Am transmitter site – Page 2 – Engineering Radio

WSM Nashville, Tennessee

We recently went on vacation in Tennessee, which is a great state. Most of the time was spent hiking around various state parks, investigating interesting places, or eating at various restaurants. I highly recommend the state parks, there are many and they are all good. All of that being said, I could not resist the temptation to swing by WSM on the way back to the airport. I am happy I did.

Historical Marker, WSM Brentwood, Tennesee

The site is right off of I-65 and easy to get to. There is a public dog park that is behind it, which is a convenient place to park.

WSM Blaw-Knox tower, transmitter building

The Blaw-Knox tower is impressive. The site is well-maintained overall.

WSM tower base, transmitter building and Aux tower

The main tower is fed with open wire transmission line. The aux tower is off the right. It was nice to stop and walk around the site taking pictures. The Brentwood Police Department even stopped by and welcomed us to the neighborhood.

WSM open wire transmission line, looks like 450 ohms

It is always interesting to stop by some of these more famous stations. It would be nice if more sites were recognized as historical places, given the role that radio played in 20th-century US society. Both of my parents grew up during the Great Depression. According to their stories; life was tough, it was a struggle to feed the family and pay rent, but they did have a radio in the living room which was switched on every night after dinner.

Cellular work on a skirted tower

Cell carriers generally do not like working on AM towers. It is out of their comfort zone and adds a layer of complexity to the project. However, sometimes they don’t have a choice, mainly when there is an existing site and they need to make changes. We have also had mixed results with tower contractors employed by various cell carriers. In one incident, a contractor showed up and re-tensioned the guy wires breaking all of the porcelain insulators. Another time, a contractor showed up to install footings 10 feet away from the tower and ripped up all the ground wires. One tower climber found one of the skirt wires was in his way, so he cut it off with a hack saw.

Those experiences demonstrate that it is far less expensive to have somebody on site while tower contractors are doing installation work on any skirted AM tower. And so it was today.

AT&T 5G sector assembled waiting for lift

This tower has two AM stations diplexed as well as two FM translators combined into one Nicomm antenna. We did before measurements on the AM stations using an OIB-3. Once the installation is done, we will do the after-measurements and then assist the licensee with any FCC 302 filings if the base impedance has changed significantly.

With each lift, I went out to the base of the tower and made sure that the skirt wires were clear of the mounting brackets and not touching anything else. The tower crew was Russian speakers. When they asked if the transmitter was still on, which was kind of comical (he motioned to the skirt wire, made like he was grabbing it, then jerked around like he was being electrocuted). I had to wrack my brain to try and remember: Передатчик выключен. The literal translation is “Not working.” The difference between “working” and “not working” is one consonant at the beginning of the second word which is pronounced soft for off and hard for on.

This site was the subject of a previous post: A tale of five signals.

Another Ask

This one is targeted mostly toward my European readers (however, read on).

I received the following email from Olkesandr in Ukraine, it seems the Russians stole his transmitter:

Hello!

My name is Oleksandr (last name redacted). I am chief editor of Ukrainian radio station CCR 648 AM. We are looking for an used am transmitter 25 or 50 kwt. Probably Your company has one for sale?

That is interesting. I asked for a few more details and received the following:

I am originally from Crimea. But in 2014 I had to leave my native town. I have been living in Kyiv since 2014. In 2017 our team of journalists launched informational broadcasting to the occupied Crimea from Chongar (it’s 1 km from Crimea in Kherson region). First we started broadcasting on 105.FM 5 kwt. But in 2018 our signal had been jammed by russians occupants. In 2019 we started broadcasting on 648 AM (10 kwt). In 2021 we increased the power to 25 kwt. But in February 2022 our transmitter was captured by russians. Now we are looking for an 25-50 kwt AM transmitter. We are going to install it in Kherson region (in controlled by Ukraine territory). I supposed we’ll be able to cover by our signal all Kherson region, Zaporizhzhya and Crimea.

Digging around, I found two news stories about it: Apparently, the Russians removed the Transmitter. By the way, Krym (pronounced cream) is Crimea in Ukrainian and Russian.

Missing Harris DX-50 transmitter, serial number MPS104705-00001

Missing Harris DX-50 transmitter

A little bit more digging around and I found some more pictures of the transmitter site: Radio Crimean Community transmitter site

Google Maps Link: Chongar

That is an interesting setup; the FM antenna is a stack of six, looks like 1/2 wave spaced six-element yagis, vertically polarised. The AM is a slant wire that goes almost to the top of the tower.

That area is still occupied by the Russians. As it is one of the two usable land transportation routes, it is likely that it will be unusable for some time after it is deoccupied.

So, here is the ask; I know that many Medium Wave transmitters have been turned off in Europe over the last several years. Is there any in that power range that is available to be moved to Ukraine? Preferably something that is still in good working order and on or close to 648 KHz. It is a long shot, but worth asking.

New transmitter building for an old station

UPDATE:

What the site looks like now with the old building removed:

Putting the finishing touches on another transmitter site rebuild, this time in central NY. This station for many years used this rambling white residential-looking structure for both the studio and transmitter site:

Former studio and transmitter site for WDLA, Walton, NY

Unfortunately, over the years, the building has deteriorated beyond economical repair. A few years ago, the studio facility was moved to a new location in town. Now the transmitters are being moved to this repurposed cellular building:

Former NEXTEL building, now WDLA AM/FM transmitter site

This was purchased used from a local crane company, which had dozens of them on their lot after NEXTEL was absorbed by Sprint. During the permitting process with the town, they referred to it as a “Circular Use.”

They are actually nice buildings, coming prewired with a 200 amp single phase service, two working Bard HVAC units, ready-made coax entry ports, etc. My only complaint (so far), is the light switch timer. I like the idea, the lights get switched off automatically and are not left on for months at a time when nobody is at the site. However, the timer only goes up to 2 hours. Thus, when we were doing the installation work, periodically there would be an audible click, then everything would go dark. Not terrible.

There are also two other FM stations that have an STL transmitter here.

STL equipment for two additional stations

All in all, an enjoyable project.