More much expensive and time consuming and would involve a long term lease from the cell company most likely.
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WRDZ 1300 To Resume Operations With An Emergency Antenna
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
More much expensive and time consuming and would involve a long term lease from the cell company most likely.
I wonder why they haven't found a "secure" flat rooftop a done the old "string wire between two 20 foot poles thing". Back in the day WSB used the Biltmore Hotel's roof. Not much ground wave but you keeping the commission (happy) with an STA that actually works.
BTW I personally never fooled around with the straight horizontal wire antennas are they directional parallel to the wire?
has anyone heard the WRDZ signal? It's almost a week that they were supposed to return to the air with an STA signal...nothing, at least from around 30 miles away. I have driven near the La Grange area a month or so ago, however, I have no reason to go near there lately...
I emailed a Walter Kotaba at Polskie Radio (whose name is on the STA application) last Friday and no response as of today, nearly a week later. I'm thinking this is not gonna happen, and the license gets turned in...
I emailed a Walter Kotaba at Polskie Radio (whose name is on the STA application) last Friday and no response as of today, nearly a week later. I'm thinking this is not gonna happen, and the license gets turned in...
most likely that Christian station was WNQM Nashville likely on 50kW daytime omnidirectional.
distance from DeKalb to La Grange is approximately 46 miles. I'm sure WLBK on the nearby frequency of 1360 can make it in ok to La Grange, however, a 20' antenna with 1kW, from La Grange to DeKalb, highly unlikely.
I suspect that WRDZ is not on the air (possibly not continuously) at least when I tried several different days and times with a decent car radio. I can hear WKAN 1320 Kankakee 62 miles away weakly also 1kW which is omnidirectional like WLBK is during the daytime.
All the local service area is "ground wave". Those rooftop antennas use a counterpoise system for "ground", not just buried wire.. Even the steel frame of a building may be used as the ground.
A "T" or "Inverted L" was used by all stations in the first decade of American radio, and was commonly used in less developed nations well into the 1970's.
Depends. Very long Beverage antennas are directional off the grounded end, for example. Much of the useful radiation comes off of the vertical component in a T or Inverted L, with the horizontal part working to increase the antenna impedance and reduce the "j" of the system
by now, I have a feeling it’s not happening, (I don’t think they even tried to set up an antenna!) …and the license is surrendered
perhaps Polskie Radio will surprise us all!
Stands for "Waz Radio DiZnee"
Radio Disney used to own the station so the WRDZ call letters were available at the time and were chosen and granted by the FCC.
W (prefix) R(adio) D(isney) the Z didn’t mean anything in and of itself, so they had to choose an extra letter because an entity is required to have a 4-letter callsign (including the W which is an internationally allocated prefix)
When one pronounces the word Disney, it sounds more like a Z than an S, doesn’t it?
It’s pronounced and sounds more like DiZney, not Dissney.
The organization Polnet, known on-air as Polskie Radio, upon purchasing WRDZ, could have changed the call letters to something else, but chose not to (extra filing fee?)
When Polnet purchased WNVR AM 1030, they didn’t change the call letters either, they kept these. To them call letters are not really part of their identity like many stations, it just fulfills the legal obligation for station identification.
Chicago is a PPM market. Unless the call letters are part of their "branding" they don't matter to any one except the FCC. In fact the Commission allows frequency shift boxes on FM translators so they realize call letters aren't as important as they once were. Back when I started, I was told station ID's had a within 2 or 3 minutes of the top of the hour or the station could get fined and I would get fired. There was some lee way for live classical concerts. It's been over 50 years I could have the facts jumbled so if you as really interested in pre 80-90 rules David's website most likely will have more info.
BTW: back before VORs (pre WW2) often aircraft
had a direction finding loop. If you were "lost" you could triangulate you position with two stations quickly. The radios at the time were not the most exact tuning so the station ID would tell the flight crew if it was 650 in Nashville or 660 or 640. It has been portrayed in some movies that the Japanese listened to a Hawaiian station on their way to Pearl Harbor.
I wonder how many flight crews and private pilots would be able to find an airport if the GPS system was attacked or had a catastrophic failure.
BTW: back before VORs (pre WW2) often aircraft
had a direction finding loop. If you were "lost" you could triangulate you position with two stations quickly. The radios at the time were not the most exact tuning so the station ID would tell the flight crew if it was 650 in Nashville or 660 or 640. It has been portrayed in some movies that the Japanese listened to a Hawaiian station on their way to Pearl Harbor.
I wonder how many flight crews and private pilots would be able to find an airport if the GPS system was attacked or had a catastrophic failure.
The US Government learned a lot about radio directional finding the hard way. I believe that's why there were only 2 channels on the Conrad Alert system. Different stations were supposed to use one of the two frequencies at different times making it hard for the Russians to vector. When I worked at KIUL they still had the bomb shelter under the studios.
the latest on WRDZ is that they have informed the FCC by letter that:
“on December 17, 2024 (the writer stated December instead of November) the transmitter became inoperable, and the station was forced to suspend operations.”
Suspension of Operations
> got to wonder if the engineer or technician attempted to transmit using that 20 foot tall antenna with 1 kW as they proposed …most likely the reflected power was way too high, either shutting the transmitter down or, worse, damaging it!
even I would have tried a lower powered transmitter, say 50 watts (or less) and started cranking up the power gradually from a few watts and see if that would have worked before hitting that “antenna” with 1 kW!
what I don’t get is they have the money to run a 10kW AM on 1030 and a translator on 104.7 atop on of the skyscrapers in the Chicago loop, yet they can only come up with a 20 foot rinky dink antenna (?) (-;
“on December 17, 2024 (the writer stated December instead of November) the transmitter became inoperable, and the station was forced to suspend operations.”
Suspension of Operations
> got to wonder if the engineer or technician attempted to transmit using that 20 foot tall antenna with 1 kW as they proposed …most likely the reflected power was way too high, either shutting the transmitter down or, worse, damaging it!
even I would have tried a lower powered transmitter, say 50 watts (or less) and started cranking up the power gradually from a few watts and see if that would have worked before hitting that “antenna” with 1 kW!
what I don’t get is they have the money to run a 10kW AM on 1030 and a translator on 104.7 atop on of the skyscrapers in the Chicago loop, yet they can only come up with a 20 foot rinky dink antenna (?) (-;