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a 770 WABC transmitter/antenna story

A

alok

I think this will be OK in this thread ?
Back in the early 90's I stopped at the WABC transmitter site ,with my Dad ,in Lodi,NJ and the transmitter supervisor was there ,he let us in and gave a great tour. My Dad scored too. . . since the transmitter sup was a pilot ,my Dad loved small planes and the two talked much about planes and flying. Back to the broadcast thingy . . . the sup told me afew things that I never knew. One which was that for the longest time ( especially when WABC was Rockin & a Rolling in the 60's ) . . . if it rained hard they had to occasionally reduce power from 50kw to 10kw,until the heavy rain let up.
If they didn't the transmitter would trip off/on from high VSWR. The reason was arcing somewhere on the tower ,it had something to do with the towers height & design. I guess it was fixed later on but they did this for many years he said.
Also I recall when 1010 WINS was building a new antenna system back in the 90's right smack among its old 4 tower in-line array. WINS used WABC's smaller backup tower in Lodi at 10kw ( during the daytime ) when needed as the work went on in Lyndhurst,NJ at the WINS site.

al
 
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I'm envious! Though I've been by the site countless times, I've never seen the interior in person.
 
alok said:
I think this will be OK in this thread ?
Back in the early 90's I stopped at the WABC transmitter site ,with my Dad ,in Lodi,NJ and the transmitter supervisor was there ,he let us in and gave a great tour. My Dad scored too. . . since the transmitter sup was a pilot ,my Dad loved small planes and the two talked much about planes and flying. Back to the broadcast thingy . . . the sup told me afew things that I never knew. One which was that for the longest time ( especially when WABC was Rockin & a Rolling in the 60's ) . . . if it rained hard they had to occasionally reduce power from 50kw to 10kw,until the heavy rain let up.
If they didn't the transmitter would trip off/on from high VSWR. The reason was arcing somewhere on the tower ,it had something to do with the towers height & design. I guess it was fixed later on but they did this for many years he said.
Also I recall when 1010 WINS was building a new antenna system back in the 90's right smack among its old 4 tower in-line array. WINS used WABC's smaller backup tower in Lodi at 10kw ( during the daytime ) when needed as the work went on in Lyndhurst,NJ at the WINS site.

al
Click to expand...
That's really cool. Interesting story. When I moved to NY in 1979, I lived on Prospect Ave. in Hackensack. Though Lodi was a different town, it was kind of right around the corner. At night in front of my apartment building, you could see the red light flashing on the WABC tower.
 
When I went to the WABC transmitter in the 90's , with my Dad , I was in my 40's visiting family ,left my wife at relatives and told my Dad lets take a ride. The funny part was my Dad had as much fun at the WABC transmitter as I did but for a different reason , as I mentioned the WABC transmitter sup was a pilot and my Dad loved anything to do with planes and flying.
Another thing I recall when growing up in the NYC area and listening to BIG DAN , everytime it would be lightning out over Lodi and Dan Ingram was on the air ,he'd mention "oops it just happened again" . . . he'd then say . . . don't ever believe lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place . . . it just hit our tower again.
He'd hear the off air signal in his headsets while talking . . . each time it hit the tower the station would quickly go off / on . . . Ingram as usual had fun with that.
 
alok said:
When I went to the WABC transmitter in the 90's , with my Dad , I was in my 40's visiting family ,left my wife at relatives and told my Dad lets take a ride. The funny part was my Dad had as much fun at the WABC transmitter as I did but for a different reason , as I mentioned the WABC transmitter sup was a pilot and my Dad loved anything to do with planes and flying.
Another thing I recall when growing up in the NYC area and listening to BIG DAN , everytime it would be lightning out over Lodi and Dan Ingram was on the air ,he'd mention "oops it just happened again" . . . he'd then say . . . don't ever believe lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place . . . it just hit our tower again.
He'd hear the off air signal in his headsets while talking . . . each time it hit the tower the station would quickly go off / on . . . Ingram as usual had fun with that.
Click to expand...
Radio changed forever, not only when we went to voice tracking, since the option to go live was still there, but when the digital component was added to the transmitter chain which placed a delay too long to allow listening to the air signal when the mic was open.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
Other interesting facts...
1. The WABC tower is one of the oldest ones standing in the market, but may not always have been where it is today. There are reports that the same tower stood in Bound Brook, New Jersey and was moved to the current site during WWII, because metal was in short supply. (Scott Fybush doubts it.) This was when it was WJZ, and on its way from 760 to 770am, and from the NBC blue network to ABC (though the WABC call wasn't used until 1953).
2. The station had a construction permit for 500kw at the Bound Brook site, issued in 1936. It was later "dismissed without prejudice" after it was decided that no stations should ever get more than 50kw. (Elsewhere in the world they go up to 2 megawatts, or 40x the U.S. max. Given electrical costs and declining listening to AM, these are becoming more rare.) Source: WABC history cards.
3. After the WNBC/660-WCBS-880 tower on High Island was knocked down by a plane in 1967, WNBC briefly borrowed WABC's auxiliary tower before going back to its own emergency tower.
 
I doubted the story about the tower being dismantled and moved when I wrote that piece back in 2005. Now that we have access (thank you, Sr. Gleason!) to all the Broadcasting Magazines from the era, it's since been confirmed as fact.
 
fybush said:
I doubted the story about the tower being dismantled and moved when I wrote that piece back in 2005. Now that we have access (thank you, Sr. Gleason!) to all the Broadcasting Magazines from the era, it's since been confirmed as fact.
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You are welcome!

Curiosity: where did the story about the tower being dismantled originate?

Second (unrelated) question: why do all the pages on the FCC site seem to take so long to load? In particular, the historical data and the station public file "folders".
 
Second (unrelated) question: why do all the pages on the FCC site seem to take so long to load? In particular, the historical data and the station public file "folders".

It's a government agency. Have you ever known anyone/thing government to move fast on anything?
 
@ alok, re those Ingram remarks :

At one station I worked, the PD was on the air, headphones in place, when lightning struck our AM station's tower and knocked us off for several seconds.

While on mic, he responded with the customary radio expression of inconvenience. 'Oh, $#!+'

We did get a few calls of mild dismay, because the 46,000 - watt FM tower, being some ten miles north, was unaffected.
 
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