• 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

Question About Array Seen On Dateline Near Oneida, NY

On an episode of Dateline, there was a picture of what looked like a 4 tower in line self supporting array, possibly top loaded. It appeared to be up on top of a hill, not a great location for an AM array. It looked like it could be windmill towers, but they were too close together and too tall to be a typical windmills on a farm. There is a single windmill not too far away but the blades are clearly visible. This is close to and between Syracuse and Utica. I already found that the local station on 1600, now WMCR, is a nondirectional Class D and always has been. Any ideas on what it is?
 
Last edited:
Closest I can surmise here, Schroed, is WSKO 1260 (formerly Top 40 WNDR). Radio-Locator maps have them as the only xmtr site between Syracuse and Oneida. The site is much closer to Syracuse than to Oneida, though.

Any idea as to how high the towers are ?

(We have the windmills up this way, too -- lots of them. On the ridge north of our town Fustville :- ) there must be 20 of them strung in a row. At night the effect is not unlike the blinking red scene of all those AM sticks in the North Jersey Meadowlands)
 
My guess is in the 300-400 foot range. All the 4 tower array diagrams I looked at near there are parallelograms. If you have some kind of on demand service, the episode is called "Poisoned". It looked like a still picture and was shown probably 3-4 times during the episode.
 
My apologies, Schroedinger! I mis-read your OP and went looking between Syracuse and 'Oneida', not 'Utica'.
I've only been up in those parts once in my life, so my confusion might be understandable.

* * * * * * *

Up as recently as the 60's (in the Bronx) and the early 80's (near Yaphank, way out on Long Island) there had been two arrays, five towers each, like the 5-on-a-die. Neither set of towers were very high, yet they were lit at night.
No New York City AM station had its towers at the Bronx end of the Whitestone Bridge. And no Long Island AM station had their towers in the middle of the pine barrens just north of Sunrise Highway, either. Scott Fybush's take suggests that the 5 sticks at the foot of the Whitestone Bridge had something to do with LaGuardia Airport; sort of a flight beacon. LaGuardia is in Queens, just across the river. The proximity makes sense. But five towers?
And there would've been no airport anywhere near Yaphank back when I presume their towers were built. The area was just pine brush, sand, old beer cans and ducks.
Great line from a girl with whom I was keeping company .... I was into radio and DXing, and she got a little caught up in it as well. So she and I were driving along Sunrise Highway one day, with me in search of those towers. Up ahead there appeared this green mileage/direction sign. It read something like 'Riverhead 18, Yaphank 2', with arrows directing you which way to go.
She had me roaring with one impish word. At the sign, she points to the left and says 'Towers'.
 
Scott Fybush and Pete Cavanaugh are two people who might know what they are. They would be curious to see what they were even if they aren't broadcast towers.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom