Engineering Radio – Page 87 – One Hundred percent Human Generated Content for your Reading Enjoyment

WVOS, Liberty New York

In keeping with the theme “Take pictures now, because someday these stations may disappear,” I was out at WVOS-AM in Liberty, New York today removing some old studio equipment. The former studio building is going to be leased out as office space. The call letters mean the “Voice Of Sullivan” county, where the station is located. Urban legend has it, the station’s claim to fame is that while Max Yasgur and Michael Lang were negotiating the use of Yasgur’s nearby farm for a music festival at the local diner, the diner staff overheard and called the radio station. Thus, WVOS-AM was the first to break the story of Woodstock.

WVOS-AM transmitter building and former studios

The station originally signed on the air in 1947 from this location with a power of 250 watts. At some point, the power was upgraded to 1000 watts along with all the other class C AM stations in the lower 48 states. The original building has been added onto and recently resided. An FM signal was added in 1967. These studios remained in use up to December of 2005, when the stations were moved into the co-owned WSUL studio facility in Monticello, NY.

WVOS-AM tower, along NY Route 17, Liberty NY

This is the original tower, which is 194 feet (59.16 meters) tall. As such, it is no longer required to be lighted or painted. This is the tower that is on the right-hand side of NY Route 17, just as one is entering the village of Liberty.

The former studio building itself is in remarkably good condition. Oftentimes, when a studio gets moved, the old equipment is abandoned, the heat is turned off and the place is shuttered. After years of neglect, these buildings are usually in very rough shape. Not so with this building.

The transmitter is a Nautel AMPFET 1, short version. Its serial number 132, which, I don’t know the year of manufacture but I’d bet it was before 1990. At some point, an add-on matching unit was installed to better match the transmitter to the tower. In my mind, transmitter-to-antenna matching is best done at the tower with an ATU. I don’t know why the matching unit was deemed necessary.

Gates BC1T transmitter, WVOS Liberty, NY — Gates BC1T transmitter, WVOS-AM Liberty, NY

The backup transmitter is a Gates BC1T, made in 1968. The nice thing about these old tube transmitters is you can match them to almost anything. On more than one occasion, I used a Gates BC1 series transmitter with a horizontal wire, while a tower was being replaced.

It looks like the roof might have leaked onto this transmitter at one time.

When I was there, the station was playing some sort of Hot AC format. There is no mention of the AM station on any company-owned website. It appears to be changing formats often as several sources have it listed as either Spanish talk, ESPN sports or country music. Seems to be a throwaway, at this point.

Oh damn; La tercera parte

Now where did those vise (vice?) grips go?

Vice grip pliers used to clamp RF feed to tower — Vise grip pliers used to clamp RF feed to tower

Oh yeah, that’s right, they were used to attach the RF feed to an AM tower. About ten years ago.

Vice grip tower clamp — Vise grip tower clamp

From this view, it looks like whatever tower crew installed this tower could not manage to solder or braze the copper RF connection to the steel tower. The area was then painted, but it looks like there is some corrosion going on between metals.

Vice grips clamping RF feed to tower — Vise grips clamping RF feed to tower

Another view.

This is a relatively new tower. Sadly, it is very likely that this station will be going off the air soon. If the station is still on the air come springtime, I will drag the brazing outfit across the field/swamp and fix this. If the station goes dark, then I won’t worry about it.

WKNR 1310; gone but not forgotten

Reflecting the state of the economy in Detroit, WDTW went silent on January 1st. Less than two weeks later, the towers come down:

Thanks, Chris R for the video link.

The license has been donated by Clear Channel to MMTC (Minority Media and Telecommunications Council), but not the land or towers. It remains to be seen whether the station will return to the air, however, given the costs involved and the economic conditions in Detroit, that is unlikely.

The station signed on in 1946, moving to 1310 KHz with full-time operation in 1948. Back in the day, it was a flame-throwing top 40 station and is purported to be the source of the “Paul is dead” rumors that surrounded the Beatles in the late 60’s. Much more history at Keener13.com.

Take pictures of your favorite AM stations now because tomorrow, they and all their history may be gone.

Nanobridge M5 wireless LAN link, Part II

After a bit of delay, we were able to return to the WICC transmitter site to install the Wireless LAN link. The installation was pretty straightforward. The studio unit was mounted on an existing STL tower on the top of the elevator room, the transmitter unit was mounted on an existing pipe on the roof of the transmitter building.

M5 Nanobridge mounted on transmitter building with radome — M5 Nanobridge mounted on transmitter building with RADOME

I included RADOMEs for a couple of reasons; first, there is a lot of critters around of the two-legged and winged kind. The upright two-legged critters may be attracted to the signal-strength lights at night. This unwanted attention could invite the juvenile delinquent’s bored teenagers to throw various objects found laying around on the ground at the antenna, damaging it. The winged type critter may be inclined to view the feed horn as a good nesting location. The other reason is this site gets a lot of rain, wind, ice, and snow, therefore the RADOMEs afford some protection against the weather.

Aiming the antennas was pretty straightforward, but requires at least two people. Using landmarks, we aligned the dishes in the general direction of each other. Both ends of the system were turned on and we had a -89 dBm signal path, and somewhat surprisingly, the radios linked up and my laptop grabbed an IP address via DHCP. Using the signal strength meter on the side of the antenna, each dish was peaked in turn:

M5 Nanobridge Antenna signal strength meter

Then, somebody on either end went below and looked at the signal strength screen on the web interface while the other end peaked. In the end, we had about -65 dBm signal strength, which is somewhat less than the -58 dBm predicted. I think we can do better, so on the next clear day, I am going to peak the signal again.

The data rate initially reported was over 100 MBPS, however, once I started transferring files back and forth, that dropped to about 50 MBPS. If it is raining, that rate drops to about 35 MBPS, which is still far above what we need this link to do. As a test, I streamed a youtube video, downloaded a Windows update, loaded several web pages, and checked my email simultaneously. There were no issues with the data rate while those tasks were being preformed.

It is quite amazing to me that these little inexpensive radios can work so well. My boss thinks that they will be blown up by lightning during the first thunderstorm of the season. I don’t know. There are several of these units have been installed at mountaintop tower sites and have been working for several years without issue.

Next step, installing the IP cameras and warning signs on the fence, setting up the monitoring software, etc.

Cameras mounted on old chimney platform. This is the first set of cameras covering the south, north, and west approaches. A fourth camera will be mounted on the back of the building covering the east approach. Then, under the eves’ cameras will be mounted on all four corners of the building and the generator shed. If anything moves, it will be recorded.