Oh yeah, that’s right, they were used to attach the RF feed to an AM tower. About ten years ago.
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.
Vise grips clamping RF feed to tower
Another view.
AM broadcast tower
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.
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.
Aside from everything else, we have been working at WSBS, Great Barrington, MA installing a new Audioarts Air-4 console. WSBS is a small AM station (860 KHz, 2,500 watts day, 4 watts night) serving the Great Barrington area. They also have a 35-watt FM translator (W231AK) on 94.1 MHz which is highly directional. During the day, the AM station has a much better signal than the translator. After dark, the translator covers the downtown area fairly well. WSBS has been on the air since December 24th, 1957 (Happy 55th anniversary!), broadcasting from a non-directional tower just east of town on US Route 7.
The format could be termed full service, in the old tradition. Music, professional sports, local news, network news, and weather with coverage of special events like election night and so on. The station does local very well, and as such, is profitable and has a great community presence.
WSBS control room console
The air studio console was this rather tired-out Broadcast Audio unit from the early 1980s. It had certainly served its station well, but change was in the air, so to speak. Actually, we were getting worried about continuing to service this unit, as parts had become scarce about ten years ago.
New WSBS control room console
Thus, we moved the air studio to the production room temporarily and removed all the old equipment and furniture. We installed an Audioarts AIR-4, which is a pretty cool little console. The AIR-4 has four built in microphone preamps, a telco mix minus feed, two program busses selectable VU meters and so on. The control room rebuild project included a new counter top, adding extra microphones, headphone amplifiers, cleaning up wiring rat’s nests, installing new monitor antennas, rewiring a good bit of the rack room and so forth.
RE-20
It was a little more involved than we first thought, however, it came out pretty well:
WSBS Great Barrington, MA control room
The carpenter will be back next week, after Christmas to install the sides on the studio furniture under the counter top. It is a small operation in a small market in Western Massachusetts, but they have a real, live station staff including two news reporters. Hey, what a concept! To be honest with you, it is a joy all its own to work at a real radio station, if only for a short while.
