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WLW transmitter site

Yabadabado1 said:
In over 60 years in broadcasting in about 20 countries... and many of those years in engineering... I never, ever saw a dead bird around a tower.

That's because they didn't know they were dead until shortly after their wings quit working and they nose-dived into the ground several hundred feet away from the tower.
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In Wolfman Jack’s autobiography, he talked about birds “seizing up with a birdie heart attack” over the then 250,000 watt tower. Wolfman, of course, was a master of a tall take.
 
BruceB said:
When I was a child my family traveled to Clearwater Florida to spend a couple of weeks with an aunt and uncle.I would sit out on their deck at night with my portable transistor radio and listen to the Reds on 700 WLW.
Every now and then the signal would get a little noisy but for the most part it was clear as a bell.
I wonder how far the signal would be clear at night now?
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I’ve heard WLW just fine in Southern Alabama.
 
Yabadabado1 said:
In over 60 years in broadcasting in about 20 countries... and many of those years in engineering... I never, ever saw a dead bird around a tower.

That's because they didn't know they were dead until shortly after their wings quit working and they nose-dived into the ground several hundred feet away from the tower.
Click to expand...
Most of the AM sites have big pieces of land. A dead bird can't glide, so it would fall on the property. Same for FMs with big sticks... lotta' land around the tower, no birds.
 
gr8oldies said:
In Wolfman Jack’s autobiography, he talked about birds “seizing up with a birdie heart attack” over the then 250,000 watt tower. Wolfman, of course, was a master of a tall take.
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And I know the guy who was GM at XERF back then, and he says, "no birds". Lot's of fights between the ownership partners with guns and horses, though.
 
frankberry said:
There will be RF problems with every piece of electronic equipment in close proximity to the tower or ground radials.
Click to expand...

So have the radials returned? It was reported in one of the other threads that they were dug up.
The cancellation issues have abated somewhat around Columbus, but the weather also has cooled considerably since my original posts.
 
gr8oldies said:
Those, or an exaggerated version of them, were included in Wolfman’s book.
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Not exaggerated. The building had a huge arched entrance and open air interior patio in Mexican style. On one occasion, armed horsemen rode in and shot out all the windows in the patio and caused the station to have to go off the air for the evening.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Not exaggerated. The building had a huge arched entrance and open air interior patio in Mexican style. On one occasion, armed horsemen rode in and shot out all the windows in the patio and caused the station to have to go off the air for the evening.
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Even the Top 40 wars in the mid 60s between
WLS and WCFL never got that nasty!
 
I've been in this business almost 60 years and I have yet to find a dead bird at a radio tower, AM, FM TV.

They probably burst into flames from all the RF. Should've been looking for small charcoal briquets.
 
At AM, FM or TV frequencies, birds are far too small to be affected by the RF fields.
Weather radar systems can and do kill birds as they fly through the RF beams.
 
At AM, FM or TV frequencies, birds are far too small to be affected by the RF fields.
Weather radar systems can and do kill birds as they fly through the RF beams.

Sheesh! It was a joke! I know that. But I do think the GM of a station I was at was trying to kill me when he asked if I wanted to climb the station tower to change the burned out beacon at the top. Someone said they heard him grumbling that they couldn't afford the "outrageous fortune" that my minimum wage salary was costing them back in '78
 
Yabadabado1 said:
At AM, FM or TV frequencies, birds are far too small to be affected by the RF fields.
Weather radar systems can and do kill birds as they fly through the RF beams.

Sheesh! It was a joke! I know that. But I do think the GM of a station I was at was trying to kill me when he asked if I wanted to climb the station tower to change the burned out beacon at the top. Someone said they heard him grumbling that they couldn't afford the "outrageous fortune" that my minimum wage salary was costing them back in '78
Click to expand...
At WEEL / WEZR outside DC in 1970, the CE discovered that one of the jocks would go out to the towers every Friday after his shift. At first, he thought the guy was, for some reason, doing "practice" base current readings.

Then he discovered that the guy would leap onto the tower, hang on for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then spring off. When questioned about safety and sanity, the guy said that he always did that before a Friday date because the RF "temporarily made him sterile" so that he could enjoy his date without the need for protection.

Changing a beacon, if you use a harness and alternating hooks, is quite safe and the view is spectacular in many cases.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Then he discovered that the guy would leap onto the tower, hang on for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then spring off. When questioned about safety and sanity, the guy said that he always did that before a Friday date because the RF "temporarily made him sterile" so that he could enjoy his date without the need for protection.
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See, I remember it being suggested on RD that we start a thread to discuss and pay tribute to all the oddballs and "characters" we've all worked with over the years in and around radio broadcasting and exchange tales. This one is a candidate for sure!
 
Changing a beacon, if you use a harness and alternating hooks, is quite safe and the view is spectacular in many cases.

I am terrified of heights. Six feet up the tower and I probably would have been wetting my pants. I could have had on 8 harnesses, 12 alternating hooks, be tethered to a blimp, have a giant air mattress 1/2 mile out in all directions from the tower, been injected with enough helium to take me halfway to the moon if I fell and been dosed with enough Valium to calm a T-Rex and I STILL would have said NO!
 
Yabadabado1 said:
Changing a beacon, if you use a harness and alternating hooks, is quite safe and the view is spectacular in many cases.

I am terrified of heights. Six feet up the tower and I probably would have been wetting my pants. I could have had on 8 harnesses, 12 alternating hooks, be tethered to a blimp, have a giant air mattress 1/2 mile out in all directions from the tower, been injected with enough helium to take me halfway to the moon if I fell and been dosed with enough Valium to calm a T-Rex and I STILL would have said NO!
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I am very disturbed by heights on high balconies and rooftops.

My worst experience was when I did due diligence for the purchase of WTFM, which was on one of the World Traded towers. I had to check the rooftop antenna, and that roof had a low wall that seemed miniature compared to the size of the rooftop... and with the winds there, I decided to look from the roof access doorway, say, "OK, the antenna is there" and get off the roof.

Another one was the observation deck of the CN tower in Tortonto. It has a glass floor at about 1,000 feet above ground. Not fun for me.

But I have been up a thousand foot TV tower in an elevator and stood at the top surrounded by steel tubing and felt fine 'cause I had something to hold onto.
 
DavidEduardo said:
At WEEL / WEZR outside DC in 1970, the CE discovered that one of the jocks would go out to the towers every Friday after his shift. At first, he thought the guy was, for some reason, doing "practice" base current readings.

Then he discovered that the guy would leap onto the tower, hang on for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then spring off. When questioned about safety and sanity, the guy said that he always did that before a Friday date because the RF "temporarily made him sterile" so that he could enjoy his date without the need for protection.

Changing a beacon, if you use a harness and alternating hooks, is quite safe and the view is spectacular in many cases.
Click to expand...
I hope no woman actually bought that.
 
johnbasalla said:
The Neighborhood's version was a Top 40 hit. I like it much better than Joni's original. The Neighborhood added a tasty guitar lick that makes the song catchier.
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I had no idea until just now that the original version wasn't a hit! Of the three primary Top 40s, only KGW played the Neighborhood version, as did KEX, but they were MOR or possibly Full Service AC by that time. The other two played Joni's version and ever since, it's the only one I've heard! I recently heard the Neighborhood version on an LPFM and it's very "adult" sounding and in my opinion, really terrible! The song was covered twice much later on and to be clear, it was never a real hit. The Neighborhood charted the highest at #29, which is certainly better than Joni's #67 but it clearly stalled for lack of interest.

big yellow taxi neighborhood - Bing video

www.bing.com www.bing.com
 
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