North Adams tower update

As promised in an earlier post, here is an update on the progress at the North Adams tower site for the restoration work on WUPE-FM and WNNI. For those unfamiliar, refer to this post: North Adams Tower Collapse.

A contractor installed a 70-foot wooden utility pole last week.  We ordered new Shively Versa2une FM antennas as replacements for the antennas destroyed when the tower fell last March.  These new antennas are field tunable, which is a nice feature.  The idea is that this pole will be used until the replacement tower is constructed, which is many months away.  After the new tower is up, I would like to keep the pole in place as a backup facility for both stations.

North Adams restoration work
North Adams restoration work

The bucket truck arrived but the driver had a bit of bad news; there is room for only one person in the bucket. The boss pipes up and says “Oh, that’s okay, Paul can go up and run the bucket”

WAT!

Are you sure this is a good idea?
Are you sure this is a good idea?

So anyway, it turns out running a bucket truck is not a huge deal; there is a joy stick of sorts that moves the booms around, up down, sideways, etc. Once you get the feel for it, it is pretty easy and three dimensional movement becomes second nature.  That being said, at 70 feet in the air, everything gets a little wobbly, so it is best not to jerk the controls around.

The antennas were mounted on a 2 inch pipe which was attached to the pole with 1/2 inch threaded rod. We left a little bit of pipe sticking up above the top of the pole to get the FM antennas as high as possible.

Mounting pole to tower
Mounting pole to tower
Mounting pole to tower
Mounting pole to the tower
Some dude in a hang glider checking out the work
Some dude in a hang glider checking out the work

Getting photobombed by some guy in a hang glider is a new experience.  No day is exactly like another in this line of work.

WUPE and WNNI temporary antennas
WUPE-FM and WNNI temporary antennas

The antennas were tuned up once they were up on the pole. We did this with the network analyzer, which made the job very easy. WUPE-FM (top antenna) started using this antenna on Wednesday afternoon (5/7) with greatly increased power output.   This gets the station almost the same coverage area as they had before the tower collapse.  We tested WNNI (bottom antenna) and it all looked good. WNNI is still waiting for a temporary wireless internet feed for program delivery. Once that is established, we will have to do the intermod measurements one more time before they can go on the air.

Here are some pictures of the cleaned-up site:

North Adams, fallen tower removed
North Adams, fallen tower removed
North Adams, fallen tower removed
North Adams, fallen tower removed

The temporary monopole being used by the cell providers:

North Adams temporary cell tower
North Adams temporary cell tower

Basically the pole is ballasted in place by those huge concrete blocks.

WEBE pictures

WEBE is fairly unique in that its antenna is mounted on the side of a 500-foot smoke stack. I took a few pictures last winter:

WEBE Main antenna
WEBE Main antenna

This is a close-up of the Antenna:

WEBE main antenna, Shively 6 bay half wave spaced
WEBE main antenna, Shively 6 bay half wave spaced, ERP 50 KW

Here is an even closer view from a different angle:

WEBE main antenna, courtesy of NECRAT
WEBE main antenna, courtesy of NECRAT

From this angle, one can see the mounting brackets and the wire mesh reflector installed on the smoke stack.  From the first picture, one can see that the 400 MW PSEG coal fired power plant puts out a lot of combustion products when on line.  Combustion is an exothermic chemical reaction that looks like this:

Hydrocarbon Fuel + Oxidizer + Nitrogen  → Heat + CO2 + H2O + NOx

Included in this are any trace elements that are found naturally in the coal that is being burned.  These include things like Mercury, Nickel, Uranium, et cetera.  These trace elements can concentrate around the smoke stack because they fall out of the particulate quickly and these plants burn a lot of coal.  The above picture was taken on a very cold day, most of what is coming out of the smoke stack is steam.

The issue for the radio station is when the particulate matter accumulates on the antenna, effectively shorting it out.  The solution was to place the RADOMES around the elements and then constantly purge the RADOMES with nitrogen.  Thus, this liquid N2 tank is vital for the operation of the radio station:

Liquid Nitrogen Tank
Liquid Nitrogen Tank

Each element of the antenna has a small hole in the feed line. N2 is fed continuously into the transmission line at a pressure of about 1.5 inches water column which then purges the RADOMES keeping any combustion products out of the RADOMES.  The N2 tank needs to be changed out every 18-21 days and weights over 650 pounds when full.

ATT Long Lines Site, Rock City NY

Another one of those former ATT Long Lines sites has been re-purposed. This site was known as Rock City and as the name suggests, it is a fairly remote location. These locations were chosen by ATT to facilitate microwave relay between cities.  Some of the more remote rural locations are so far off the beaten path that they do not make good wireless carrier sites today.  Such is the case here, there simply are not enough people around to turn this into a profitable cell site.

Former ATT long lines site, Rock City NY
Former ATT long lines site, Rock City, NY

This site is useful in other ways, the local township purchased it and has put it to use for E911 dispatch and other uses such as WKZE translator W290BZ.

Former ATT long lines Western Electric Tower, Rock City NY
Former ATT long lines Western Electric Tower, Rock City, NY

The tower is less than 200 feet tall, therefore it is no longer painted or lit. These old Western Electric towers were really built. Under that peeling paint, the galvanizing is still in near-perfect condition. The tower dates from 1968.

Former ATT tower, Rock CIty NY
Former ATT tower, Rock City, NY

The Western Electric KS-15676 microwave antennas and waveguides have been removed. The top platform is quite large, one could build a house up there. The W290BZ antenna is the cross-polarized LPA attached to the center pole which is barely visible.

Former ATT long lines site, Rock City NY.  The big empty.
Former ATT long lines site, Rock City, NY. The big empty.

This room held the switch gear and TD-3 microwave radios.

Former ATT site, Rock City NY 100 KW generator
Former ATT site, Rock City, NY 100 KW generator

The original General Motors 100 KW diesel generator. The fuel tank was removed before the site was transferred from ATT to the new owners.  If reconnected to a fuel supply and the block heater turned on, I’d bet this unit would start and run.

ATT Rock City NY generator, Detroit Diesel straight six engine
ATT Rock City, NY generator Detroit Diesel straight six engine
ATT Rock City NY fuel tank cathodic projection unit.
ATT Rock City, NY fuel tank cathodic projection unit.

The tank had a Cathodic protection unit installed, which ran a small DC current through the tank to keep it from rusting.

The original visitor’s log book is still there, showing every ATT person who visited the site from 1968 until it was decommissioned in 1994.  This site was unmanned and remotely monitored and controlled from somewhere else.  Maintenance personnel showed up at regular intervals or to fix specific problems.

Like many of its rural counterparts, this site sits mostly empty since the microwave equipment was removed in the early 1990s.  This one seems to be well taken care of, others are in terrible shape.

Modern Art

After replacing a burned-out FM antenna for one of our clients, the question became; what do we do with the old antenna?  There were several options:

  • Throw it behind the transmitter building and let weeds and poison ivy grow over it
  • Take it to the scrap yard to get whatever money we could for it
  • Give it away to somebody
  • Turn it into a fountain

I have scrapped these old antennas before, they are made mostly of hard yellow brass, which does not net too much at the scrap yard.  In fact, by the time I finished removing the Radomes and separating the metal, I had more time for the job than it was worth for both myself and the client.  Therefore, I present to you the ERI LPX lawn fountain:

ERI LPX2E Rototiller FM antenna used as a fountain
ERI LPX2E Rototiller FM antenna used as a fountain

Upon completion, my wife and daughter, who are natural-born skeptics, even had kind words to say. It seemed like a simple project at first; enlarge the dry well for the basement sump pumps and install some type of mounting base for the old antenna. It turned into a little more than that.

Mounting base for ERI antenna fountain
Mounting base for ERI antenna fountain

It took several hours of backbreaking labor, a concrete form, and a few bags of ready-mix concrete to create the mounting base. Several wheelbarrow loads of gravel, some rocks from the old wall in the woods, and a pond pump from the hardware store round out the installation.

ERI LPX2E Rototiller FM antenna fountain
ERI LPX2E Rototiller FM antenna fountain

I am not sure what else to say.