We rebuilt this station’s studio couple of years ago. WKZE is licensed to Salisbury, Connecticut. The transmitter is located near Millerton, NY and the studio is in Red Hook, NY. Today, I had to go to the transmitter site to fix a problem with the station’s processor. While there, I snapped a few pictures:
The WKZE single-bay antenna is mounted on the left-hand tower.
The transmitter is a CCA FM3000DS, made new in April, 1970:
The CCA designs are dirt simple. Grounded grid, driven with an external solid state amplifier that is a modification.
As you can see, this transmitter was originally manufactured for WHVW-FM, which is now WCZX. The station has a large, mostly cult following throughout the mid Hudson valley. Even though it is a 3,000-watt class A station, its coverage carries far beyond its theoretical 60 dBu contour:
This is because the station is in mono.
Wow. neat stuff. I remember when WKZE signed on, when I was in High School. I had an FM Atlas which showed the allocation but it wasn’t on yet. I brought my AM/FM walkman with me to our high school (which for being surrounded by mountains is a GREAT FM Receive site), Monument Mountain Regional in Great Barrington, and listened every single day to see if 98.1 signed on by that point. And I remember when it signed on. (Prior to it signing on, it was fairly common in the summer to hear 98.1 out of Philadelphia there via ducting.)
The site where WKZE is located is a fantastic transmit site. The WKZE signal does well into Great Barrington, far beyond the predicted contour map above. From that site, you can hear WAQY out of Springfield, MA at full quieting with RDS. (Back when I could drive up to the tower before the gate.) I have many pictures of that tower, and the older tower before it. I know that site also is used by Dutchess County public safety for a variety of PD/FD repeaters (VHF Hi, UHF, and VHF Low Band), all of which come in like a local in GB.