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ZBVI 780

SomeRadioGuy

SomeRadioGuy

I've gotten word construction on their new 300 foot tower has begun. In fact, the tower is standing at about 160 feet.

The studios for ZBVI are in Road Town along Station Avenue near the Road Town Police Station but the tower is about 1 mile down the road at Baughers Bay. The tower is ON the beach and some of the guy wires AND some of the ground system are IN the water.

At about 4:30 on the morning of Saturday March 9th, a drunk driver came went off the road, coming into contact with several things including a telephone pole and some trees. The driver also clipped some of the guy wires for ZBVI's tower which sent it to the ground in a crumbled up mess.

The station wasn't able to sign on for Morning transmission at 6am that morning. It took about 12 hours to lash up a temporary solution. For the last several months, ZBVI has been operating with a 60 foot long wire strung between two telephone using an AM transmitter loaned to them from the Department of Disaster Management in the BVI.

ZBVI is "licensed" for 10,000 Watts but hasn't run that much power in years. I'm told they run between 1KW at 3KW. As far as I know, stations down there are licensed for X amount of power like the US.. but UNLIKE the USA, if they run under it.. that's OK apparently.

I'm trying to convince the powers that be at ZBVI to run a 2 or 3 minute DX test one night before their usual 10pm sign off.

I have pictures of the ZBVI tower collapse along with the tower work being done. THey're on the Facebook group, "I Take Pictures Of Transmitter Sites.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
I've gotten word construction on their new 300 foot tower has begun. In fact, the tower is standing at about 160 feet.

The studios for ZBVI are in Road Town along Station Avenue near the Road Town Police Station but the tower is about 1 mile down the road at Baughers Bay. The tower is ON the beach and some of the guy wires AND some of the ground system are IN the water.

At about 4:30 on the morning of Saturday March 9th, a drunk driver came went off the road, coming into contact with several things including a telephone pole and some trees. The driver also clipped some of the guy wires for ZBVI's tower which sent it to the ground in a crumbled up mess.

The station wasn't able to sign on for Morning transmission at 6am that morning. It took about 12 hours to lash up a temporary solution. For the last several months, ZBVI has been operating with a 60 foot long wire strung between two telephone using an AM transmitter loaned to them from the Department of Disaster Management in the BVI.

ZBVI is "licensed" for 10,000 Watts but hasn't run that much power in years. I'm told they run between 1KW at 3KW. As far as I know, stations down there are licensed for X amount of power like the US.. but UNLIKE the USA, if they run under it.. that's OK apparently.

I'm trying to convince the powers that be at ZBVI to run a 2 or 3 minute DX test one night before their usual 10pm sign off.

I have pictures of the ZBVI tower collapse along with the tower work being done. THey're on the Facebook group, "I Take Pictures Of Transmitter Sites.
Click to expand...

I did hear ZBVI when I was in Puerto Rico several years ago. I noticed at night there were quite a few other stations coming in on 780 including WBBM. Was ZBVI signing off during the evenings in 2010?
 
radioman148 said:
SomeRadioGuy said:
I've gotten word construction on their new 300 foot tower has begun. In fact, the tower is standing at about 160 feet.

The studios for ZBVI are in Road Town along Station Avenue near the Road Town Police Station but the tower is about 1 mile down the road at Baughers Bay. The tower is ON the beach and some of the guy wires AND some of the ground system are IN the water.

At about 4:30 on the morning of Saturday March 9th, a drunk driver came went off the road, coming into contact with several things including a telephone pole and some trees. The driver also clipped some of the guy wires for ZBVI's tower which sent it to the ground in a crumbled up mess.

The station wasn't able to sign on for Morning transmission at 6am that morning. It took about 12 hours to lash up a temporary solution. For the last several months, ZBVI has been operating with a 60 foot long wire strung between two telephone using an AM transmitter loaned to them from the Department of Disaster Management in the BVI.

ZBVI is "licensed" for 10,000 Watts but hasn't run that much power in years. I'm told they run between 1KW at 3KW. As far as I know, stations down there are licensed for X amount of power like the US.. but UNLIKE the USA, if they run under it.. that's OK apparently.

I'm trying to convince the powers that be at ZBVI to run a 2 or 3 minute DX test one night before their usual 10pm sign off.

I have pictures of the ZBVI tower collapse along with the tower work being done. THey're on the Facebook group, "I Take Pictures Of Transmitter Sites.
Click to expand...

I did hear ZBVI when I was in Puerto Rico several years ago. I noticed at night there were quite a few other stations coming in on 780 including WBBM. Was ZBVI signing off during the evenings in 2010?
Click to expand...

I think ZBVI has been signing off at 10pm for several years now.
 
ZBVI is still running at lower than normal power and the audio quality is not good. I was in the east end of St. John which is right across the channel from Baughers Bay--as a crow ( or pelican) flies about 3 miles. They still sign off at 10PM to God save the Queen.....

Had a great DX from there about 10 years ago. 10 PM came and ZBVI went off the air and there was WBBM in Chicago!
 
I wish WBBM would sign off so we could hear ZBVI. I'll bet their programming would be a lot more interesting than hearing about the latest murders in Chicago.
 
OFFICENERD said:
ZBVI is still running at lower than normal power and the audio quality is not good. I was in the east end of St. John which is right across the channel from Baughers Bay--as a crow ( or pelican) flies about 3 miles. They still sign off at 10PM to God save the Queen.....

Had a great DX from there about 10 years ago. 10 PM came and ZBVI went off the air and there was WBBM in Chicago!
Click to expand...

For several years, I would take (make) my family to stay in a "cottage" at Cinnamon Bay Campground on St. John's. The cottage was two concrete block walls, and two screen for the other walls. There was no hot water, so showers were quick. We liked St. John's so much, we ended up sharing ownership of a condo for a few years.

I would bring my Radio Shack TRF and a small shortwave radio. Back then, the only interference was the leaky electric lines. Some great exotic DX'ing, despite the local 780 pest.

I wish I'd kept the logs from those trips.
 
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