At 0:35 in this video of Anne Murray's 1983 song, "A Little Good News", there is a 3 tower array that collapsed in a storm, with self supporting towers. Was this WWVA?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Whose Towers Are These That Collapsed?
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
Don't know whose they were but no way they were WWVA. Unless the videographer somehow traveled time to 2010 when the WWVA towers collapsed in the storm.
WWVA had at least 2 tower collapses. There was the fairly well-publicized one in 2010, but also at least one earlier collapse, on July 28, 1936. That said, I'm going to say this is not a shot of the earlier WWVA collapse (when WWVA had a 2-tower array located in West Liberty, WV as opposed to her current 3 tower arrangement in St. Clairsville, OH) as there appears to be steep, snow-capped mountainous terrain in the background. WWVA's transmistter and towers (in any of the various places they've been located in), weren't/aren't placed where there might be green, level grass around them, with snow-capped, more mountainous terrain in the background like that.
I saw the towers while traveling through St. Clairsville years ago from the Highway, clear as a bell. This is similar. I wonder how many three tower in line equal height self supporting tower collapses there have been. Most were built in the late 1930s and 1940s. I've only actually seen WCFL/WMVP before they were rebuilt, WWVA Wheeling, WV before the collapse, and WBLG/WLXG 1300 Lexington, KY. If you include unequal height and doglegs, WTRX 1330 Flint, MI, and WAAM 1600 Ann Arbor, MI when it was on Packard Rd. before they moved circa 1975. If you go to 4 tower parallelograms, WIND 560 top loaded self supporting equal height parallelogram before their 1/4 mile move and rebuild, and WTAC/WSNL 600 self supporting parallelogram before their 10 mile move and rebuild.
Last edited:
The WWVA transmitter and tower site in St. Clairsville, OH was constructed in 1941 and those (if I recall correctly) Blaw Knox towers stood until they toppled in 1990, well after the creation of the Anne Murray video in your original post was created in 1983. If you saw the WWVA tower site "clear as a bell" from I-70 and could tell everything about the place down to the topography, you've got better eyes than most as they're located quite a long distance from the highway, and past lots of hilly and tree-lined areas. Also, as I previously mentioned, no snow-capped mountainous terrain anywhere around them: WWVA Radio Towers in St Clairsville, OH (Google Maps)
We were on the two way main road through St. Clairsville, not I-70, quite a bit closer, when I saw them. I found two pictures with standing towers, but the collapse pictures are different.
WWVAtowersUPsmall2.jpg
wwvatowers_1940s.jpg
There was one other three tower in line equal height self supporting tower collapse I know of, but I never saw those towers before several years after they were replaced with guyed towers. That was WFDF 910 Flint, MI, down the road a mile or so from WTRX. Those were built in 1941 and collapsed in 1957 in a tornado (not the big one in 1953 which killed 116 people, whose path was about 8 miles North of those towers). It seems like one of the those three towers was minimally damaged, and a local ham salvaged and used it. The ham who told me about it first couldn't tell me which ham and where the tower was.
WWVAtowersUPsmall2.jpg
wwvatowers_1940s.jpg
There was one other three tower in line equal height self supporting tower collapse I know of, but I never saw those towers before several years after they were replaced with guyed towers. That was WFDF 910 Flint, MI, down the road a mile or so from WTRX. Those were built in 1941 and collapsed in 1957 in a tornado (not the big one in 1953 which killed 116 people, whose path was about 8 miles North of those towers). It seems like one of the those three towers was minimally damaged, and a local ham salvaged and used it. The ham who told me about it first couldn't tell me which ham and where the tower was.
Last edited:
Originally Yours. WCFL 3 tower in line self supporting. Unequal heights. Went from 1 to 2 to 3 towers over the years as I recall reading. Didn't collapse, so they replaced it with less impressive guyed towers.
That was in 1989, again after the creation of this video in 1983.
I admit that I don't know much about St. Clairsville. My Mother In Law and Father In Law lived there when they were children, and we were there for a funeral for my Wife's Grandmother. We were going East on US 40, looking at the map, approaching Parshal Avenue, when I looked up and saw it very easily, just off to the Left. It was November, so the leaves were off the trees. As I recall, I just looked up and saw the towers. This is quite a bit closer to the towers than I-70.
Last edited:
KGO after the SF quake...
I assume KGO reduced power after the quake damage. Do you know how much power they ran until they rebuilt?
I would assume that KGO ran at 12.5 kW Nondirectional.
Considering that the towers are only 90 degrees in electrical height, it is surprising that the Horizontal RMS value is 218.5 mV/m @ 1 mile @ 1 kW, just a little less than the Legacy Class I/Class A 225 mV/m @ 1 mile @ 1 kW efficiency. The towers are not Top Loaded. Normally, a single nondirectional tower would have to be almost 1/2 wavelength to achieve the legacy efficiency. The gain comes from the pattern concentrating the power into the horizontal. This happens because a pattern like KGO has nulls perpendicular to the line of the towers, which also affects the effective vertical radiation characteristic like a taller tower. In general, three tower in line or slight dog leg endfire arrays have the same effect on efficiency as as a much taller tower.
Considering that the towers are only 90 degrees in electrical height, it is surprising that the Horizontal RMS value is 218.5 mV/m @ 1 mile @ 1 kW, just a little less than the Legacy Class I/Class A 225 mV/m @ 1 mile @ 1 kW efficiency. The towers are not Top Loaded. Normally, a single nondirectional tower would have to be almost 1/2 wavelength to achieve the legacy efficiency. The gain comes from the pattern concentrating the power into the horizontal. This happens because a pattern like KGO has nulls perpendicular to the line of the towers, which also affects the effective vertical radiation characteristic like a taller tower. In general, three tower in line or slight dog leg endfire arrays have the same effect on efficiency as as a much taller tower.
Last edited:
Thanks. I thought I remembered them running ND, but I didn't know the power.
- Status