warm radio 590am

just tuned in to warm radio 590am. or tried too..how long have they been off the air? i havent tuned them in for a while.

samliguori said:

just tuned in to warm radio 590am. or tried too..how long have they been off the air? i havent tuned them in for a while.

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WARM went off the air on September 15. Cumulus filed for a silent STA this past Wednesday, October 15, claiming "transmitter problems" and that "our engineers are trying to determine the reason the transmitter failed". The clock is now ticking and the FCC will pull the license if they are not back on the air by September 15, 2015. (Hell, they laid off the one guy who knows their transmitter and who rebuilt it to get it back on the air the last time it failed several years ago!) Of course, given the overall poor condition of that transmitter site, caused by decades of neglect under a string of owners who did not give a damn, it would probably not pay for them to put the station back on the air. You know the frustration that I had when I used to work there, just to get tubes and parts to keep WARM on the air. The electric bill at the transmitter site is $2,100 a month! I don't know how aggressively Cumulus' salespeople were selling time on WARM, but I remember how nobody at Citadel made any effort to sell it...all the PSAs and promos that I had to run during NY Yankees games to fill out the breaks showed that. Meanwhile, WEJL and WHLM, both of which also run major league baseball games, are consistently sold out! Oh yes, the current market manager told me once that he "already has two engineers, one local and one in Allentown". But both of them are computer/I.T. people, not RF/transmitter people. And I could understand why neither of them would relish working on that old Gates transmitter with its 6,000 volt modulator supply. 6 kV at 2 amps...that's three times what was used in the electric chair at Graterford! No 3.5/5/12 volt power supplies here!

The tuning of the driver stage in the Gates BC5HA transmitter is very critical...you can't just pop in a new tube! If the driver is mistuned, the stage will oscillate, causing a buzz or "birdie" on the carrier. I have often heard that on WARM over the several years since Cumulus let me go. Eventually, this could damage the tube, cause premature tube failure, or cause other damage to the transmitter. The spurious signals caused by this oscillation will also interfere with other stations, inviting FCC problems.

If the WARM license does go away, WROW, a successful station on 590 in Albany, NY, could apply to the FCC for permission to let out its antenna pattern to send more signal to the southwest. I have listened to that station and they have an excellent mix of oldies and standards. Traveling south on the NYS Thruway, I have heard WROW almost to the New York City limits (Bronx).

Phil G.

samliguori said:

just tuned in to warm radio 590am. or tried too..how long have they been off the air? i havent tuned them in for a while.

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According to the FCC, WARM went off the air on September 15. Cumulus filed for a silent STA this past Wednesday, October 15, citing "transmitter problems" and that "the engineers are trying to find the reason why the transmitter failed". Hell, they laid off the one person in the cluster who knows that old Gates transmitter and who rebuilt it to get it back on the air when it failed several years ago! Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. If Cumulus does not put WARM back on the air by September 15, 2015, the FCC will automatically cancel the license and delete the call letters from its database.

Some time ago, their market manager told me "I already have two engineers, one local and one in Allentown". But these are computer/I.T. people, not transmitter/RF people. While both disciplines come under the heading of engineering, they are different and require different skills and training. You don't buy fish from a greengrocer and you don't buy produce from a fishmonger. I can understand why they might not relish working on that old Gates transmitter. The 6,000 volt modulator power supply delivers 2 amps. That's three times what was used in the electric chair at Graterford Prison! No 3.5/5/12 volt power supplies here!

One major idiosyncrasy of that Gates BC5HA transmitter is that the tuning of the RF driver stage is very critical. You can't just pop in a new tube and call it a day. If the driver is mistuned, the stage will oscillate, causing a buzz and "birdies" on the carrier. This oscillation can also cause premature tube failure and may do other damage to the transmitter. The interference caused to other stations also invites FCC problems.

Given the overall poor condition of the WARM transmitter site and the decades of neglect by a string of owners who just didn't give a damn, it probably isn't worth it for Cumulus to return WARM to the air. The electric bill at the transmitter site is $2,100 a month, as the transmitter is a power pig. I don't know how much of an effort was made by Cumulus' salespeople to sell time on WARM. I do remember that Citadel's salespeople didn't want to be bothered. That's why I used to have to run PSAs and promos to fill the breaks during NY Yankees games, while competitors WEJL and WHLM are consistently sold out when they broadcast major league baseball games!

If the WARM license does go away, WROW, a successful station on 590 in Albany, NY, can apply to the FCC to let out its directional pattern, sending more signal to the southwest. WROW plays a mixture of oldies and standards. I have listened to that station and have heard it quite well as far south as Poughkeepsie and even to the Bronx line on the NYS Thruway.

Take care and R.I.P, WARM
Phil G.

thank you for the info....

JustPastBuffalo said:

Question: can WARM be licensed to run at lower power, say 2.5k day/1 k night with a far less critical pattern? I'd guess not.

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It may be possible to use a simpler antenna array and lower power, although the transmitter site would have to be moved in order to put a city grade signal (25 mV/m) over the city of license. The existing WARM site is located about 15 or 20 miles northwest of Scranton. When the facility was new, the antenna system had to be modified in order for the FCC to grant the license, as it did not put a 25 mV/m (city grade) signal over downtown Scranton. A rather kludgy top loading system was added. This system consists of some 12 AWG stranded Copperweld wire suspended between towers in the array, with some egg insulators breaking up the wire in the middle. This made each radiator T-shaped. After a few years, the Copperweld would rust through and fall down, totally screwing up the array.

There are two critical nulls in the WARM pattern, one to the southwest (protecting WHP, Harrisburg, PA on 580) and one to the northeast (protecting WROW, Albany, NY on 590). These nulls would have to be preserved in order for any new antenna system to be licensable. The existing five tower array is an atrocity and it caused me many headaches when I worked for WARM in the pre-Cumulus days. Three of the towers are negative, which can cause stability problems with the array. The impedance curve is a deep valley. The bandwidth of the WARM array is so narrow that a new solid state transmitter would go into VSWR foldback or go off the air on modulation peaks! The signal was unlistenable in pattern nulls...the carrier would drop down before the sidebands did, causing the station to sound like monkey chatter. The deteriorated ground system caused poor signal coverage in recent years (WARM did not even put a 0.5 mV/m signal over Hazleton, a principal city in the market) and the common point current would go up and down like a roller coaster as the moisture in the soil changed.

Cumulus is up to its corporate eyeballs in debt. It is highly unlikely that they will spend any money on WARM, or, for that matter, on any AM properties outside of their largest markets. The only assets of WARM that are worth anything are the license and the branding...WARM was once the most prominent radio station in this region.

If the WARM license does go away next year, someone else might be able to reactivate 590 in our area...but that would take the opening of a filing window for new stations by the FCC, the ability to bid in a government auction for the construction permit, and a transmitter site located in or near Scranton. At least three towers would be needed in the array. The call letters would have to be different, as Cumulus owns the "WARM" brand, which it uses on several AC-formatted FM stations, including WARM-FM in York. Or WROW could apply to let out its pattern, giving it better coverage to the southwest of Albany. Should that happen, 590 will remain a vacant channel in this area forever, although WROW might become listenable here on a good radio and their music format would appeal to former WARM listeners.

@ Just Past Buffalo:
The 620 in NJ/NYC acquired permission to drop from 5000 watts daytime to something like 3800 watts. So perhaps anything is possible that way.

Cumeless, trying to keep pace with the Jones's and the Mays's, got caught up in this feeding frenzy, as though they bought tickets to the Last Supper off some scalper. Who pointed a gun at their heads and forced them into buying WARM?

What would the going price be for a big-power market jalopy -- 'needs some work' -- on a nice AM dial spot in Scranton in 2015? Is my guess at $150,000 too high or too low?

Steve Green NEPA said:

@ Just Past Buffalo:
Cumeless, trying to keep pace with the Jones's and the Mays's, got caught up in this feeding frenzy, as though they bought tickets to the Last Supper off some scalper. Who pointed a gun at their heads and forced them into buying WARM?

What would the going price be for a big-power market jalopy -- 'needs some work' -- on a nice AM dial spot in Scranton in 2015? Is my guess at $150,000 too high or too low?

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Cumulus did not specifically buy WARM. In 2011, Cumulus bought Citadel Broadcasting. That sale included the ABC Radio Networks, the ABC O&O stations (e.g., WABC New York and WLS Chicago), and all of the Citadel stations. WARM was acquired as part of the Citadel cluster in this area.

Probably your estimated value of $150,000 is too high. The only asset of any value at WARM is the license itself, as the transmitting plant is in such bad condition that it should be torn down, relocated, and rebuilt from the ground up. In 42 years in this industry, I had never seen a worse facility. While the WARM brand is valuable, Cumulus would never let that go. They use it on some of their AC-formatted FM stations.

The reason why WARM is such a white elephant is that, when Tele-Media bought WARM and WYZZ, WARM was still successful and was worth the $2 million that Tele-Media paid for it. Due to neglect of the transmitter plant, a poorly designed transmitting facility, and the overall malaise affecting AM radio these days, nobody today would even consider paying $2 million for WARM. Some years ago, Disney did offer $2 million to Citadel for WARM, but Citadel got greedy and wanted $3 million. Disney told them to walk east until their hats float and Citadel was stuck with an unsalable property. Two other prospective buyers approached Citadel, did a walk-through, and promptly walked away: Route 81 and Wilkinson Broadcasting (which now owns WITK in West Pittston).

With the right programming and a decent transmitter plant, even at lower power, WARM could make money. But Cumulus is not inclined to make the investment. Servicing nearly $3 billion (with a "B") in debt causes them to give other things higher priority.

It's worth +/- $30k, for just the license, the transmitter and scrap tower-base switching/coils equipment. The new buyer needs to re-license it at 1kw day & night non-D, to a site closer to Scranton. (Only needs a 5mv/m signal to cover all of Scranton)... But no WARM call-sign, as owner would want to keep that to put elsewhere. The days of effectively maintaining a difficult multi-tower array in a smaller market are over.

I looked at the data on WARM in FCC Query, and the station has a fairly tight pattern using 5 towers both day and night. It's pushed up pretty tight against the 590 in Albany NY, just 125 miles away to the NE. Non directional for 590 at Scranton doesn't appear to be an option even at 250 watts.

I'd say odds are at least 50/50 that WARM will go cold, dark, deleted.

NigelWick said:

Well, according to some posts and filings, it appears the new WARM will be back. It will have less power, and I doubt it will have a decent signal in the metro. I'm shocked Cumulus is making an effort.

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Yes, Cumulus recently filed to modify the WARM license, calling for three towers at the existing site. Daytime power will be 1.8 kW and night power will be 480 watts. The application may be viewed on the FCC Web site. Go to "AM Query", look up WARM, click on "Application List", and you will see this at the top of the list. The application was listed in yesterday's "Daily Digest" on the FCC site. The calculated coverage is slightly smaller than that of the old facility, although WARM will never again be "the station that reaches to the beaches".

Ironically, I suggested the possibility of going to a three-tower array back when Citadel still owned that station. The array should be more stable than the present one and, if the phasor and ATUs are designed properly, the bandwidth should be much better. The existing array is an atrocity. The less complex an AM array is, the easier it is to maintain.

Cumulus will have to invest in lots of copper (or Copperweld) wire, as the ground system has deteriorated over the years. Although copper is a thief magnet, it will last longer than Copperweld if it is not stolen. Copperweld is copper-clad steel wire, which has zero resale value, but is hard to work with. It also corrodes with time. The site is an open field in the country, inviting wire thieves. While changing transmitter tubes there one night some years ago, I saw some people riding around by the towers, spotlighting deer...so anyone can trespass onto the site.

Before reading the latest, from K2A, which makes this sort of moot now, I'd had a question about the use of longwire(s) as a means or broadcast. Are such things in use anymore? Would it be legal?

There was a station on Long Island -- WLIX or WBIC -- the tower site of which saw vandals cut a guy wire or two. 1968 or 1969. One of the kids was killed when the tower didn't just fall over like one long tree. It collapsed in sections.

While tower repairs were ongoing, the station began broadcasting for a while from a longwire stretched diagonally, across the roof. Of course, it couldn't be the most efficient signal. The station was on 540! I believe a full-wave antenna for 540 would have to be like 1600 feet. And the roof wasn't that big. And WLIX's actual tower certainly wasn't 1600 feet high.

But, as I asked: Are longwires still used for AM or Short Wave broadcast anywhere? And if they are, how efficient are they?

I suggest Cumulus to just give up on WARM already! Waste of money trying to get the transmitter fixed, and they don't know how to run this station.

Steve Green NEPA said:

Before reading the latest, from K2A, which makes this sort of moot now, I'd had a question about the use of longwire(s) as a means or broadcast. Are such things in use anymore? Would it be legal?


While tower repairs were ongoing, the station began broadcasting for a while from a longwire stretched diagonally, across the roof. Of course, it couldn't be the most efficient signal. The station was on 540! I believe a full-wave antenna for 540 would have to be like 1600 feet. And the roof wasn't that big. And WLIX's actual tower certainly wasn't 1600 feet high.

But, as I asked: Are longwires still used for AM or Short Wave broadcast anywhere? And if they are, how efficient are they?

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Longwire antennas for AM broadcast work are only permitted as emergency antennas, to be used if the tower falls. An STA request must be filed. The FCC will routinely grant the STA, possibly suggesting a lower power level, as it is preferable for a station to get back on the air with less than optimum facilities rather than to be off the air completely. Such was the case when those vandals brought the WBIC/WLIX tower down in Islip, Long Island. On the lower frequencies, they are not very efficient and they tend to have a high radiation angle, which is especially objectionable at night.

As for that tower, the optimum height is 5/8 wavelength for a vertical radiator. Most AM broadcast stations except the Class A (formerly Class I) stations use a tower height of 90 electrical degrees, which is a quarter wavelength. Make the tower too tall (more than 5/8 wavelengths or 225 degrees) and you will have problems with groundwave/skywave phase cancellation relatively close to the transmitter site. KDKA in Pittsburgh learned that the hard way when they replaced their tower in Allison Park, PA about 14 years ago. The original tower was a Franklin antenna, but the new one was a "solid" vertical radiator of about 280 electrical degrees. At night, "distortion zone" selective fading, caused by phase cancellation between the groundwave and skywave, rendered KDKA unlistenable within the Pittsburgh city limits! It is amazing (or maybe not) that the engineering staff at the FCC did not bounce the application for that construction permit. A high-angle radiation lobe from such a tall tower causes this problem, as a strong signal is directed skyward and bounces back to earth rather close to the tower, where it interferes with the groundwave signal.

I know of no shortwave broadcasters who use longwire antennas, although some of the "tropical band" stations in the 60, 90, and 120 meter bands use low turnstiles to deliberately create a high radiation angle. Since groundwave diminishes rapidly above 3 MHz, the "distortion zone" fading is not as problematic as it is in the mediumwave AM band. But this high angle radiation causes a strong signal to be reflected back to earth close to the station. Many of the countries where such stations are located are quite small and a station using an NVIS (near-vertical incidence of skywave; high angle) antenna will cover all of the home country quite well...desirable because most of these stations are domestic services.

About the only people who regularly use longwire antennas are hams. These antennas are a quick and easy way to get on the air and they will work fairly well if they are high enough.

Thanks there, KA2.

From an engineering buddy of mine is provided this.

http://www.wackradio.com/wlix tower/

Aside from the 540-590 sidebar, the subject is off the WARM topic quite a bit. I just added it here as a reference.

* * * * * * *

Word was that the electric bill every month to plug in WARM's five towers was $2000, give or take the occasional spool of copper wire from Home Depot. Is the proposed new 'light bill' going to decrease by enough to make it any more financially palatable?

Steve Green NEPA said:

Thanks there, KA2.


Word was that the electric bill every month to plug in WARM's five towers was $2000, give or take the occasional spool of copper wire from Home Depot. Is the proposed new 'light bill' going to decrease by enough to make it any more financially palatable?

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The electric bill at the WARM transmitter site was $2,100 a month. I know, as I used to make up the engineering budget when I worked for Citadel. We used Copperweld, rather than copper wire, for the top loading sections of the array. It's cheaper and it doesn't stretch as much as pure copper does. Home Depot doesn't sell that, but a number of broadcasting industry suppliers do stock it. Replacing the radial system would take far more copper wire than Home Depot could sell the station...and an industrial supplier would probably offer a better price. For the existing five tower array, a complete replacement of the radials would require enough copper wire to stretch from Wilkes-Barre to Allentown! Not cheap!

At the lower power level proposed and with a new solid state transmitter, the electric bill at the transmitter site will drop precipitously. The Class D and E amplifier stages in those transmitters offer an efficiency of about 90%. The old Gates transmitter is only about 68% efficient...and the modulator section of a classic plate-modulated transmitter must deliver audio power equal to half the RF carrier power. To modulate a 5 kW transmitter 100%, you would need 2,500 watts of audio! Cumulus could further decrease the electric bill by changing the tower lights from the existing incandescent lamps to modern LED lamps. WILK and WEJL use them. Or strobe lighting can be installed, eliminating the need to paint the towers...a huge expenditure that occurs every decade or so.

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/pat?call=WROW&service=AM&status=L&hours=D

Daytime WROW pattern.
Admittedly, we DXers used some pretty fine radios back in the 'Long Island' days ..... Atwater Kent, American-Bosch, Stromberg Carlson, and a few few of the then-called 'budget' communications sets, like the Lafayette HA-700 and the Lafayette HA 600.
* Still *, we would have gotten a daily 590 midday dose of WARM/WROW/WEEI Boston, depending on which way the loop was aimed. Local WMCA 570 was no problem. So I can attest as to that southern WROW lobe's efficiency.
(The gang all lived just on top of that first 't' in the word 'Pattern' at the bottom of the screen, lol.)

Anyway, a question for Phil G and/or the other engineering types aboard:
* IF * WROW wanted to open up their signal to the southwest, they'd need a fourth tower, right? From what my relatively unenlightened DX travels have revealed, the three towers now used by WROW and other stations result in a pattern that you can run an axis through and divide into two equal parts of information. Like an inkblot.

So if WROW wanted to open up to their southwest while keeping that null away from Boston -- yet still serve the swell coverage they enjoy now -- they would need a fourth tower, right ?

Just tuned to 590 to see if it came back on the air and guess what? Found out that it had flipped to CBS Sports Radio.

Yet, another waste format. Give this one few more months and then the station will be gone.