AM Stations that broadcast from the top of tall buildings

[Prais]

Dan, Your info is all correct. For 7 years I worked for Ed Jacker who owned wcbd.

Yo skirted answerig my question. When it was WAAF, was the tower site on top of that same building?

 

[littlejohn]

I forget what the AM calls were when we (Katz) had the pair. The FM was always WAAF (CRABK IT UP!!!!!)

 

[Prais]

Pair? When I visited/knew the place (in the early 60's) it was Daddio Daylie, Jesse Owens and Jerry Leighton all playing jazz. They worked their own tt's and there was a board op at the Western Electric console. It was located in the Chicago Board of Education building (as was WFMT).

WAAF had lots of Muntz TV ads (have color tv in your home tonight on the quarter meter plan. Call Esterbrook 9-6777) and Daddio was sponsored by "Meister Brau, the Custom Brew."

WAAF had an fm, but sold it long before I got there. I think it was in the 49mhz fm days.

 

[chris560]

I forget what the AM calls were when we (Katz) had the pair. The FM was always WAAF (CRABK IT UP!!!!!)

Weren't the calls WAAB, then WFTQ?

 

[w9wi]

I forget what the AM calls were when we (Katz) had the pair. The FM was always WAAF (CRABK IT UP!!!!!)

Weren't the calls WAAB, then WFTQ?

Wrong WAAF.

There was a WAAF on 950 AM in Chicago at least into the mid-1960s. It was programmed for African-Americans for decades but is today Catholic religious WNTD. I don't know of the Chicago WAAF having a FM, but may be mistaken.

To my knowledge there is no connection with today's WAAF(FM) in Massachusetts. (and you're right that WAAB were the calls for the AM associated with that facility; it's now WVEI. I think you're right that it was WFTQ for some time.)

 

[DanStrassberg]

Yo skirted answerig my question. When it was WAAF, was the tower site on top of that same building?

I'm almost 1000 miles away--in Boston--so I can't claim to be an authority on Chicago's lesser AMs, but from what I've heard, WNTD 950's current 1-kW ND day site is the same rooftop site that the 950 station used when it was a daytimer and had the WAAF calls. The 5-kW six-tower night site in northern Indiana is much newer (though by no means new any longer) and, I'm told, quite an impressive sight. It's a relatively rare six-tower in-line array and supposedly has a road running through it. Six-tower in-lines are allegedly bears to tune initially and to keep tuned and I believe that they often suffer from high RSS/RMS ratios. I'm not an expert on this, but it would seem as though the main reason for building a six-tower in-line as opposed to a 3X2 broadside array would be the unavailability of a site with the proper geometry to construct a broadside array.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

The self-supporting tower atop Larkin Bldg. in Buffalo had WYSL AM & FM until AM was relocated to a guyed tower on Grider by the Kensington Expressway. Afterwards FM and aux. AM stayed atop Larkin until FM was also eventually relocated to Grider tower. The self-supporting tower remains atop Larkin Bldg. for other communications purposes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehydraulics/3211493419/in/set-72157612948429654/

http://www.buffaloah.com/a/exch/726/roof/index.html

Wow those are great pictures, nice tower but it sure looks like it needs a good paint job!

I did some digging around once and found the site was originally home to WEBR when it was on 1370. I wonder if it's the same tower? Any idea how old this one is? I remember seeing the WYSL call letters on it.

 

[Charlie Gee]

1240 is a couple of miles to the north of 820, and is a conventional base-insulated tower behind a building. Another of the 1240 sites was indeed a rooftop, but is no longer in use.

There were 3 stations that shared time on 1240 in Chicago. All had roof top antennas. In addition to WSBC and WCRW that were mentioned earlier, there was WEDC owned by "Emil Denemark Cadillac" hence the call letters. There studio and transmitter were at the rear of the Cadillac showroom on Ogden Avenue and could be observed easily when driving past. They had a pretty good all night show with classical music from 3 to 4 am.

 

[Prais]

WEDC was SOLD by Emil Denemark in the 1960's. Congressman Roman ucinski and his family owned it. I worked for WCRW and WEDC for 7 years. Your info about WEDC must be old. It had an all Spanish all-night show from the 60's to the 90's. Those overnight hors were sold to WEDC by WCRW, whose owner was of the opinion that "nobody listened overnight." WEDC and WCRW both sold to WSBC in the 90's ending the "shared time" operation.

WEDC and WCRW had spotlessly clean, state of the art facilities.

The WAAF we were referring to, on toop of the 10 story building was in CHICAGO, unrelated to the Mass. WAAF.

 

[DTV-Chief]

The self-supporting tower atop Larkin Bldg. in Buffalo had WYSL AM & FM until AM was relocated to a guyed tower on Grider by the Kensington Expressway. Afterwards FM and aux. AM stayed atop Larkin until FM was also eventually relocated to Grider tower. The self-supporting tower remains atop Larkin Bldg. for other communications purposes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thehydraulics/3211493419/in/set-72157612948429654/

http://www.buffaloah.com/a/exch/726/roof/index.html

Wow those are great pictures, nice tower but it sure looks like it needs a good paint job!

I did some digging around once and found the site was originally home to WEBR when it was on 1370. I wonder if it's the same tower? Any idea how old this one is? I remember seeing the WYSL call letters on it.

Yes this is the tower originally used for WEBR and originally erected for AM with base insulators.

In order to add WYSL-FM (then called WIFE) the tower was shortened and steel splices were added across the base insulators (because they were too wimpy to carry the additional load) and the tower was shunt-fed for WYSL(AM).

The WYSL call letters were neon tubes in huge sheet metal pans. There were two of each letter on opposite sides of the tower, and they would light up sequentially: W, Y, S, L , and then simultaneously, and then repeat.

I remember when high winds shredded one of the letters. Then Chief Engineer Dick Schuh climbed up with a hacksaw to cut off the dangling pieces so they wouldn't fly off and maybe kill someone.

They tried various schemes to implement a ground plane for this tower, including counterpoise to nearby building, but it always seemed to directionalize toward Erie, PA (adversely affecting WJET). As I recall ,certain jocks would love running from this AUX site because they'd reach new listeners to the South.

The transmitting equipment was housed in a "shack" in the northeast corner of the top floor, with a bathroom, a parts room, and transmitter rooms. The whole north wall had windows that were completely covered by a huge Graphic Controls sign. The space wasn't air conditioned, so when too warm we'd open the windows for ventillation, but then the pigeons would come inside and make themselves at home.

 

[DTV-Chief]

[/quote]

Wow those are great pictures, nice tower but it sure looks like it needs a good paint job!

I did some digging around once and found the site was originally home to WEBR when it was on 1370. I wonder if it's the same tower? Any idea how old this one is? I remember seeing the WYSL call letters on it.
[/quote]
I checked the FCC's ASR database, and this tower is located at 189 Van Rensselaer St., and owner Pinnacle Towers notified the FAA on 8/26/07 that the tower was dismantled, although I can confirm it was still standing last December (although the WYSL call letters are long gone).

 

[DTV-Chief]

I remember when high winds shredded one of the letters. Then Chief Engineer Dick Schuh climbed up with a hacksaw to cut off the dangling pieces so they wouldn't fly off and maybe kill someone.

My apologies, I meant to write "Then Chief Engineer Dick Gideon."

 

[Mike Sheridan]

I remember when high winds shredded one of the letters. Then Chief Engineer Dick Schuh climbed up with a hacksaw to cut off the dangling pieces so they wouldn't fly off and maybe kill someone.

My apologies, I meant to write "Then Chief Engineer Dick Gideon."

In any case a great historic site, thanks for the information. Do you know when 1400 moved off the tower? I lived out near the KB/WGR site so sometimes getting 1400 was a problem. KB can be clearly heard in the background of the tape I was making of WYSL.

 

[Charlie Gee]

You are correct. My comments about WEDC dates to the late 1950s. It was as I remember it.

 

[DTV-Chief]

I remember when high winds shredded one of the letters. Then Chief Engineer Dick Schuh climbed up with a hacksaw to cut off the dangling pieces so they wouldn't fly off and maybe kill someone.

My apologies, I meant to write "Then Chief Engineer Dick Gideon."

In any case a great historic site, thanks for the information. Do you know when 1400 moved off the tower? I lived out near the KB/WGR site so sometimes getting 1400 was a problem. KB can be clearly heard in the background of the tape I was making of WYSL.

The AM moved to its Kensington/Grider site while WYSL studios were still on the top floor of the Statler Hilton, before relocating to Franklin St. in 1970. The FM and Aux. AM moved to Grider while still under McLendon ownership, around 1972-74. (Corporate DOE Glenn Callison handled transferring their Larkin tower to landlord Graphic Controls.)

 

[boiseengineer]

KSBN (1230) Spokane has a roof top self-supported.
Scroll down this Fybush page:
http://www.fybush.com/sites/2007/site-070413.html

 

[317C50KW]

Prais might be able to help me on this but I clearly remember WSBC's AM site in the late 50's and into the early 60's being on Chicago's near west side at Western Avenue and I believe Madison, a couple blocks south of the then headquarters of the great Allied Radio. The tower, also a building topper, would have also held the FM antenna for the then WSBC-FM 93.1, today's WXRT.

WAAF Chicago was once owned by the Drover's Journal Publishing Company Inc. and had studios in the Palmer House hotel (this info from the 1945 Broadcasting Yearbook---thanks David Eduardo!). An ad placed in that year's Yearbook mentioned their transmitter being located in the "geographical heart of Chicago."

By 1951 Drovers still operated the station under the Corn Belt Publishing subsidiary. The 1951 Yearbooks said the studio was now on LaSalle Street and that WAAF-FM went on the air in 1950 with 25KW at 93.9, later WEBH, WLAK and today WLIT.

I have reason to believe the original site was in the old Chicago Stock Yards area. I recall advertising by WAAF
(by then programming to Chicago's African-American community) announcing a better signal from a new transmitter site, which would have to have been the move to the building top. This would have been in the mid-late 1960's, maybe early '70s.

Tom Joyner got his start at one of the later incarnations of WAAF.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

Let me get the Tri-State area on the map...Cincinnati had a pair of AM rooftop installations...WUBE 1230 had the typical 1KW day/250W night status from a downtown rooftop while WKRC 550 had a 2 tower directional array on the Hotel Alms until the summer of 1975 when the current site at Cold Spring,KY was commissioned. WHBU 1240 Anderson,IN also operated from a rooftop and unlike the 1230 in Cincy, this one had a killer signal...Anderson sounded great on a car radio at 60 miles. WUBE was considered DX at half that distance. At night, WUBE was unlistenable beyond 7 miles and this was in the mid 60's when the AM dial was a friendlier place to be heard.

 

[DanStrassberg]

WKRC 550 had a 2 tower directional array on the Hotel Alms until the summer of 1975 when the current site at Cold Spring,KY was commissioned

I've never been to Cincinnati, but I am sekptical that what you believe was a rooftop DA on 550 was a rooftop DA. Given the wavelength at 550 (more than 1/3 mile!), the building would have had to occupy a huge area to get the towers far enough apart for the DA to function even half decently. I know that a few DAs have towers spaced only 45 degrees apart but, spacings of less than 60 degrees are not very common. And the ground system would have required still more real estate. Moreover, 60-degree towers at 550 are ~300' high. Did the towers REALLY add the equivalent of 30 stories to the height of the hotel?

It is much more likely that the towers supported a nondirectional horizontal long-wire stretched between them, with the feed wire dropped from the center of the long-wire, to form a T configuration. A few such AM transmitting antennas remained in use into the 70s. Indeed, I'm told that one of this general type (it's and L rather than a T) is still in use at KYPA in Los Angeles, even though the station has built (and I thought had been granted a license to cover) a conventional vertical antenna comprising (and diplexed from) two of the six towers of a co-owned station. When and if this diplex goes into operation on 1230, it will be the first nighttime DA on a US Class C AM.

Among the stations where long-wires survived until after World War II was KNBR (I guess it was still KPO at that time). At the other end of the power spectrum, there was one until just a few years ago at a Class C AM in western PA, north of Pittsburgh. I've forgotten the CoL and the call sign. I think the station was on 1340.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

WKRC 550 had a 2 tower directional array on the Hotel Alms until the summer of 1975 when the current site at Cold Spring,KY was commissioned

I've never been to Cincinnati, but I am sekptical that what you believe was a rooftop DA on 550 was a rooftop DA. Given the wavelength at 550 (more than 1/3 mile!), the building would have had to occupy a huge area to get the towers far enough apart for the DA to function even half decently. I know that a few DAs have towers spaced only 45 degrees apart but, spacings of less than 60 degrees are not very common. And the ground system would have required still more real estate. Moreover, 60-degree towers at 550 are ~300' high. Did the towers REALLY add the equivalent of 30 stories to the height of the hotel?

It is much more likely that the towers supported a nondirectional horizontal long-wire stretched between them, with the feed wire dropped from the center of the long-wire, to form a T configuration. A few such AM transmitting antennas remained in use into the 70s. Indeed, I'm told that one of this general type (it's and L rather than a T) is still in use at KYPA in Los Angeles, even though the station has built (and I thought had been granted a license to cover) a conventional vertical antenna comprising (and diplexed from) two of the six towers of a co-owned station. When and if this diplex goes into operation on 1230, it will be the first nighttime DA on a US Class C AM.

Among the stations where long-wires survived until after World War II was KNBR (I guess it was still KPO at that time). At the other end of the power spectrum, there was one until just a few years ago at a Class C AM in western PA, north of Pittsburgh. I've forgotten the CoL and the call sign. I think the station was on 1340.

I understand your skepticism and while I didn't actually see this in operation, I was on the engineering staff when the shut it down & we activated the new site. I can only go by what I recall. A Google Search for WKRC Hotel Alms did bring this site up, which contains a picture that depicts the 2 self supporting towers. It was decommissioned 34 years ago this summer...hopefully someone who remembers it first hand can fill us in on the particulars. I agree...it seems most unlikely, but I honestly do believe it existed. It had to be directional to minimize the signal toward co-owned WTVN/Columbus and to protect St Louis on 550. There we probably other protections as well. I wonder if there's any archive of past AM facilities on line?

http://www.cincinnativiews.net/alms_hotel.htm

Here's a quote from a recent post on another topic:

Title: Re: Best signal in Cincinnati
Post by: Cincinnati Kid on April 17, 2009, 03:18:59 pm
I think WKRC 550-AM is probably not thought of as a powerful station in connection with some of the others in Cincinnati. However, during the day, it really seems to get out well. I remember being in south-central Kentucky in the early 1960's and with a regular plug-in table model AM radio, I listened to the University of Cincinnati football and basketball games on WKRC. In doing that, it was important to get away from florescent lighting and other interference such as the the whine put out by TV sets. Back then, WKRC had its towers on top of the Hotel Alms in the Walnut Hills section of the city.