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WEVD 1330 New York

A

alok

When WEVD shared time with WPOW on 1330,I know WPOW's transmitter site was on Staten Island with 3 in line towers. Was WEVD's transmitter site in Maspeth,Queens ?

Anybody know excactly what street the WEVD towers were on ?
How many towers they had ( I think it was three in line ) ?
How much power they ran ( I think it was 5kw whenever they operated ) ?
What type of pattern did they have , U3 or U4 ?
Which way/s did the pattern go,where were nulls ?

I think WPOW had a U3 pattern and power was 5 kw at all times when they operated from their site,correct ?
Which way did pattern go ,where were nulls ?

Were WPOW's and WEVD's patterns similiar ?


Al
 
The site was at 47-01 Maspeth Avenue, along Newtown Creek. It was listed as 5000 watts fulltime in the 1948 Radio Annual. Later issues of the Broadcasting Yearbook (thank you, David Gleason) list it as DA-2, different patterns day and night. Somewhere upstairs I have a 1971 NRC pattern book which could shed some light on what the night pattern looked like. I think the biggest night null would have been to WATR 1320 in Connecticut. WEVD (and WBBR/WPOW) were senior enough on 1330 that most everyone else would have been protecting them.

The WEVD license (turned WNYM) moved operations to Staten Island circa 1981, when it came under common ownership with WPOW; it then moved to Hackensack (diplexed with 970) around 1989.
 
A little more detail: the precise location of the WEVD transmitter building was just north of what's now the intersection of 47th Street and 58th Road in Maspeth, and the two self-supporting towers ran along a rough east-west line just north of that. There's a pretty good aerial view on historicaerials.com from 1980, just before the site was demolished. Nothing at all is left of the site now; there's a big warehouse sitting over most of what had been the transmitter building and the tower field.

The WEVD site was practically within spitting distance of WQXR 1560, just to the southeast on Grand Avenue.

With two towers, the directional patterns can't have been very complex at all; probably some sort of cardioid with a null to the north toward WATR.
 
Scott,

Thank You for info on my WEVD question ,plus thanks for teaching me about HISTORICAERIALS.COM,never knew about that site.

We had family that lived in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn when I was a kid in the 50's we visited often,I recall one day visting in Brooklyn, my Mom's cousin and my Dad went somewhere by car and I took the ride. I remember going by a brick building with the call letters out front and towers . . . the calls on building were WEVD.

I had an old NRC pattern book around somewhere too and what I recall of the pattern of WPOW and WEVD ,they were similar but not exact. I remember a main lobe going NE on both patterns.
If I find any other info I'll share it with you,

Again thanks for info and take care,

Al
 
alok said:
I had an old NRC pattern book around somewhere too and what I recall of the pattern of WPOW and WEVD ,they were similar but not exact. I remember a main lobe going NE on both patterns. If I find any other info I'll share it with you,
Click to expand...

Don't forget that 1330 in New York was a three-way time-share for most of its life. The third station was WHAZ in Troy, which was licensed to operate from 6:00PM Mondays until 3:00AM Tuesdays, although it usually signed off at midnight on Mondays. WHAZ was ND using a "bedspring" top load and a very short vertical drop-wire. The antenna was located atop Russell Sage Laboratory, the EE building at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), my alma mater and WHAZ's licensee. The efficiency of the top-loaded antenna, which used the copper roof of Sage Lab as a ground, required a waiver because it could not meet normal minimums for Class III AMs, of which WHAZ was one. Anyhow, until WHAZ was sold by RPI to Alan Eaton (of United Broadcasting, owner of WPOW--ex WBBR--no relation to Bloomberg's WBBR) who converted it to a daytimer, which it remains to this day (so that WPOW could have WHAZ's Monday evening hours), other 1330s (besides WEVD and WBBR/WPOW) had to protect WHAZ at night. WCRB (AM) Waltham MA (now WRCA, Watertown MA) used a three tower array oriented along an east-west line to protect the two New York City 1330s and WHAZ.

When WHAZ became a daytimer, WCRB was able to replace its three-tower array with a two tower array oriented southwest to northeast, protecting only the New York City 1330s. When WEVD/WPOW moved to Hackensack, the New York stations' night pattern no longer sent a big signal toward Boston and WCRB (by then, WHET), which had been plagued by the huge skywave from New York, got a big reduction in its NIF.

In any event, I believe that WEVD's day pattern had main lobes pretty much to the north and south, which would be consistent with the use of two widely spaced towers on a more-or-less east-west line as reported in another post in this thread. I don't think the day pattern was much different from the night pattern. I remember listening to WEVD on a portable radio in Fahnstock State Park, which is about 50 miles north of New York City. My conclusion was that WEVD's day pattern (before use of the Staten Island site) took advantage of the protections that had to be afforded to WHAZ, which was even further north.
 
@ Alok :

Correct on the National Radio Club nighttime pattern book's portrayal. In one of their otherwise fine 1960's publications of the book, they made a slipup. My edition has the identical signal and transmitter site for both WEVD and WPOW.
Oddly, the coverage for the other two area timersharers -- WBNX and WAWZ on 1380 -- is shown as two separate patterns.

Although our little DX clique lived within the geographic Five Boroughs, the area was sort of an Outland. We listened from a little east of Kennedy Airport, pretty near Jamaica Bay. WPOW's Staten Island sticks sent less signal our way.
Quite often, near sunset, WESR 1330 would provide a real pebble-in-the-shoe to whichever NYC station was on. WESR was a daytimer from Tasley VA, along the DelMarVa peninsula (the town was pronounced TAZZ-lee), and was pretty much a water-path shot.

And yes, the edition of the NRC Night Pattern Book I have here has the 1330 signal going northeast.
 
I visited the WPOW transmitter site in the 1970's. It was a site to behold. Thay had three self supporting towers fed by open wire feeder at a time when 99% of the stations were running some form of coax. Theii phaser was in a room with exposed coils attached to the wall. They had a UREI modulimiter (or something like that with three bands of processing). The high and low band meters barely moved but the mid band level meter was pinned to the wall and there was audible distortion on the air. The engineer on duty claimed that this was the only way they could pass the FCC proof. At the time WEVD was simulcast over the WPOW transmitter. WEVD had an old RCA board with an FM tuner that was used as the STL. Obviously, they had stopped airing seperate programs on AM & FM. I wish I had taken pictures, it was an experience I will never forget.
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
Correct on the National Radio Club nighttime pattern book's portrayal. In one of their otherwise fine 1960's publications of the book, they made a slipup. My edition has the identical signal and transmitter site for both WEVD and WPOW.
Click to expand...

That probably was not a slip-up. Toward the end of its existence on 1330, WEVD did indeed use the WPOW transmitter on Staten Island and the two stations had identical facilities (identical because they were THE SAME facilities). Subsequently, WPOW (I think it had become WNYM at that point) acquired WEVD and the two stations became one--fulltimer WNYM, transmitting from the Staten Island site. A short while later, WNYM moved its TX from Staten Island to Hackensack, where it became a diplex from the site of Hackensack-licensed 970 (which, at that time, may have had the WWDJ calls).

Oh, and I believe that, when it operated as a full-timer from Staten Island, WPOW/WNYM ran 5 kW DA-1. The main lobe of the pattern did indeed go to the northeast. But this pattern did not resemble either of the patterns that WEVD used when it was located in Queens. The Hackensack pattern's main lobe is to the southeast (over the five boroughs). Although the current New York 1330 (WWRV) uses different day and night powers, the directional pattern is the same day and night. In the old days, the FCC called this DA-1, but it is now called DA-2.
 
I do remember hearing WEVD on 1330 from RI. Quite a messy situation. I also heard WAWZ 1380 from time to time when then semi- local WNRI Woonsocket would go off the air at night. Did Pillar Of Fire turn in the license, or was 1380 absorbed into the-now WKDM?
 
DG02816 said:
I do remember hearing WEVD on 1330from RI. Quite a messy situation. I also heard WAWZ 1380 from time to time when then semi-local WNRI Woonsocket would go off the air at night. Did Pillar Of Fire turn in the license, or was 1380 absorbed into the-now WKDM?
Click to expand...

IIRC (and I may not) first, WAWZ-FM 99.1 went on the air. Then WBNX--or whatever--acquired WAWZ (AM), allowing the New York 1380 to become a full-time station. Another station was peripherally involved as well--the 1380 in DE (can't remember the calls--WAMS, maybe), which used a more restrictive day pattern during those daylight hours when WAWZ was on. The DE station became an ordinary DA-2 once WAWZ (AM) was gone.
 
Contributor Dave Williams is likely to know more about the WAMS setup than anyone here. They may well have had to use four different patterns in a given 24-hour period.

Yes, Dan, those were the calls. Wow, was WAMS tough to hear in Queens NYC. They were tough to hear in far closer Philadelphia when I lived there!

Considering that Wilmington's omni WTUX 1290 used to be heard daily where we lived on Long Island -- sometimes as loud as super-directional WGLI -- then WAMS 1380 must really have had to jump through hoops adjusting their already directional signal depending on which NYC station was on.

>> 'IIRC (and I may not) ......... ' << Great chuckle, Dan!
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
Considering that Wilmington's omni WTUX 1290 used to be heard daily where we lived on Long Island -- sometimes as loud as super-directional WGLI -- then WAMS 1380 must really have had to jump through hoops adjusting their already directional signal depending on which NYC station was on.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that the Wilmington 1380 used the same night pattern and power (1 kW-N) regardless of whether NYC or Zeraphath (or however it's spelled) was on the air. Wilmington also used the same day power (5 kW) regardless of which of the two co-channel stations to the north was operating. Still, given the short distance and good conductivity between Wilmington and WAWZ, WAMS's 5-kW DA-D pattern during the hours when WAWZ operated must have been amazingly tight.
 
Regarding WAMS 1380 Wilmington,Del. & WAWZ 1380 Zarapheth,NJ , I recall that WAMS used three different patterns ,one when WAWZ was on ,one when WBNX was on and the nightime pattern which was most likely the same no matter if WAWZ or WBNX was on at night on 1380.

Here is a website that shows a picture of WAMS towers ,there were 5 in line.

http://www.oldwilmington.net/oldwilmington/radio-tv.htm

I recall between WEVD 1330 and WPOW 1330 where I was located at outside of Newark,NJ, WPOW was much louder when it was on compared to WEVD.
 
As a west coaster whose only exposure to WEVD was seeing it in the New York listings, what kind of programming did it run? I seem to dimly recall that it was owned for a time by the Jewish Daily Forward. Is that correct? What did WPOW program, and was there a conflict. In LA there was a time share on 1150kc, KFSG (the Four Square Gospel church's station) and KRKD "the album station", no overt conflict but I always wondered how the owners really felt about each other.
 
Lopaka said:
As a west coaster whose only exposure to WEVD was seeing it in the New York listings, what kind of programming did it run? I seem to dimly recall that it was owned for a time by the Jewish Daily Forward. Is that correct? What did WPOW program, and was there a conflict. In LA there was a time share on 1150kc, KFSG (the Four Square Gospel church's station) and KRKD "the album station", no overt conflict but I always wondered how the owners really felt about each other.
Click to expand...

Look through this thread and find a post that contains a link to a very good article on the history of WEVD (on 1300 and other frequencies Pre-NARBA, 1330 post-NARBA, 97.9 FM for a few years, and then 1050). Follow the link; it's a very interesting article. WEVD's relationship to the Forward newspaper/magazine spanned many decades--by far the majority of the lifetime of the station.

As for, the programming, it can't be characterized without a reference to what era you are discussing. For most of WEVD's life on 1330 (and much of the preceding decade), much of the programming was in Yiddish--a consequence of the Forward connection. On 1050, there was still some Yiddish but much more English. It was mostly brokered time, I believe. I can't recall whether the late Danny Stiles' brokered-time old-records show was heard on 1050 when it was WEVD or in another incarnation of the frequency (possibly the second coming of WHN).
 
Thank you, that was an interesting article. It sounds like the station made a real contribution in the community, its unfortunate that its gone.
 
Danny Stiles was on WEVD 1050. I used to listen to him while driving to Narragansett RI to put then-WBLQ 99.3 on the air.
 
Let me direct you all to the wonderful "Yiddish Radio Project" site, which was a terrific documentary about those small stations in New York City in the 30s, 40s and 50s (and a bit beyond)---mostly WEVD---and features actual station airchecks from recently discovered transcription discs (many rescued from the trash).

The most charming and fascinating is the 12-minute segment about all those local commercials (again, mostly on WEVD), which supported these stations.

As the host says "it is a window to a lost world"

Click on the audio file, and enjoy!

http://yiddishradioproject.org/exhibits/commercials/
 
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