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A Tower Question and a History Question

T

Towerjunky

Hi everyone,
I just spent a week in Memphis on business and had a chance to hear local radio. Two questions came to mind, if someone could help:
1 - I know WDIA came on the air about 1949 and moved to 1070 about 1954 but were a daytimer for awhile? It seems for a station that old they sure got cheated with their night pattern. I know Memphis has grown considerably to the east but still, it's is quite bad. Did they get full time status much later?
2 - I believe Radio Locator shows KWAM and V101 sharing the same site (but only using two of the four towers). If so, who's site is about 1/2 mile to one mile west of there,, the two towers, one taller than the other? I know the 730 is north of there so it can't be them.
Thanks in advance.
 
Regarding question number one, WDIA was a relatively late arrival on 1070kHz in 1954 with 50kW day 4-towers and 5kW night 6-towers. The 1070 frequency is a US and Canadian class “A” clear channel with KNX Los Angeles and a eastern Canadian station sharing nighttime clear channel status. Those stations are afforded wide protection to their respective night contours. These two stations assumed these dial positions in 1941. With their wide spaced geographic locations, this opened up some possibilities in the Midwest and southern US for class II stations including WDIA, WIBC, WAPI and a few others. By law, those stations must directionalize their nighttime signals to heavily protect those two primary stations and others that came on the air at some point. This is why WDIA has deep nulls over wide arc’s towards the primary stations and another very deep null towards Birmingham, Al who moved to 1070 in 1941, years ahead of WDIA. Also in 1954, Memphis was much smaller and the signal was, and is still concentrated in a narrow beam south over the central core of Memphis and into the delta of Mississippi. Even with all those current day coverage problems, WDIA is still a Memphis ratings power house.

As far as your second question, I can’t offer any reliable information and will leave that for one of the many posters from that area.
 
Towerjunky said:
Hi everyone,
I just spent a week in Memphis on business and had a chance to hear local radio. Two questions came to mind, if someone could help:
1 - I know WDIA came on the air about 1949 and moved to 1070 about 1954 but were a daytimer for awhile? It seems for a station that old they sure got cheated with their night pattern. I know Memphis has grown considerably to the east but still, it's is quite bad. Did they get full time status much later?
2 - I believe Radio Locator shows KWAM and V101 sharing the same site (but only using two of the four towers). If so, who's site is about 1/2 mile to one mile west of there,, the two towers, one taller than the other? I know the 730 is north of there so it can't be them.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

KJMS - V101 now is located at the WHRK tower

I think the 2 tower site just west of there just at the edge of W. Memphis is KSUD's old tower site. They have only been at the site they are at now a year or two.
 
This is slightly OT, but didn't KWAM used to have a studio that was a trailer on stilts next to their transmitter? This would have been YEARS ago...
 
Was that KWAM or KSUD??????? I'm talking back around 1975 or so.
 
KWAM's trasmitter facility is a square cement floored building mounted on steel piers about 25 feet above the ground, accessible via an outside mounted steel stairway, in turn accessible via a short drive off the spur levee from Bridgeport Road. Certain times of the year a boat is necessary to get from the leve to the building. It can be exciting going to the transmitter anytime, but especially in spring flood. The facility is located on about 20 acres of land just south of I-55 as you head west across the bridge on the Arkansas flood plain. It's the first tower array you see looking south from I-55.

KJMS was transmitting from that facility until about 2 1/2 years ago when Clear Channel moved to a new transmitter broadcasting from the tower that contains WHRK. The old KJMS transmitter is still in the KWAM building, inoperative.

KWAM was owned by Concord Media Group until it was sold March of '08.
 
Well, the consensus seems to be that site is probably the original 730 site. Anyone else have any ideas?

Also, is KWAM using 2 of the four towers at their site? One is probably just an FM tower.
 
Let's see if I remember correctly. KWAM daytime uses the tall center tower (used to be KJMS too) and the north tower (nearest I-55) and KWAM nighttime uses the tall center tower and the south tower. Technically they use three towers. the short stick near the building was for an STL shot.
 
Thanks Watt for answering his WDIA question. I knew WAPI was on before WDIA but always wondered about the other nulls.

WDIA was pretty much gone in Collierville the lat time I was there at night, ages ago.... But is pretty solid all night on my home stereo receiver in my bedroom, over 100 miles south in Grenada County.
 
The two tower array in W. Memphis (one tall and one short) is the former KSUD 730 site and has been engineered to become 1180 WPLX at 5Kw day / 3.8Kw CH and something like 20 Watts at night.
 
Ah, I just glanced at the CP again, it is 26 watts at night and 3500 CH...my bad.
 
Michael said:
Towerjunky said:
Hi everyone,
I just spent a week in Memphis on business and had a chance to hear local radio. Two questions came to mind, if someone could help:
1 - I know WDIA came on the air about 1949 and moved to 1070 about 1954 but were a daytimer for awhile? It seems for a station that old they sure got cheated with their night pattern. I know Memphis has grown considerably to the east but still, it's is quite bad. Did they get full time status much later?
2 - I believe Radio Locator shows KWAM and V101 sharing the same site (but only using two of the four towers). If so, who's site is about 1/2 mile to one mile west of there,, the two towers, one taller than the other? I know the 730 is north of there so it can't be them.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

KJMS - V101 now is located at the WHRK tower

I think the 2 tower site just west of there just at the edge of W. Memphis is KSUD's old tower site. They have only been at the site they are at now a year or two.
Click to expand...

Curious, if KJMS is on WHRK tower this puts the station east of the Mississippi. How is it that they can keep the K call letter? Since they moved, should they not have a W call letter? Is there some kind of grandfather clause that permits them to do this?
 
The FCC is rather relaxed about the K-W line in metro areas that cross the river. There are "W" calls in St. Louis and "K" calls across the river in the Illinois part of the metro, and the line blurs completely in Minneapolis-St. Paul and New Orleans.
 
Scott Fybush said:
The FCC is rather relaxed about the K-W line in metro areas that cross the river. There are "W" calls in St. Louis and "K" calls across the river in the Illinois part of the metro, and the line blurs completely in Minneapolis-St. Paul and New Orleans.
Click to expand...

And there's at least two built-from-the-ground-up stations east of the Mississippi now with K calls. One's in Sardis, MS and the other... Long Island?

Either way, it seems the FCC is forgetting their own rules sometimes.
 
Watt Hairston said:
Regarding question number one, WDIA was a relatively late arrival on 1070kHz in 1954 with 50kW day 4-towers and 5kW night 6-towers. The 1070 frequency is a US and Canadian class “A” clear channel with KNX Los Angeles and a eastern Canadian station sharing nighttime clear channel status. Those stations are afforded wide protection to their respective night contours. These two stations assumed these dial positions in 1941. With their wide spaced geographic locations, this opened up some possibilities in the Midwest and southern US for class II stations including WDIA, WIBC, WAPI and a few others. By law, those stations must directionalize their nighttime signals to heavily protect those two primary stations and others that came on the air at some point. This is why WDIA has deep nulls over wide arc’s towards the primary stations and another very deep null towards Birmingham, Al who moved to 1070 in 1941, years ahead of WDIA. Also in 1954, Memphis was much smaller and the signal was, and is still concentrated in a narrow beam south over the central core of Memphis and into the delta of Mississippi. Even with all those current day coverage problems, WDIA is still a Memphis ratings power house.

As far as your second question, I can’t offer any reliable information and will leave that for one of the many posters from that area.
Click to expand...

Watt,

Don't forget WDIA was on the air before 1954 and the move to 1070. WDIA was a "Daytime Only" station on 730 Khz with only 250 watts in the late 40's. They started as a Country Station (which was a disaster) before the black format started. They were on 740 when the balck format started on WDIA.

Scott @ MRO
 
scottwmro said:
Watt,

Don't forget WDIA was on the air before 1954 and the move to 1070. WDIA was a "Daytime Only" station on 730 Khz with only 250 watts in the late 40's. They started as a Country Station (which was a disaster) before the black format started. They were on 740 when the balck format started on WDIA.

Scott @ MRO
Click to expand...

Was WMC on 790 back then?
 
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