S
SmokeRing
Guest
Whose towers are just south of I-30 between downtown Dallas and Arlington. Near Westmoreland, I think.
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V
VERITAS DE VOCE
Guest
Although I am not an engineer, KKDA perhaps?
V
VERITAS DE VOCE
Guest
Thanks, Robert... mark one down for Old School! Good times ;D
SmokeRing said:
There aren't any AM broadcast towers on the south side of I-30, but there are numerous towers on the north side of the highway. KKDA 730's two towers are just north of I-30, east of Belt Line (a stone's throw from Lone Star Park). Just to the east of there is the 6-tower array of KMNY 1360, and a little further north of that one is the 4-tower daytime site for KFXR 1190, near MacArthur and Hunter-Ferrell Road in south Irving.
The towers near Westmoreland south of I-30 (near the bulk mail center are the old Chalk Hill towers. At one time it hosted KNUS-KLUV and KKDA before they moved to Cedar Hill. KLUV and KKDA maintained back ups there for many years after the move. It also was a Marti receive site for KLUV. AFAIK there's no broadcast on any of the towers out there, it's all telecommunications/cell/two-way oriented.
317C50KW said:
The 98.7 and 104.5 signals took their sweet time moving out to Cedar Hill, years after most everyone else at the time. While the old facility was adequate to cover DFW, the signals were noticably inferior to the CH sticks...perhaps contributing to the demise of KNUS. Both stations moved light years ahead in signal strength and audio quality when the new transmitters hit the air in 1980.
I too have a question about towers located in the City Limits of Dallas.
There are four towers on the north west side of North Lake (North Irving) where Belt Line Road in the major street border. The towers are all around 500 feet in height.
One of the towers is listed as being owned by KLDT-TV55, INC.
Of the other three towers, two are listed as being owned by KAREN L HICKS.
Any relation to the Tom Hicks Family ? ?
Anchor Media ? was listed as the other tower owner.
Are any of these towers broadcasting radio or TV ? ?
There are four towers on the north west side of North Lake (North Irving) where Belt Line Road in the major street border. The towers are all around 500 feet in height.
One of the towers is listed as being owned by KLDT-TV55, INC.
Of the other three towers, two are listed as being owned by KAREN L HICKS.
Any relation to the Tom Hicks Family ? ?
Anchor Media ? was listed as the other tower owner.
Are any of these towers broadcasting radio or TV ? ?
The towers on the west side of North Lake are the array for 570 KLIF (which after sold off by Belo was owned by Anchor Media). KPLX also maintains an FM backup on one of the towers.TheRover said:
Also - back to Chalk Hill, KVIL-FM was originally at Chalk Hill. I believe it moved to Cedar Hill when KPLX moved to its new tower in 1975. KCPA-FM, the short-lived 94.1 in the early 1960's also transmitted there.
M
MikeShannon914
Guest
Anchor Media is who once owned the remnants of WFAA-AM/FM (by then was called KLDD-AM and KZEW-FM.) They bought the duo from Belo in 1987. The rich Bass brothers of FW had controlling interest in Anchor back then. No idea on Ms. Hicks. Now the Hicks' father was a longtime Texas radio station owner, long before his sons started piddling with sports teams. Mr. John Hicks Jr once owned KRRV-910 in Sherman, and may have put something in a relative's name, or maybe Karen is a wife (or ex) of one of Mr. Hicks' sons.
Just due south of IH-30 and Westmoreland is a Nextel tower. I believe it's just a single mast, and there's repeaters sporadically placed around town (on top of 901 Main, for one...the old NCNB tower.) I leased a load of 2-way radios directly from that Nextel office (different name back then; escapes me at the moment) some 15 years ago for my courier biz. The tower runs just 800 and 900 mHz, AFAIK.
KKDA's towers are probably still in their original place from 1957 when KBCS took the air as a Grand Prairie-only station (well, they touted the "Golden Triangle" of Grand Prairie, Arlington and Irving.) Then again, I just wandered across a note on my own site that says the first towers were on Beatty Rd, south of town.
Just due south of IH-30 and Westmoreland is a Nextel tower. I believe it's just a single mast, and there's repeaters sporadically placed around town (on top of 901 Main, for one...the old NCNB tower.) I leased a load of 2-way radios directly from that Nextel office (different name back then; escapes me at the moment) some 15 years ago for my courier biz. The tower runs just 800 and 900 mHz, AFAIK.
KKDA's towers are probably still in their original place from 1957 when KBCS took the air as a Grand Prairie-only station (well, they touted the "Golden Triangle" of Grand Prairie, Arlington and Irving.) Then again, I just wandered across a note on my own site that says the first towers were on Beatty Rd, south of town.
MikeShannon914 said:
The 730 towers were originally on the south side of Beatty Rd. (now Mayfield) just to the west of where Hwy 161 now passes. The two towers can easily be seen by zooming in to the area on www.historicaerials.com
Back in the 60's and early 70's, the studios were also located at that same location.
TheRover said:
I'm curious about where you found the ownership information for towers in that area. There are several shorter towers in the vicinity but the three towers (not four) on the northwest side of North Lake, as Domingo mentioned, belong to KLIF 570. In the Antenna Site Registration database they're officially listed as being owned by KLIF BROADCASTING LIMITED PARTNERSHIP DBA = AM RADIO STATION KLIF.
As you mentioned, they are within the city limits of Dallas, on Sanders Loop, which runs parallel to North Belt Line Road (before it turns to the east). The height of the towers is 151.5 meters, or about 598 feet.
To summarize a few historical facts about this site, it was built in the late 1960's to replace the similar WBAP and WFAA 570/820 site along Highway 114 just east of Grapevine. The stations had to relocate because of the pending construction of D/FW Airport and like the prior site this one had a fourth tower which was for the non-directional 820. That northernmost tower was not a functional part of the 570 directional array; it was in use for several years following the end of the WBAP/WFAA time sharing arrangement in 1970. Following the construction of WBAP's current site in Mansfield back in 1980 the fourth tower at North Lake was eventually removed.
D
dfaulkner
Guest
At 1600 KTNS in Plano we used to cuss & discuss about how much more territory 570 covered with their 5KW
than we did with ours...
than we did with ours...
I've mentioned this before, but it was quite some time ago. There were claims of some manipulation by the people who engineered the North Lake Site back in the day. A lot of testing was done during the daytime on 700 kHZ, of all places, unlike these days when testing is routinely authorized in the 1610-1700 expanded band range. The reasoning was that 700 was roughly halfway in between the two stations, thus it would be easier to measure the estimated coverage of both WFAA and WBAP. The FCC issued a special temporary station to facilitate the testing of the new site and the advantage, of course, was that programming on neither of the stations licensed frequencies would be interrupted. I said earlier that the non-directional "fourth" tower that was home to 820 was not a functional part of the 570 array, but I've heard claims that in reality its efficiency was affected by the simple fact that there were three other towers nearby.
With the end of time-share looming, there were accusations that the engineers somehow were able to come up with a way to give 570 at least equal, if not better coverage than 820. While I never saw the actual studies, I did see the predicted coverage maps, and they shows that 570 would have roughly the same daytime range as the more powerful 820.
Over all the years that they shared time the two stations never really had a good working relationship. In fact, they never liked each other at all, and WBAP's use of the cowbell on 820 at station switching time was always particularly upsetting to WFAA. WBAP, as the story goes, simply grew weary of the fight, and the uneasy relationship was put side once and for all when they found a new stand-alone site.
With the end of time-share looming, there were accusations that the engineers somehow were able to come up with a way to give 570 at least equal, if not better coverage than 820. While I never saw the actual studies, I did see the predicted coverage maps, and they shows that 570 would have roughly the same daytime range as the more powerful 820.
Over all the years that they shared time the two stations never really had a good working relationship. In fact, they never liked each other at all, and WBAP's use of the cowbell on 820 at station switching time was always particularly upsetting to WFAA. WBAP, as the story goes, simply grew weary of the fight, and the uneasy relationship was put side once and for all when they found a new stand-alone site.
jd said:
Okay, here's what you need to do to view the display that I got the information from for the 4 towers.
1. Go to http://www.antennasearch.com/
2. Enter Sanders Loop Coppell TX
3. Patiently wait for a couple of minutes for the results to appear.
4. Select "View Tower Results"
5. Click -4- times to enlarge the Google Map, and you should then see the four Tower Structures off Sanders Loop identified with a Blue Logo.
6. Click on each of the blue tower logos to get their ID. Tower heights are listed further down the page. (Note: the four towers off Sanders Loop are listed on that site as "Unregistered" Towers, and show up further down the page in the listings labeled "Not Registered".)
7. You can switch the Google Map to a Satellite view to see the towers.
1. Go to http://www.antennasearch.com/
2. Enter Sanders Loop Coppell TX, then Make Selection by clicking on "Process"
3. Patiently wait for a couple of minutes for the processing to be completed, and for the results to appear.
4. Select "View Tower Results"
5. Click -4- times to enlarge the Google Map, and you should then see the four Tower Structures off Sanders Loop identified with a Blue Logo.
6. Click on each of the blue tower logos to get their ID. Tower heights are listed further down the page. (Note: the four towers off Sanders Loop are listed on that site as "Unregistered" Towers, and show up further down the page in the listings labeled "Not Registered".)
7. You can switch the Google Map to a Satellite view to see the towers.
2. Enter Sanders Loop Coppell TX, then Make Selection by clicking on "Process"
3. Patiently wait for a couple of minutes for the processing to be completed, and for the results to appear.
4. Select "View Tower Results"
5. Click -4- times to enlarge the Google Map, and you should then see the four Tower Structures off Sanders Loop identified with a Blue Logo.
6. Click on each of the blue tower logos to get their ID. Tower heights are listed further down the page. (Note: the four towers off Sanders Loop are listed on that site as "Unregistered" Towers, and show up further down the page in the listings labeled "Not Registered".)
7. You can switch the Google Map to a Satellite view to see the towers.
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