WXYT---How bad is the signal?

[Fred Richards]

Detroit's WJBK/WDEE at 1500 kHz was also 12 towers DA-N for a time, but IIRC the night system was never licensed due to ongoing mutual negotiations with WTOP and KSTP. The station operated on STAs for years, and finally settled with a 9-tower system for DA-N which now operates as WLQV.

In it's early life, WJBK-1500 was 10,000 and 1,000 from the Lincoln Park site with 9 towers. George Storer, facing competition from WCAR, WJR, and CKLW waiving the flag of 50,000, demanded that his engineers come up with 50kw come hell or high water. He got it, but it was a very tight pattern with 50k day, 5k night. It operated like this through the WDEE "Big D" and then into the WLQV days.

When K-mart approached the station for land, the owner saw dollar signs and the three east towers were taken down. There is still dispute if the FCC was advised of this change or not, but they had an STA for 9 towers with 50k day, 5k night.

When I worked there they had an RCA Ampliphase, Harris MW-5, and the backup was a Gates BC-1T. Three stories about that 12 tower array....

The array could never be proofed in to stay for more than 24 hours. It would drift badly. Part of the array was 24 or more "detuning" skirts on power poles and small towers in the area, (which we had to inspect every other week).

The array was so unstable that when they built the waste treatment plant on the west side of the array, adjacent to I75, the crane they used to move materials would cause the array to float. A tower with a reading of -5/.848 would swing +/- 10 degrees and the ratio would be +/- .200. Also, the workers on the waste treatment plant were constantly complaining about getting nailed by RF.

Finally on my way into town from my home in Westland MI, I would come down I-94 and see the towers in the morning, flashing in the distance. However, on the radio I had good copy of WTOP from Washington DC. The array WAS that tight.

And now you know, the rest of the story ..... and why I got into TV.

 

[Savage]

"But how did you find a TV station with 12 towers, Fred??"

Thanks for the highly entertaining history, Fred. (Before CKLW) I worked at the Storer station in Philly, WIBG 990 kHz. You are absolutely right about George Storer being a power freak - and it wasn't just Detroit. Wibbage likewise had a very tight 50kw array and a BTA-50G Ampliphase. I think Storer made a deal with RCA for Amplifuzzes for all his AMs, because the 50-gallon DA upgrades all pretty much dated to that model's debut (approximately.)

IIRC WJBK started out on graveyard 1490 khz....?

 

[Savage]

Mike, a gentleman e-mailed me about Detroit DAs some time back relating there are a number of them. It's somewhat misleading to refer to radio-locator which might show a (hypothetical) DA-2 with 6 towers day, 5 towers night - most visitors would assume the station only had 6 sticks on premises, grounding one at night, when in actuality none of the towers were common to both patterns - voila, an 11-tower array.

WCHB Inkster has, I think, ten towers. And there are many others like this.

 

[umfan]

The 1270 upgrade was only worth it in the sense that it had to be done, as a contractual obligation, once it had secured the rights to the Tigers and Red Wings. Signal wise, it had minimal impact.

At present, it's a waste of a station simulcasting 97.1.

I really wish it would become a talker again. So many big name national shows have no Detroit outlet. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Neil Boortz....could be an outlet for some local talent too.

One can hope.....