• 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

Fallen towers at two SoCal area stations

B

Big 121

Yes, it was in the '70s. First was XPRS 1090. Followed a few years later by one of KCBQ's eastern towers. Although there were several staff
present after midnight, no one heard the 180' tower slam down. Thankfully it fell away from the 2 buildings. Severe eyebolt corrosion appeared
to be the culprit.
A THIRD stations' tower fell around the time of KCBQ's, and I think it was KWIZ, 1480. Unable to confirm this, though. Does anybody know
if it was KWIZ, and were there any other stations that lost towers?

Big 121
 
KFI was recently taken down by a plane in a tragic accident, and has subsequently been rebuilt.
KCBQ lost the lease on their site in Santee, broadcast from a wire near KLSD's site (former KPOP/KGB), then moved in to diplex with KECR.
KECR (before KCBQ was diplexing with them, I think) had some equipment damaged in (I believe) the Cedar Fire in 2003.
KNSN (former KSON) / KURS had the top half of their tower snap over in strong winds a few years back in a December storm. They have since built a new tower several feet south of the original site.
 
When the old Navy Radio Station towers (3) were demolished out near College Grove we drove out to witness the event, it was pretty awesome. I was sorry to see them go. They were visible from almost all of the city, they were very much a symbol of an important bygone era, I will never forget the whistling noise the big towers made as they plunged to earth.
I think somebody blew up a KNX tower long ago, but that was a surprise because I thought KNX was nondirectional.
 
Yes. KNX was non-directional at the time, which I think was 1965 or 66. They quickly errected a much sorter tower for use in the emergency. Once the big tower was completed they decided to go directional to cut wasted coverage of the pacific ocean.
 
Is there a reason station management would prefer a nondirectional signal with coverage going out to sea over a directionalized signal focusing coverage on populated areas? Of the old clear channel stations the only one I can think of that is directional is WWL (corrections welcome).
 
Lopaka said:
Is there a reason station management would prefer a nondirectional signal with coverage going out to sea over a directionalized signal focusing coverage on populated areas? Of the old clear channel stations the only one I can think of that is directional is WWL (corrections welcome).
Click to expand...

WBZ in Boston is also intentionally directional to keep from wasting power over the ocean.

Generally, stations don't have the option of being non-directional unless they are on local channels (like 1240 in San Diego). The need to protect other stations on the same channel or adjacent ones requires directionality. Many of the non-directional regional channels were first licenced as 5 kw day and 1 kw night, such as 1360 in SD. Raising power requires complex directional systems, but the non-directional signal just does not cover the market today.

Even many of the stations that were given 5 kw non directional day and night in the 30's can't cover their whole market today due to urban sprawl, locations with bad ground conductivity or high end dial positions. In general, in the top 100 US markets less than one of every 10 stations is "viable" meaning it has a usable signal day and night over 80% or more of the radio market area.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Generally, stations don't have the option of being non-directional unless they are on local channels (like 1240 in San Diego). The need to protect other stations on the same channel or adjacent ones requires directionality. Many of the non-directional regional channels were first licenced as 5 kw day and 1 kw night, such as 1360 in SD. Raising power requires complex directional systems, but the non-directional signal just does not cover the market today.
Click to expand...

I think Lopaca is asking the opposite question: Why are WBZ and WWL the only two Class A stations to elect to go directional? While it obviously wouldn't make sense for inland stations like KSL and WGN, one would think stations like KNX and WABC might have benefited from locating their transmitters further inland and using a DA to blast even more field strength across the core of their markets.
 
w9wi said:
DavidEduardo said:
Generally, stations don't have the option of being non-directional unless they are on local channels (like 1240 in San Diego). The need to protect other stations on the same channel or adjacent ones requires directionality. Many of the non-directional regional channels were first licenced as 5 kw day and 1 kw night, such as 1360 in SD. Raising power requires complex directional systems, but the non-directional signal just does not cover the market today.
Click to expand...

I think Lopaca is asking the opposite question: Why are WBZ and WWL the only two Class A stations to elect to go directional? While it obviously wouldn't make sense for inland stations like KSL and WGN, one would think stations like KNX and WABC might have benefited from locating their transmitters further inland and using a DA to blast even more field strength across the core of their markets.
Click to expand...

Gotcha. Part of the reasoning is that nondirectional operation is technically so superior... no expensive phasor, no extra land for the towers, no degradation of audio by the hgher Q circuits generally employed in the 30's when so many directional operations came one.

In the case of inland stations like KSL the night coverage was the important coverage. In the 30's and 40's peak radio listening was at night and a station counted on being the big Red, Blue, or CBS station for many surrounding markets and heavy listening extended for hundreds of miles; in the later 40s stations like WsM published maps showing mail pull from all 48 states! Today, night listening is minor, and out of market coverage not monetizable so whatever we do with a signal tends to be focused on getting as much of it over the metro as we can.

Most stations today are so surrounded by co and adjacent channel stations that they have few options in moving sites or increasing power. There have been a lot of cases of better facilities being worth more dead than alive, due to real estate values increasing. 570 in DC moved to a "new" facility that degraded the coverage in some areas, but the many millions they got for the now-valuable land could not be turned down. Some stations simply shut down in these cases.
 
It bears noting here that at least two other "coastal" I-A clears did experiment with DA operation: KNX, as I believe has already been noted, and Cleveland's 1100. The Cleveland DA took place, if I'm not mistaken, under NBC's ownership in the early 50s, when then-WTAM moved from its site on Snowville Rd. in Brecksville north to the WNBK-TV tower in Parma. It was a one-tower DA, using a parasitic element dropped from one of the guy wires of the TV tower to create a null to the north.

My understanding is that it never worked very well, and 1100 eventually moved back to Brecksville as a non-directional operation.
 
Lopaka- `Thanks for bringing up the landmark "Navy towers" at Chollas. 660' tall, and top-loaded(increases electrical length) it used a single tube
triode for the final amplifier. The one-million watt transmitter tube had a door for replacing worn elements. It broadcast on VLF at around
22khz?, to communicate with U.S. submarines around the world. Its strange modulation bled into my tv and radios, at 5 miles distant with
a"warbling" sound. Located across Hwy 94 from KFSD/KOGO towers, it was quite a landmark.

Big 121
 
Big 121 said:
Lopaka- `Thanks for bringing up the landmark "Navy towers" at Chollas. 660' tall, and top-loaded(increases electrical length) it used a single tube
triode for the final amplifier.
Click to expand...

Another of those VLF transmitters was at Moca, PR. The tower was 1200 feet high, and also top loaded. The operation ceased sometime in the 80's and the tower was offered free to anyone who would remove it. However, there were no takers and the tower was likely detonated.
 
RadeoEngineer is correct. The structures at the top of the towers were attachment points for the wires comprising the antenna.
 
Here's a blurb from the company that did the Chollos tear down and a link to a pic of the site:

"In 1995, Controlled Demolition Incorporated felled the US Navy's Southern Pacific antenna array at the Chollas Heights Facility near San Diego. The Chollas Heights project was performed under far different circumstances than the Annapolis contract. It was only after a helicopter effort to pick down portions of 1 tower failed that the 3 towers were demolished quickly and safely by Controlled Demolition Incorporated within severe environmental protection constraints and only 5 days preparation. 1 tower was as close as 100 feet to occupied private homes which had been built around the US Navy communications reservation."

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt5q2nc4qh/?docId=kt5q2nc4qh&brand=oac&layout=printable-details
 
I remember this. When we moved to La Mesa, you could see those towers from everywhere! Then I remember when they started to take them down first with the chopper and finally demolition. I used to like those towers though, I thought they were a great landmark. I always thought it would have made a great radio or tv transmitting facility but I bet I'm wrong about that, right?

Either way, La Mesa and Lemon Grove just weren't the same after that. After the towers came down, it looked just like every other suburb in America :(
 
Garrett said:
I remember this. When we moved to La Mesa, you could see those towers from everywhere! Then I remember when they started to take them down first with the chopper and finally demolition. I used to like those towers though, I thought they were a great landmark. I always thought it would have made a great radio or tv transmitting facility but I bet I'm wrong about that, right?

Either way, La Mesa and Lemon Grove just weren't the same after that. After the towers came down, it looked just like every other suburb in America :(
Click to expand...

Total agreement!!
I can remember the towers from my childhood all the way to when they were blown up.It really
did look strange to look in that direction and not seeing the towers after they came down.I was wondering the same thing as you Garrett. I wondered why they couldn't be used as broadcasting transmitters. I'd bet they would have saturated the entire region with an awsome signal! The day when they were about to blow up the towers, I wondered how many people were standing under the KOGO towers just across the 94 waiting for them to come down? LOl! :D
 
tfcwings said:
KNSN (former KSON) / KURS had the top half of their tower snap over in strong winds a few years back in a December storm. They have since built a new tower several feet south of the original site.
Click to expand...

That was a pretty sad sight! :'( I remember tuning to KURS to hear gospel music and got only
static. I looked over to the direction of the KSON tower and saw it crumpled over from the storm
the prevoius night. The old tower was a true landmark,with the KSON-1240 call letters mounted on it. I remember as a kid, the call letters blazed every night in red neon. If I can recall in the
early 70's, I think I remember one of the KOGO towers having neon call letters. I wish I could find a picture to confirm it,but being a kid, I wasn't thinking about radio transmitters!
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom