. The best Technical Consultant no money can buy.

innate-in-you
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by innate-in-you » Wed Jul 21, 2021 12:45 am

TNX!



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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by innate-in-you » Wed Jul 21, 2021 11:37 am

ZenithCKLW wrote:
Fri Jun 04, 2021 1:35 pm
Ben Zonia wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 3:01 pm
Looking at the History Cards, WKNR-FM 100.3 moved to 8009 Lyndon St., licensed 9-15-66, after being on one of the WKNR 1310 towers. When they were on 1540, they were 1 kW nondirectional. When they moved to 1310, at first they were 1 kW nondirectional. I think then they went to 5 kW DA with 2 towers, 1 kW Night with 4 towers, then to 5 kW Night with 6 towers. Have to look at that History Card.
So if I understand properly, WKNR-FM moved to the "short" self-supporting tower at 8009 Lyndon, that is next to the building that says 98.7 on the wall, and the faded WBFG calls on the chimney. Then they moved to the much larger tower nearby off Turner St, near Schoolcraft. Exactly when did 100.3 FM move to the taller tower? Some real estate research I found suggested 1985.

According to the History Cards, it seems like that tower at 8009 broadcast a handful of FM and TV stations at some point: 98.7, 100.3, channel 2, channel 50. Are there any others I'm missing?
Don't know if this helps, but I do remember the time when WNIC suddenly went off the air, and the engineer(s) discovered that the antenna had been melted, it was in the winter, early-to-mid 1980s.

They were under considerable pressure, as AC was a very popular format (several AC stations cutting the pie) and they feared that not all of their listeners would come back.



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Plate Cap
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Plate Cap » Sat Aug 07, 2021 7:29 am

Mike Oxlong wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 12:49 pm
Has there ever been a FM stick on the side of WJR? I
WJR's main stick was home in the early 2000's to a FLO TV site for the short period while FLO was in service.

The system was 'nationwide' and used the old TV Channel 55 allocation, which became available nationwide on an auction. Qualcomm bought it. The purpose was to deliver TV to mobile phones and small devices, but it never really got off the ground (pun?). Many, many bucks invested, lots of sites built....it was a tremendous buildout and cost: https://www.rabbitears.info/mediaflo.php


You should have seen the isolation transformer for WJR....h-u-g-e. Last time I went by there, several years ago, the antenna was still side mounted near the top.

I'm surprised this site still exists: http://www.flotvs.com/

They finally gave up and turned it off, and sold the spectrum to AT&T. It became part of their 700 MHz spectral fleet.

Interesting reading:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaFLO


The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.

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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by Deleted User 14896 » Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:58 pm

Plate Cap wrote:
Sat Aug 07, 2021 7:29 am
Mike Oxlong wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 12:49 pm
Has there ever been a FM stick on the side of WJR? I
WJR's main stick was home in the early 2000's to a FLO TV site for the short period while FLO was in service ... Last time I went by there, several years ago, the antenna was still side mounted near the top.
I was at Mount Trashmore ... I mean Riverview Highlands today.
From where I could see, there's nothing on the side of the main stick.



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WOHO
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Re: Radio tower locations

Post by WOHO » Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:10 am

Still love the WJR Art Deco transmitter building, and the WSPD glass block transmitter building that was replicated at several other transmitter sites. Question, wasn't someone going to do something on Eight Mile Road and restore the WWJ transmitter building to its former glory as a restaurant?



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