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WTIS AM-1110 St. Petersburg

Probably on the air to take measurements. Or as I used to say "(Enter call sign and City of License here) Transmitting for equipment test purposes only" or as a good friend used to say "Transmitting at various times, powers and frequencies" Frequencies? I would ask, he would say "You don't know about this transmitter" :)
 
That air check does bring back memories. We listened to WALT and when they signed off at sunset WBT would come barreling in. WBT was also rock at the time, although not as energized as WALT. Often we would continue listening to BT without even noticing WALT had signed off. WBT had a built in listening audience down here at night.
 
I recall visiting WALT's studio downtown a few afternoons around 1962 when they were nearing signoff time. They had a speaker in the lobby that played the over-the-air WALT signal. As dusk and signoff was approaching, WBT's skywave was already giving some interference to the WALT signal over WALT's own receiver. It was something you wouldn't expect to hear.
 
Too bad about it being off the air. :( Been checking the band every day to see if it comes back on. I could hear it in Altamonte at times as well a few years back.
 
I wish someone would visit the transmitter site on 112th. Ave. N. the next time the station's carrier is up.
We might be able to get some questions answered.

FYI, I once lived at West Port Colony Apartments ... right next door to WTIS. I never had any interference problems from their 10kW signal.

Frank
 
frankberry said:
I wish someone would visit the transmitter site on 112th. Ave. N. the next time the station's carrier is up.
We might be able to get some questions answered.

FYI, I once lived at West Port Colony Apartments ... right next door to WTIS. I never had any interference problems from their 10kW signal.

Frank
Click to expand...

WTIS is no longer at the 112th Avenue N site un St. Petersburg.

They are now diplexing at the WAMA-AM site with 1550.
 
dwtpa97 said:
I recall visiting WALT's studio downtown a few afternoons around 1962 when they were nearing signoff time. They had a speaker in the lobby that played the over-the-air WALT signal. As dusk and signoff was approaching, WBT's skywave was already giving some interference to the WALT signal over WALT's own receiver. It was something you wouldn't expect to hear.
Click to expand...

----

Thanks for the audio check, dwtpa97; the D.J.'s on WALT 1110 were certainly high energy; unfortunately by the time I was in high school, they had abandoned their rock format and go to easy listening for a few months and then country as WQYK, and with their 10,000 watts probably didn't help the ratings of WHBO 1050.

Does anyone know where the antenna/tower would have been in 1962?
 
During the 1950s, their tower was located with the studios at 401 W. Tyler Street, downtown Tampa and they were 1kw power. Sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the tower was moved to Temple Terrace/Seffner, and they increased power to 10kw. I would suspect that in 1962 they were already 10kw.
 
frankberry said:
I wish someone would visit the transmitter site on 112th. Ave. N. the next time the station's carrier is up.
We might be able to get some questions answered.

FYI, I once lived at West Port Colony Apartments ... right next door to WTIS. I never had any interference problems from their 10kW signal.

Frank
Click to expand...

And many decades ago I only lived 5 miles from the site. What's interesting is that if you go to radio-locator.com and click on the GPS coordinates on the first link and get the google street map link and do a drag and drop of little guy into the parking lot....it looks like someone is living in an RV just behind and off to the side of the transmitter shack. I was like "WTF?"
 
Yabadabado1 said:
And many decades ago I only lived 5 miles from the site. What's interesting is that if you go to radio-locator.com and click on the GPS coordinates on the first link and get the google street map link and do a drag and drop of little guy into the parking lot....it looks like someone is living in an RV just behind and off to the side of the transmitter shack. I was like "WTF?"
Click to expand...

It sure does. I don't know when the Google photo was taken. Perhaps the RV belonged to an employee ... perhaps the morning person ... or even the GM.
Back in the 70's, when I was the WQYK-FM Chief Engineer, the transmitter was in the small building on the northeast corner of the main building. It was not air conditioned. I once found a scorpion on the floor of the little building. Not good at all.

I took this photo back in the hot Summer of 1977. After the equalized program lines from the studio to the transmitter were accidentally cut, I moved a couple of cart machines, a Gates mixer and a microphone to the transmitter. This is Jeff Ryan as he endured the heat and the humidity while keeping the music going.
 

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Yabadabado1 said:
And many decades ago I only lived 5 miles from the site. What's interesting is that if you go to radio-locator.com and click on the GPS coordinates on the first link and get the google street map link and do a drag and drop of little guy into the parking lot....it looks like someone is living in an RV just behind and off to the side of the transmitter shack. I was like "WTF?"
Click to expand...

That building next to the RV in that photo is the actual studio location. The transmitter is there, but so is the rest of the station. At least until it was sold.
 
frankberry said:


It sure does. I don't know when the Google photo was taken. Perhaps the RV belonged to an employee ... perhaps the morning person ... or even the GM.
Back in the 70's, when I was the WQYK-FM Chief Engineer, the transmitter was in the small building on the northeast corner of the main building. It was not air conditioned. I once found a scorpion on the floor of the little building. Not good at all.

I took this photo back in the hot Summer of 1977. After the equalized program lines from the studio to the transmitter were accidentally cut, I moved a couple of cart machines, a Gates mixer and a microphone to the transmitter. This is Jeff Ryan as he endured the heat and the humidity while keeping the music going.
Click to expand...

It was taken April of 2011. I thought they updated their stuff every couple of years....guess not.
 
So any news on this station? I'm no longer living in Brandon.
 
austingrace said:
So any news on this station? I'm no longer living in Brandon.
Click to expand...
Austin, maybe someone else on this board knows, all I can tell you is that they’ve have not returned to the air in any capacity that I’m aware of on either 1100 or 1110. No testing or programming and nothing on FM either and last time I checked no online stream.
 
jimmydean said:
They just got their license application granted, and I heard them on the air yesterday and today.
Click to expand...

Were they on the air today? If so, I missed it; was checking every 30
minutes or so between 1030AM and 4PM and didn’t hear anything , but if they’re doing some low power testing, that could explain it as I was never within 5 miles of Palm River.

I did hear something around 4PM just north of Bearss on I-275 but it was so weak, couldn’t determine any i.d. Unless it might have been WBT Charlotte starting to come in.
 
I hope they get back on the air. I loved the format. I'm a 30 year old guy and love that type of music. Really reminded me of smooth 92.7 over here. If you guys like that type of music then look them up on tunein. It is a jukebox but man oh man do they have great music.
 
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