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WRJZ Tower down.

I am sure they can rig something up for a daytime signal. Was the ground system or any equipment messed up? The recent WWVA AM 3 towers' falling took CC extra time to fix (after the new towers were put up) because the sampling circuit was messed up.
 
Which tower is the #2 tower? Is it the one right next to the self-supporter tower or the one next to the outermost guyed tower? I saw Kevin Potter's videos on YouTube but could not get an overall perspective of which one of the 4 towers it was.
 
It's the tower next to the outermost guyed tower. Or the second most eastern tower.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=35.99000,+-83.83750+(WRJZ-AM)&om=1

When I was there back in the late 80's after they moved the studios to that location you could run out after starting a program and practice some putting on the green behind the transmitter building. That land has got to be worth a fortune, I wonder if Moffit has looked into dropping nights to low power ND and putting more cash in his pocket.
 
knoxbob said:
That land has got to be worth a fortune, I wonder if Moffit has looked into dropping nights to low power ND and putting more cash in his pocket.
Click to expand...


The commercial real estate collapse (storm) nation wide will make the housing mess look like a mere summer rain shower. Banks are not lending any money to commercial developments. Unless there is some kind of local location special opportunity (neighbor needs land to expand business and that neighbor has the cash or a creditworthy business signs a no break lease) or somebody puts their own cash and can afford to wait a decade or two commercial real estate is a “black hole” business, actually worse than Radio.

WRJZ is a Class B AM. 5 kW 24 hours a day. Granted their night time pattern interesting:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WRJZ&service=AM&status=L&hours=N

but IMHO they have the 2nd best AM signal in Knoxville. IIRC in the mid 1970’s they “rolled” when they were “top 40”. A low dial position class B would be worth a major dollars in a top 50 market. I believe I could put some kind of “oldies” format with a killer morning show on WRJZ and still make $$. The commission has let a bunch AMs move. I am sure that someone who has a really sharp engineer could move or rework this station to either have a better nighttime signal in Knoxville or move it to another city that is “lacking” in 24 hour operations.
 
I thought the towers were either on the property of, or land-locked by, Holston Hills Country Club.
 
The towers are right on the river with the country club on the back side and houses on the other two sides. I'm not sure who actually owns the land but if the country club wanted it bad enough they could come up with the cash. The station owner just sold off the 2 non-comm FM's he owned for $4M here in Knoxville.
 
A little historical perspective... When Basic Media, Ltd. owned the station in the '70's we seriously looked into moving the studios out there. The southwest end of the property, (self-supporting tower), was landlocked and the owner of the adjacent property wasn't interested in either selling us an access strip or granting us an easement. (Even though the property was undeveloped at the time.) The other end of the property, (where the gate is), is next to a residential area with a very narrow road. OMG, the screaming and gnashing of teeth from the neighborhood residents when we looked into rezoning the property!! (Which actually wasn't all that unreasonable of them given the amount of traffic we would have generated...) They made it crystal clear that any attempt to do anything with the property, (including tearing down the towers and putting in housing), would be met with legions of lawyers. So, we gave it up and the studios/offices stayed on Magnolia Ave.
The tower which came down was the original old tower #2 when the station was first built as a 2-tower DA in 1941 for WROL. The base for that original tower is behind the transmitter building and a little towards the current tower #3. It was taken down moved in 1948 when the existing 4-tower array was built. That was a DA-2, with the slightly oval day pattern running NE-SW from towers #1 & #2, and the night running on all four. We made it non-D day off tower #1 in 1977 to better cover the market to the west. That Windcharger put in 70 years of service. Tower #1 is also original from 1941...
 
Thanks for the history lesson, the info is great. I had a fried that worked there in the 50's when it was WATE or WETE whichever at the time, and he said the studios were still downtown on Gay Street in the old Hamilton Bank Building. When I was there in the 80's Tom Moffitt had purchased WRJZ after it went dark and moved the studios to the tower site and that really sucked. He squeezed the control room and production into the transmitter building which is a nice structure but not too many amenities if you know what I mean.
 
I worked there starting in 89 or so and I would do the same thing. Switch out a tape then go outside and wash my car, catch golf balls, etc. I remember drunks kept crashing into the gate too when they came to the end of the road!
 
Their 6 month STA is about up and I haven't seen anything of a new tower going up. I wonder how long Moffitt will stretch out the STA's and keep running with 1.5kw @ night?
 
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