Whilst working in the generator room at WFLY, I found this bit of treasure stashed on an overhead shelf:
General Electric BY-4-C FM circular broadcast antenna, ca 1948
That is a very old FM broadcast antenna from 1947-48. It must have been intended as a spare antenna in case the main antenna had a problem. It was never needed, so it remains in its original shipping crate. I would think that these were rather well made since the original main antenna was in service from 1948 until 1970 or so when it was replaced with a Shively 6710.
General Electric BY-4-C antenna element
The entire antenna is intact including the Interbay lines, power divider T’s, and tuning section. Of course, it is of little use to the radio station today, as it is horizontally polarized. Perhaps some museum somewhere? I don’t know, it would be kind of neat to put it all together and use it as an exhibit.
Update and bump: I hate to rehash old stuff, but I added quite a bit of information to this post, including .pdfs of all the Barbeau letters, blue prints, etc. I’ve been doing quite a bit of work at this site lately, so it is in the front of my mind. I have also been reading about the Rural Radio Network, which covered western and central New York.
WFLY transmitter site, August 1949
Several years ago, I rescued an old filing cabinet that was being trashed. This particular file cabinet was moved to a transmitter site during the great radio consolidation of the late 90s and early 00s. In it, I discovered a treasure trove of early documents about two radio stations from the Albany NY area. I thought it would be interesting to document the building of one of the early FM stations in Albany, WFLY.
Albany is the capital of New York. There were several early (prior to 1940) AM radio stations in the Albany area:
WGY previously owned by General Electric in Schenectady, signed on in 1922
General Electric, who worked closely with RCA in radio development and experimentation, was working on TV in 1928 and FM radio in 1938/39. There were also several early (prior to 1950) FM stations in the area:
GE owned W2XOY on 48.5 MHz (circa 1939), later W85A, WGFM, and WRVE 99.5 MHz.
Independently owned W47A on 44.7 MHz (circa 1940), later WBCA 101.1 MHz, now gone.
WTRY owned WTRI-FM on 102.7 MHz (circa 1947), off air by 1954. 102.7 frequency later used by WEQX in Manchester, VT
These stations operated from transmitter sites in the Helderberg escarpment on land that was formerly owned by the Albany Bible Institute. It is interesting to note that two of the four FM stations did not make it past 1955. In 1967, WTRY did make a second attempt at FM, launching WDKC on 106.5 MHz, which is today known as WPYX.
It would appear the Troy Record initially applied for an FM broadcasting license in late 1946. The paper trail that I found started in early 1947 when the station hired consulting engineer Ernest Barbeau of Schenectady to oversee the construction process for the studios and transmitter site. Ernest Barbeau, in an introductory letter to Frank York, publisher of the Troy Record, notes himself as a former GE engineer and assistant to W.R.G. Baker, General Electric’s television pioneer. At the time, it was already understood that height means almost everything in FM broadcasting. There are several letters dealing with land acquisition and transmitter building construction.
Below is a chart of all the various Barbeau letters written in 1947. I have scanned and uploaded .pdf files of each letter, sorted by date (the entire archive is available here (6.5 Mb .zip)):
This is a treasure trove of information on how this, and perhaps other early FM and TV stations went about finding land and building remote transmitter sites. Remember that before this, AM transmitters could be placed in any convenient location with enough space for the tower and ground system. The line-of-sight nature of VHF required high locations, which in the Northeastern US, means prominent hills or mountains. Sadly, this paper trail goes away in 1948.
Here are some of the highlights found in the letters above:
Washington DC consulting engineer for the project is John Barrons, who at one point suggested a different transmitter location closer to the city of Troy. Barbeau insists that the Helderberg location is best because the GE engineers chose it for their FM and TV experiments.
Negotiations with several land owners along the edge of the Helderberg escarpment are finally successful, with a 10-acre parcel of land purchased from Mr. La Grange, noted as being across Camp Pinnacle Road to the south of the WBCA transmitter and adjacent to the west of the GE parcel, cost $2,000. From this, I surmise the former W47A/WBCA site stood where the former WHMT/WVCR site stands today.
Land survey completed by Mr. J. Kempf of Albany.
The FCC application is completed with a new transmitter location, antenna height, and frequency of 92.5 MHz (this was changed to 92.3 MHz prior to sign on).
At one point, Barbeau tried to hire Walter Watson, an RPI architecture student, to draw up the studio floor plan, paying him $15.00. At first, Watson agrees, then backs out of the deal. Frank York hires an architect to draw the studio floor plan and the transmitter site-building plan.
Once the plot of land for the transmitter site is purchased, several different building locations and antenna configurations are discussed. It is noted that both WBCA’s and WGFM’s original antenna was mounted on a pole at ground level. The later station was moved to a makeshift tower.
WBCA management raises concerns with the FCC about potential interference from the new station’s transmitter and potential STL, noted as an S-T link.
In September of 1947, Frank York expresses some concern with the viability of the project, Barbeau sends several “pep talk” letters saying that FM radio is the future of broadcasting.
The building site is chosen, land cleared, access road installed, work done by Orsini Brothers Construction from Altamont, clearing and road work cost $2,000.
The call letters WFLY are chosen, they are the initials of Frank Lloyd York.
An 80-foot Blaw-Knox self-supporting tower is purchased and installed by Zane Construction, cost of the tower is $1,700 installation was another $200.00.
The well is drilled by Stewart Brothers well drilling from Guilderland, cost of $5.90 per foot drilled, total cost unknown.
Transmitter building work began, the building is noted as a two-story, concrete block construction, work done by Orsini Brothers.
A GE BY-4-C four-bay circularly horizontally polarized antenna and a 3 1/2-inch Andrew transmission line are installed on the tower.
Building construction progresses, and telephone and electric services are installed. Three-phase electrical service cost $2,100 from New York Power and Light.
The studio site was chosen at the Troy Hotel in downtown Troy.
Living quarters were constructed on the second floor of the building for full-time transmitter engineers.
A GE BF-3A 3 KW FM transmitter was purchased and shipped.
Building construction completed.
The transmitter was installed and tested.
Telephone circuits between new studio installed and tested.
WFLY transmitter site building elevationsWFLY transmitter building floor planWFLY electrical drawing showing grounding and tower
The transmitter site construction was finished in the spring of 1948. The studios were completed in late July of 1948 and the station signed on the air on August 18, 1948. This is the transmitter site that they ended up with. as it looks in 2015:
WFLY transmitter building, New Scotland, NY
In addition to the construction, there was quite a bit of difficulty from the WBCA management, who were concerned about possible interference. WBCA was part of the “Continental Network” and received most of its network programming via direct over-the-air relay from W2XMN/W31NY, 43.1 MHz, in Alpine, NJ. They complained to the FCC about potential interference on both their over-air network relay (43.1 MHz) and the Studio to Transmitter Link from downtown Schenectady on 950 MHz. In the end, the FCC was unimpressed with these arguments and granted WFLY its operating license.
The transmitter building was made twice as large as needed because the Record had plans to launch a TV station and possibly a radio facsimile service. In addition to this, there were complete living quarters on the second floor which included a bathroom, shower, kitchen, bedroom, and large living room area. This was in the era before remote controlling of transmitters was permitted by the FCC. It took a hardy soul to live at the remote transmitter site full-time. Even today, it is far outside of town and can be difficult to get to in the wintertime
These mountain-top transmitter sites did not exist prior to the advent of TV and FM. The amount of planning and work that went into launching this station is quite impressive. For the early FM radio stations, this type of effort and expense was probably typical.
It seems the power company has some work to do. The other leg measures 28 volts to ground, which to me means the Neutral has been lost somewhere. Fortunately, the transmitter was running on 240, which looks normal on the voltmeter. Everything in the rack; the remote control, exciter, STL, etc have been damaged or destroyed.
Then, of course, there is this:
Utility line
That is the power and phone line in those trees, as it leaves the road and travels approximately 1,700 feet through the woods. It is a private line and the utility will not do any work until the trees are cleared away. In all fairness to the current owners, who have owned the station for not quite a year, this situation has been like this for a long time.
In an interesting development, the FCC has taken notice of some pattern distortion from the side-mounted FM antenna of KFWR, Jacksboro, Texas. For those, like myself, not familiar with Texas Radio, that is in the Dallas/Fort Worth market. The crux of the issue is co-channel interference to KCKL in Malakoff, Texas. These two locations meet the spacing requirements in 73.207 (215 km). The issue is with the side-mounted ERI antenna and what appears to be intentional pattern optimization.
From the FCC order to show cause:
ERI’s president, Mr. Thomas Silliman, acknowledging that KFWR’s antenna “was mounted in a favorable direction, but… has not been directionalized and therefore is legal.” Mr. Silliman adds that the custom lambda tower at the top of the new KFWR tower was specifically designed for operation at KFWR’s frequency of 95.9 MHz, and that the tower’s lattice structure is “repetitive at the half wave of the specified FM frequency.” Thus, “if one picks a favorable mounting position on the tower, every element in the array sees the same favorable mounting result. Mr. Silliman also states that vertical parasitic elements are used to make the vertical radiation pattern “more circular” and reduce the vertically polarized gain to the east. In a subsequent pleading, ERI elaborates that its computed values “are relative to an RMS measured field of 1.0.” Mr. Silliman concedes that the mounting of the antenna on a certain tower face constitutes “pattern optimization,”arguing later that this is a common practice used by all antenna manufacturers, but states that it is the ERI’s policy “not [to] increase the directivity of the antenna pattern.”
The FCC concludes that the directionality of the side-mounted antenna, in this case, is clearly intentional. The radiated power towards co-channel KCKL was calculated to be 274.5 KW, which is in excess of the 100 KW limit, and orders KFWR to reduce TPO from 25 KW to 9.1 KW.
We have lots of these out in the field:
Side-mounted Shively 6810 antenna. WSPK, Mount Beacon, NY
In fact, I believe the majority of our FM stations use side-mounted antennas. Some of them are mounted to a leg and some are mounted to a face. Usually, I try to place the antenna on the tower so that the bays are facing the desired audience. This information is given to the manufacturer when ordering the antenna so that proper mounts can be furnished and the mounting distance between the tower and antenna properly calculated. That is about the extent of any “optimization” that is allowed.
As the FM band gets jam-packed with FM signals, this may become more of an issue in the future, particularly around dense signal areas around major metropolitan areas.