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WCCW 1310 Demolishes 15/7.5 DA-2 4 Tower Array-Operating on STA From Original Site

S

Schroedingers Cat

Operating from the Original WCCW 1310 Site with 3.25/1.875 U1 STA. That might open up some DX possibilities of hearing the station, if it actually will operate at Night.

fybush, this has only been licensed for a little over 15 years. What's the shortest time you have ever heard of between Construction/Licensing and Demolishing an array?

As I recall reading, WCCW is where David did his first Spanish Language broadcast, circa the early 1960s.
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
Operating from the Original WCCW 1310 Site with 3.25/1.875 U1 STA. That might open up some DX possibilities of hearing the station, if it actually will operate at Night.
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That site is on top of very sandy low conductivity soil. When WCCW went on the air, it barely got out well for 20 miles. WTCM, at 250 watts at the time, was in a sort of marshland and did better than WCCW.
Schroedingers Cat said:
fybush, this has only been licensed for a little over 15 years. What's the shortest time you have ever heard of between Construction/Licensing and Demolishing an array?
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Good question. How long was WOR on its prior meadowlands site?
Schroedingers Cat said:
As I recall reading, WCCW is where David did his first Spanish Language broadcast, circa the early 1960s.
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Yes, I think it was in '62 in the summer. I had a car and could drive in to Traverse City. WCCW had one of those 4 AM sign-on permits and they did a couple of hours of Mexican music for the migrant worker community. The pay barely covered my gas for the 44 mile round trip commute, but it was fun.
 
The time window of when this happened shows very clearly on the WCCW History Card.

They had an authorization for 1 kW beginning at 4:00 AM in 9-62. 5 kW was authorized 5-63, but apparently only 1 kW beginning at 4:00 AM. In 10-67, a PSA was issued for 500 watts, presumably starting at 6:00 AM.


Many full time stations, seeing that Daytime only stations were benefitting, received 500 watt nondirectional PSAs, serving areas they had low IDF from their Night directional antennas.

Before they moved the TL and went to 15 kW Day, 7.5 kW Night, DA-2, they had been issued a 31 watt PSSA. However, these PSSAs were apparently issued for a 40% RSS contribution, which was reduced to 25% RSS. A nondirectional LIC PSSA could only be about 12 watts now. WIBA is the limiting factor.
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
fybush, this has only been licensed for a little over 15 years. What's the shortest time you have ever heard of between Construction/Licensing and Demolishing an array?
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The former WIBC in Indianapolis had a short lived antenna site in Brownsburg in the early 1950s, when they first went 50kW days. It was deactivated for the just-demolished Whitestown site in 1967. I can't get the history cards to load tonight, so I'm not sure of the exact dates.
 
The History Card also shows a conditional application approval requiring detuning the WPBN-TV 7 tower if reradiation occurred from it. They ended up moving further away, which exacerbated the sandy hill TL problems, and of course a lower signal strength in Traverse City. I suspect that this stipulation was due to an informal objection from Paul Bunyan Network, which owned WTCM. Now WTCM and WCCW are coowned. Consider that WXYZ/WXYT 1270 was right next to WXYZ-TV 7 from 1959 until 2003. I never heard if they had a problem with reradiation from that. I'll ask one of WXYZ's engineers back in the day, who did monitor points and DA proofs of performance on WXYZ, if that was a problem.
 
Schroedingers Cat said:
Operating from the Original WCCW 1310 Site with 3.25/1.875 U1 STA. That might open up some DX possibilities of hearing the station, if it actually will operate at Night.

fybush, this has only been licensed for a little over 15 years. What's the shortest time you have ever heard of between Construction/Licensing and Demolishing an array?

As I recall reading, WCCW is where David did his first Spanish Language broadcast, circa the early 1960s.
Click to expand...
What was then WNYR (now WDCX) here in Rochester built a DA in 1979 to move to 990 from 680, part of a coordinated move with CFTR in Toronto that allowed CFTR to move transmitter sites and increase power to 50 kW. That DA was a three-tower array at the site on the west side of the city that used to be the WNYR 680 site. It was replaced within three years by a new six-tower array ten miles or so to the west that allowed WNYR to go to 5000 day/2500 night, the current facility.

(It was, however, apparently always intended to be temporary. The Rogers interests in Canada were pouring a lot of money into this project and if they had to pay for a temporary DA in Rochester while the zoning and construction went ahead on the new six-tower array, so be it.)

From the "non-temporary" files, many of the high-power AM facilities built in the late 1920s and early 1930s were replaced in the 1940s when the FCC's rules changed to allow stations to be closer to cities, and when stations that had longwire antennas replaced them with vertical radiators.

I'm not sure it's the very shortest run, but WBZ was only in Millis, Mass. for nine years, from 1931 until it moved to its present site in Hull in 1940.
 
Rogers also paid a pile of money to move CHLO from 1 kW DA-1 four towers on 680 to 10 kW DA-2 8 towers on 1570, somehow convincing listeners it was an improvement.

I asked Bill Dulmage if he had the Specifications on the CHLO 680 array, as he had a map online that disappeared. fybush, do you have any info on that array, being from that neck of the woods? The puzzling thing is that there was close to a major lobe toward KNBR, based on the map Bill had online, and the great signal into Michigan to the West.

CHLO is now assigned to the station on 530 in the Toronto Area, Brampton is the "COL", with 1/0.25 U1. It gets out well Day and Night. I guess there is a treaty restriction on the power allowed on 530 kHz.
 
fybush said:
What was then WNYR (now WDCX) here in Rochester built a DA in 1979 to move to 990 from 680, part of a coordinated move with CFTR in Toronto that allowed CFTR to move transmitter sites and increase power to 50 kW. That DA was a three-tower array at the site on the west side of the city that used to be the WNYR 680 site. It was replaced within three years by a new six-tower array ten miles or so to the west that allowed WNYR to go to 5000 day/2500 night, the current facility.

(It was, however, apparently always intended to be temporary. The Rogers interests in Canada were pouring a lot of money into this project and if they had to pay for a temporary DA in Rochester while the zoning and construction went ahead on the new six-tower array, so be it.)

From the "non-temporary" files, many of the high-power AM facilities built in the late 1920s and early 1930s were replaced in the 1940s when the FCC's rules changed to allow stations to be closer to cities, and when stations that had longwire antennas replaced them with vertical radiators.

I'm not sure it's the very shortest run, but WBZ was only in Millis, Mass. for nine years, from 1931 until it moved to its present site in Hull in 1940.
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That's a fascinating story I was unaware of. There must have been considerable "cooperation" between the licensing bureaus in each nation, too.

You should write a whole narrative of that and add any pictures you have access to.

(For those that don't follow Scott's site, it is Fybush.com There are plenty of terrific radio photos, and paying for a subscription is well worth it. Oh, and you should really buy the calendar every year!)

WNYR was a co-member of the Broadcaster's Idea Bank back in the late 70's when Murray Greene was GM and I recall chatting with him at an Idea Bank convention in the late 70's when, I believe, the frequency swap was being worked on.
 
Gre at stuff. I was aware of the fact that there was some "horse trading" involved to get CFTR up to it's current status as a 50kw flamethrower. And I've always been slightly amazed that the CFTR transmitter site adjoining Lake Ontario, south of Hamilton is actually closer to the U.S. border than it is to Toronto. But a didn't know any of the details. And the guy who convinced CHLO to move from 640 to 1570 is my idea of a great salesman.
 
Sure enough, I got on 1310 this morning and heard WCCW for the first time ever. A little after 4:30am CDT. On top of WIBA and eveything else on the channel with a strong signal that lasted about 5 minutes. Then faded into the background with WIBA taking over. Eventually WCCW returned, but weaker and under WIBA. I stayed on 1310 for about fifteen more minutes. During which WIBA remained on top, but with occasional intrusions underneath from WCCW. Radio was the C Crane Skywave.
 
Maybe if we had tuned WCCW 1310 in at 4:00 AM circa Summer, 1962, we might have heard David's Spanish Language Broadcast. 1000 watts apparently, but there were a lot fewer 24 hour stations then, and the noise level was much less.
 
The CE is Eric Send, if cyberdad or others hear WCCW 1310 and want to send for a QSL or eQSL.

[email protected]

Make sure he knows you are in Crystal Lake, ILLINOIS, or he might not think it's impressive. Crystal Lake in Benzie County, MI is where I first heard WCCW.
 
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Schroedingers Cat said:
Maybe if we had tuned WCCW 1310 in at 4:00 AM circa Summer, 1962, we might have heard David's Spanish Language Broadcast. 1000 watts apparently, but there were a lot fewer 24 hour stations then, and the noise level was much less.
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I'm in. That might be worth building a time machine for.
 
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