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fire

That station is cursed! Timing could not be any worse. The official launch of the rebirth of 99X - following December's soft launch - is tomorrow.
 
megahertz said:
They are on their air. Where is their backup antenna/transmitter located?
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The WNNX aux is licensed for the tower at I-20 and Bill Kennedy Way. It appears to be the same tower that hosts WPCH-TV and WSTR.
 
MarkW said:
That station is cursed! Timing could not be any worse. The official launch of the rebirth of 99X - following December's soft launch - is tomorrow.
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....and that "rebirth" appears to not be happening as of now (8:28am 1-3-23). Anyone know what happened there?
 
Loverofradio said:
God bless the people who have to climb up there and fix that.
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Years ago, I took a tour of that site. The engineer signed in and was given permission to take an elevator to the transmitter room. But to get onto the roof, where the tower is, we had to walk outside onto a deck and climb a narrow steel ladder that's attached to the perimeter of the roof. Climbing that thing while looking down 800 feet to the city, and then coming back down, are experiences I do not care to ever repeat.
 
The lower element of the 4-bay array radome is what burned, apparently due to water possibly entering the feedline from a break or nic possibly from temperature fluctations but won't be determined until the antenna can be properly assessed. That radome burned away and fell to the roof. I was on scene within an hour and assessed my equipment (our county public safety radios system has an RF subsite for our 800MHz P25 system and MotoTRBO UHF system there), and no damage or interruption to our radio networks from the fire though watching it on live TV made me go "oh xxit".

I met the Cumulus engineering director and he confirmed their main transmitter was good, tested it on dummy load, and switched it to the aux antenna (which is lower on the mast just above our 800MHz transmit/receive antennas) and the station is on the air at full power with HD, albeit on a single element and not the 4-bay array. The aux site on Kennedy way isn't operational yet.

The melted remains of the burned radome fell about 2 feet from the feedline for our 800MHz TX antenna, so we got lucky. Everyone acted quickly and no damage to any other equipment or facilities occurred, and 99-X got back on the air within 2 hours. It still puts a city grade signal to a POS clock radio on my desk underground at 130 Peachtree where my radio shop is.
 
MRFLASHPORT said:
The lower element of the 4-bay array radome is what burned, apparently due to water possibly entering the feedline from a break or nic possibly from temperature fluctations but won't be determined until the antenna can be properly assessed. That radome burned away and fell to the roof. I was on scene within an hour and assessed my equipment (our county public safety radios system has an RF subsite for our 800MHz P25 system and MotoTRBO UHF system there), and no damage or interruption to our radio networks from the fire though watching it on live TV made me go "oh xxit".

I met the Cumulus engineering director and he confirmed their main transmitter was good, tested it on dummy load, and switched it to the aux antenna (which is lower on the mast just above our 800MHz transmit/receive antennas) and the station is on the air at full power with HD, albeit on a single element and not the 4-bay array. The aux site on Kennedy way isn't operational yet.

The melted remains of the burned radome fell about 2 feet from the feedline for our 800MHz TX antenna, so we got lucky. Everyone acted quickly and no damage to any other equipment or facilities occurred, and 99-X got back on the air within 2 hours. It still puts a city grade signal to a POS clock radio on my desk underground at 130 Peachtree where my radio shop is.
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How long do they expect the repairs will take?
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Years ago, I took a tour of that site. The engineer signed in and was given permission to take an elevator to the transmitter room. But to get onto the roof, where the tower is, we had to walk outside onto a deck and climb a narrow steel ladder that's attached to the perimeter of the roof. Climbing that thing while looking down 800 feet to the city, and then coming back down, are experiences I do not care to ever repeat.
Click to expand...
I would pass on $1,000,000 over climbing that tower lol
 
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