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WIP XMTR

O

OHara

Guest
How long have they been broadcasting from right off 295 South and 42, with the two antenna array and the netted tops. When they were kinda competing with WIBG in the early to mid 60's, were they using a tower on top of the Lits building in Center City. I was just curious how long they have been using the Jersey site.
 
I am pretty sure they've been using it since the mid sixties, at least. I recall an old Bulletin Almanac, circa 65 or so, stating the TX location as Bellmawr, NJ. It'd be hard to have an effective AM stick off of any building, since it would be impossible to construct an effective ground system
 
WIP-610 has been transmitting from Bellmawr NJ since the 1930's or 1940's. That was long before I-295 and the 42 Freeway were built.

The two-antenna array beams the signal NW-SE to protect WCAO-600 in Baltimore and WSNR-620 in northern New Jersey. Also, the "netted tops" are capacitance hats used to make the antennas more efficient.
 
Philly AM transmitters

Do you think that the reason the signals of the AM stations in the city are not strong in some areas in the region as it should be is because of the many years of usages of the transmitters they are using now and should some of the AM stations replace the sticks to get better signal coverage of the area?
 
Signal strength is sometimes an issue of the amount of power at which a station operates. Sometimes it's an issue of having to aim the signal in certain geographic directions to protect stations operating at nearby frequencies in other geographic directions. Is it ever a product of the age of a station's transmitting equipment? Good question. Anyone with the technical expertise which I don't have might want to chip in on the answer.
 
WIP’s 610 transmitter was a hammock tower originally on the GIMBLE Brothers department store building between 8-9th Market in center city as it was owned By the Gimble Brothers. Lit brothers operated WLIT, and subsequently their tower was on their department store on Market street between 7-8th. WLIT, on 560 kc, shared time with WFI, owned by the Strawbridge family, and eventually merged WLIT & WFI to form WFIL. Strawbridge & Clothier also owned a department store between 8-9th & market across the street from Gimble Brothers. This time frame, in the late twenty's & early thirty's, pre-dates ground system direction array antenna systems tecnology.
 
The so-called netted tops are what we engineers call capacity hats. The technical term for it is top loading, which effectively increases the electrical length of the towers and makes them more efficient at the lower end of the AM band. WIP runs the 2 tower figure 8 24 hours a day. No pattern change at sunrise or sunset. To quickly answer another post, signal strength does have to do with the transmitter. But the station's antenna and ground systems do play a part, as does the soil conductivity where the transmitter site is located, If the soil is moist and not sandy, the station will get out well. If the transmitter site is near water, esp. salt water, as WMID is, the stastion will get out very well. On the other hand, if the soil is
sandy, as is the case with WLIM-1580 on Long Island, the signal will be poor.

Dave Gardiner

WVCH 740/WNWR 1540
 
I knew they broadcasted from Center City at one time, if you look east out any window, in Jefferson Hospital, you can still see WIP in worn out white letters on a small building on the roof of the old Lits or Gimbels building. So what you are saying is, when I saw Bill Wright Sr., broadcasting from the Brand New Cherry Hill Mall in 1962 at night, in his little glass studio, it was coming from the Jersey xmtr site. WIP has the best, 5kw-Dir signal I have ever witnessed, especially in their strong lobe streams.
 
CORRECTION: It was Chuck Doherety, not Bill Wright Sr. who was in the glass booth broadcasting live from the CHM.
 
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