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Old Low Frequency AM Directional Towers Collapsing

S

Schroedingers Cat

Within the last several years, a WKZO 590 tower, a WMT 600 tower, and a WTVN 610 tower have collapsed. They were all built in the late 1930s to early 1940s. I don't think they were necessarily the tallest towers of the arrays. Just all old and probably all fairly tall. They all went to their 5000 watt Daytime nondirectional tower with 1250 watts Nighttime on STA.

I did hear of one self supporting 370 foot tower, built in 1947, that was extensively repaired and refurbished, in order to accommodate an FM BC DA. Fortunately, that one still stands. The use as an FM BC tower was contemplated since 1948, but was only recently used as such. I think it was fortunately identified as unable to support the FM bays without extensive repair and refurbishment, not to mention a lot of climbing.
 
gr8oldies said:
WTMJ-620, check your insurance policy
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If you're referring to the longtime two-tower site along I-94 in Milwaukee's western suburbs, that one is long gone. When they went to 50kw days/10kw nights, they moved to a multi-tower site about 20 miles south of town in Racine country near the town of Union grove. WISN's multi-tower site is in the same neighborhood.
 
The six WTMJ 620 towers near Union Grove are fairly new, installed when they went 50/10 DA-2, the first or second Class III to do so. The old three tower array West of Milwaukee had a tall center tower (see next sentence for correction) used for nondirectional Day. That would probably have been the one to go. Pictures I have seen show a kind of unusual collection of designs, put up at different times.

Actually, it's the South tower that was tall. The tall tower was apparently at one time also used for FM and/or TV, not just AM.

https://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjoldsticks.jpg

Pictures of coverage, some 5 kW Day, some 50 kW Day. The engineer was supposed to take a better picture at my request. I don't know if he ever did.

https://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjpaper.jpg
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
The six WTMJ 620 towers near Union Grove are fairly new, installed when they went 50/10 DA-2, the first or second Class III to do so. The old three tower array West of Milwaukee had a tall center tower used for nondirectional Day. That would probably have been the one to go. Pictures I have seen show a kind of unusual collection of designs, put up at different times.
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I remember that tall center WTMJ tower. Did WISN move their towers to Union Grove when they went to 1130 in 1965?
 
Yes, it moved to Union Grove in the mid 1960s. I think you can find it on the History Card. It had a 4 self supporting tower parallelogram on 1150 near or in Milwaukee before that. As I recall, it was 5 kW DA-1. There's a picture of that somewhere online also. I figured out the parameters roughly in a comment from the picture and information. That was about eight years ago. The antenna monitor showed the Lissajous figures on the Oscilloscopes, and current ratios as I recall.

Here we go. It doesn't show the Lissajous figures, but all the current ratios. There is one oscilloscope with a switch and a "rolodex" type analog lookup table for the phases.

http://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/2011/02/milwaukees-oldest-radio-station/
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
Yes, it moved to Union Grove in the mid 1960s. I think you can find it on the History Card. It had a 4 self supporting tower parallelogram on 1150 near or in Milwaukee before that. As I recall, it was 5 kW DA-1.
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I remember in the early 60s Milwaukee and Rockford both had 1150s. Seemed strange to me then that they squeezed two stations on the same frequency that close together. Now they do it all the time.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
The six WTMJ 620 towers near Union Grove are fairly new, installed when they went 50/10 DA-2, the first or second Class III to do so. The old three tower array West of Milwaukee had a tall center tower (see next sentence for correction) used for nondirectional Day. That would probably have been the one to go. Pictures I have seen show a kind of unusual collection of designs, put up at different times.

Actually, it's the South tower that was tall. The tall tower was apparently at one time also used for FM and/or TV, not just AM.

https://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjoldsticks.jpg

Pictures of coverage, some 5 kW Day, some 50 kW Day. The engineer was supposed to take a better picture at my request. I don't know if he ever did.

https://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/MKE/wtmjpaper.jpg
Click to expand...

WTMJ’s transmitter location so far south of Milwaukee would explain why it comes in so well when I am visiting Chicago. It’s nice because you can drive around Chicago listening to Bob Uecker broadcast Milwaukee Brewers games. WTMJ is like a local, especially in the northern parts of the city.
 
asugeorge1 said:
WTMJ’s transmitter location so far south of Milwaukee would explain why it comes in so well when I am visiting Chicago. It’s nice because you can drive around Chicago listening to Bob Uecker broadcast Milwaukee Brewers games. WTMJ is like a local, especially in the northern parts of the city.
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WTMJ has a very good daytime signal into the Chicago area. At night things change a bit, but their current daytime groundwave is as good as I've heard it over the years. I'm about 65 miles south of their towers.
 
Back in 2001, on a road trip from my then home in Milwaukee to Naples, Florida, I listened to WTMJ all the way from Milwaukee to about Effingham, IL [300 miles] on I-57 before they faded out. The ground conductivity in that area is excellent. WLW was quite strong there...

Bob
 
Miami's WIOD replaced both of their sticks a few years ago before they had a chance to fall, but they were and are only 67° tall on 610.
 
radioman148 said:
WTMJ has a very good daytime signal into the Chicago area. At night things change a bit, but their current daytime groundwave is as good as I've heard it over the years. I'm about 65 miles south of their towers.
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WTMJ's day signal is easily audible in the northern half of Illinois....and in many cases, beyond. Night is problematic at my location, but still listenable. That's about 38 miles southwest of the transmitter site. Where my oldest son lives, about 12 miles east of me, the night signal is noticeably better.

Back to WISN, if I'm reading the FCC cards correctly. the 60th street address is actually on the southwest side of Milwaukee. I'm not sure how Edgerton got in there. Edgerton is near Madison, It may have something to do with the shared time arrangement (or shared ownership arrangement) that WISN and it's predecessors were using its early days of operation. I noticed the call letters WHAD. The WHAD call letters are still in use by Wisconsin Public Radio, which is based in Madison with WHA-AM 970 as the flagship station.
The current WHAD is based in Delafield, WI and serves the Milwaukee area on 90.7FM. At 72KW, its audible (albeit weak) at my location about 65 miles south-southwest of their stick.

I can't say with 100% certainty that the WHAD call letters stand for (or originally referred to) WHA-Delafield.
 
It looks like they mean W. Edgerton Avenue. The street is probably named after the town, or the person the town was named after. Edgertons seem to be near the edge of something, like Edgerton, IN.
 
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