{"id":9699,"date":"2018-06-27T19:58:05","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T23:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=9699"},"modified":"2023-03-19T09:24:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T13:24:20","slug":"wkip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2018\/06\/wkip\/","title":{"rendered":"WKIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This was the radio station that I listened to (or rather, my parents listened to) when I was a very young kid.\u00a0 From this source, things like school closings, weather, lunar landings, news, sports and traffic could be heard.\u00a0 At one point, there was a guy called the &#8220;Traffic Hawk,&#8221; (real name Don Foster) who flew in a Cessna 172 east and west over main street in Poughkeepsie advising drivers of any slow downs in the area.\u00a0 That&#8217;s right, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Poughkeepsie,_New_York\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Poughkeepsie, New York<\/a>, population 30,000, had it&#8217;s own eye in the sky, broadcasting live from the aircraft overhead.\u00a0 Actually, I think he also flew up and down South Road (US Route 9) in the vicinity of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/IBM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IBM<\/a> plant, which employed quite a few people in those days.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a guy who tried to break the Guinness Book of World Records by staying awake the longest, this happened several times.<\/p>\n<p>For me, it was the school closings.\u00a0 I hated school with an absolute passion.\u00a0 Everyday, I would ride the school bus and say a little prayer; &#8220;&#8230;please God, make it today.\u00a0 Make the boiler stop working, or the electricity go out.\u00a0 Make the kitchen catch on fire or the roof cave in.\u00a0 You are a great and mighty God and I don&#8217;t ask for much.\u00a0 Please destroy my school today.&#8221;\u00a0 Alas, God did not seem interested in this.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, back to the topic at hand.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/WKIP_(AM)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WKIP<\/a> first signed on in 1940 with the studios and transmitter located at The Nelson House, 42 Market Street, Poughkeepsie.\u00a0 That building is long gone and the location appears to be the parking lot for the Dutchess County Office building.\u00a0 Being neighbors with some influential guy from Hyde Park made for a nice dedication speech:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9kadyx-toBY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It signed on with a power of 250 watts on 1,420 KC on June 6th, 1940. Soon thereafter, it changed frequency to 1,450 KC as a part of the AM band shift brought about by NARBA.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, the station went through several ownership changes. The first major technical change came in 1961, when the station transmitter site moved to its current location, then called Van Wagoner Road, now Tucker Drive. The station increased power to 1,000 Watts and installed a directional antenna for daytime use.\u00a0 It is one of those rare nighttime non-directional, daytime directional stations.<\/p>\n<p>The directional antenna consists of two towers; tower one is 180 degrees tall (103.4 Meters or 340 feet) with 35 degrees of top loading.\u00a0 That is used for both the day and nighttime array.\u00a0 Tower two is 85 degrees tall (48.8 Meters or 160 feet) and is used only for the daytime array.\u00a0 This pushes the major lobe of radiation towards the north.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t know the reasoning behind that, but somebody spends a good amount of money to make it so.<\/p>\n<p>Here is an air check from the early 1980s.\u00a0 Weather on that day was &#8220;Sunny, cloudy, whatever&#8230; take your pick.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gl_dHyUZi_s\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Good old Steve Diner.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the station looks like this:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9702\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9702\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_115800044_HDR-e1530142756998.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9702\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_115800044_HDR-e1530142756998.jpg\" alt=\"The 1961 WKIP transmitter building with tower\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9702\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 1961 WKIP transmitter building with tower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When I was growing up, my cousins lived within walking distance of this. We used to come over and throw rocks at the tower when the station was unmanned on Saturdays and Sundays. At least, I think it was unmanned because no one ever came out and yelled at us.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9704\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9704\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_114725760-e1530142820734.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9704\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_114725760-e1530142820734.jpg\" alt=\"WKIP backup transmitter, phasor and main transmitter\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9704\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">WKIP backup transmitter, phasor and main transmitter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mid-1980s MW-1A still runs. The BE AM1A is the main transmitter. The phasor is the Original 1960s Gates Phasor.<\/p>\n<p>This video shows how the studios used to look before they were rebuilt by Clear Channel Circa 2002 or so. At about the 2:02 mark, you will see the room pictured above as it looked in 1990.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AUhRlQ3Fizc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The space between the video above and the picture below looked bad with nothing in it. It looks better now.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9703\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9703\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_115514309-e1530142873485.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9703\" src=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_20180627_115514309-e1530142873485.jpg\" alt=\"WKIP clock\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9703\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">WKIP clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That clock is a collector&#8217;s item and belongs in a museum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was the radio station that I listened to (or rather, my parents listened to) when I was a very young kid.\u00a0 From this source, things like school closings, weather, lunar landings, news, sports and traffic could be heard.\u00a0 At one point, there was a guy called the &#8220;Traffic Hawk,&#8221; (real name Don Foster) who &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2018\/06\/wkip\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WKIP<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[87,18],"class_list":["post-9699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-am","tag-am-transmitter-site"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9699"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11089,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9699\/revisions\/11089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}