Classic TV Signoff Recordings

[Ben Zonia]

I always found the Sign Offs of TV Stations back in the 1970s and 1980s fascinating. The microwave links were fascinating. A few I found most interesting were when I advertently or inadvertently drove past.

One time, I was on 20 Mile Rd./Chippewa Lake Rd. in Mecosta County, and took a wrong turn on a snowy day onto what was 80th Avenue. After a few miles, I spotted a microwave tower with the old style 45 degree reflectors. Then I realized what I did and turned around. The WWTV sign off said Emerald. I couldn't find Emerald on a Map, but I did find Emerald Lake. Many years later, I found a really old map that showed the nearby ghost town of Emerald nearby. I see that they did later change the location from Emerald to Emerald Lake on the WWTV sign off. Emerald Lake shows on online Maps as "Permanently Closed", whatever that means.

Another time, I found the head end for WPBN on M-66, 5.7 miles South of Barryton. It was a short tower on a hill next to M-66 with 4 bays of 5 element Channel 5 Yagis to take NBC programming directly off the air from WNEM. Yes kids, NBC. The WOOD head end was East of Stanwood. Someone once told me that there was a phone number that switched between the two head ends. I forget what he said, that the first ring and the subsequent rings switched back and forth between the two feeds. I wonder how many wrong numbers they got. I do remember it switching back and forth during storms, when tropo or other interference made one or the other nearly unwatchable. You could tell by the weather bugs changing.

For a few years, WNEM was airing Tiger Baseball, and WJRT aired the NBC Game of the Week. They used the feed from a multi bay 10 element Yagi to pull in WILX from Onandaga, at the WJRT intercity relay tower site on Rattalee Lake Rd. and Bridge Lake Rd. near Clarkston, where WJRT once proposed putting it's transmitting tower. Sometimes, WILX had cochannel lines, and they switched to WOOD off air during tropo events. This sometimes resulted in the WOOD weather bug and severe weather announcement being aired, and WJRT had to air announcements that the bad weather was in Grand Rapids.

I miss those days.

https://signons-and-signoffs.fandom.com ... d_Sign-off