Man, I haven't tried serious AM DXing in a long time, even now that I'm a ham. I used to adore seeing how far out of Chicago I could still hear WGN back in the day...
Awesome video Walt!! Here in Australia, AM radio stations are slowly moving away to the FM band. One popular Adelaide station on air is 5AA. I live more than 200km away from it, but I have no trouble receiving it on my HF home base radio here in Port Pirie South Australia. One of my friends has a talk back show on that station, and I rang him one time. He asked how well I was hearing him. He wasn’t surprised when I said what equipment I was using.
Now we’re talking!! This is amazing Walt thanks for the tour. I wish we had those little AM sites with attached studios over here. More of this please my man!
Wow, really really great video Walt!!! I love seeing old radio towers. The problem is, most people don't show the little details, such as the signage on the fence and the way this antenna is mounted into the cement block. AM DXing is great at night and most people don't realize they have the equipment to do it in their car. I'm with you regarding radio. I love all forms of radio. To this day, I am still blown away that you can speak into a microphone and have it converted into a signal that ends up across the globe. It never gets old. I hope Mrs. K4OGO is doing well. You're both in my daily prayers. Take care and thanks for another interesting video...73...Hugh...KN6KNB
Walty salty...I'm 55 now. As a kid I can remember in my room with a single band little Panasonic am pocket radio and I'd tune around at night living in the Chicago suburbs was, wgn , wbbm. All were apart if my life. Even today I've moved to Alabama and with my tecsun 990X I from Alabama can pick up wbbm at night ...great video don't stop being you Walt 73!!!
Hey Walt, the FM actually crosses the base insulator using something called an isocoupler. It's 2 inductively coupled loops. Actually taking a closer look, that's a skirted antenna. The wires going up each leg are the antenna. Doing it this way avoids having to isolate the tower from ground.
It seems like the tower isn’t the AM radiating element. I don’t see any base insulator. My guess is that the wire with insulators and stand-offs on the left hand side of the tower is the AM radiating element. Keep up the good work, 73’s!
I had an instant flashback to the late 50s and early 60s of many a summer night tuning in WLS in Chicago from NE Ohio. I don't remember the brand or model of AM receiver I had but I do remember the gentle 60Hz hum and the warmth of the vacuum tubes from that radio. Thanks for the quick trip back in time, Walt.
I was a radio jock (dj had started going to the rappers at that point) starting in the 80s and worked at a lot of am and later FM stations with many formats. Thanks for covering this as stations are either closing altogether or swapping over to the much cheaper to operate FM bands. As one of my early mentors said, "it's the most fun you can have while boiling your shorts for soup!" Up north I once worked a station in an area slogged in by snow with windchill of -70c for 6 days with me and two highschool students and my wife handling phones, when they worked! I volunteered to stay while the rest of the staff went to the xmas party at a sister station further south when we snowed in. It was an extremely valuable service to locals and those hunting or on the traplines. People today keep thinking commercial radio is antique and useful only to those without modern audio. They are so wrong and discover it whenever shtf. Thanks for documenting this historic site.
The 1970s were a very unhappy and tumultuous time for many with the Vietnam war, high inflation and so on, but for me they were a very carefree happy time in childhood and AM radio was a kid's best friend. Thanks for bringing back the memories. 73
I wonder how many times Wolf Man Jack howled the night away through that station back in the day. That station reminds me of the one in American Graffiti where Wolf Man Jack was featured. Brings back memories as a little kid listening to my local FM station on weekend nights, waiting to hear the Wolf Man! lol
Morning Walt nice to hear from you again mate, brilliant video as all ways mate hope that Alison is well and okay and doing really good after her hospital treatment
Wave next time you drive by, I'm about a 4 mile drive from the WSUX building, pass it several times per week, I love it when people do videos about my local area, thanks!
YEAH BABY!!!!! This is a GROUNDED tower. I see no insulator, and no ball gaps at the bottom. What do see, is a "skirt" around the outside of the tower and that is fed through the ATU (the wood box next to the tower). We call this setup a "folded monopole". It's 1/2 of a folded dipole. The reason why many AM'ers do this is because their radial field has eroded away and the owner refuses to spend the money to rebuild the radial field..(or can't due to local zoning laws). It appears that this station is pre-existing, non-conforming and is therefore grandfathered in, but can not upgrade. I suspect it will be dark in less than 10 years (sadly). Glad you were able to document it and also provide some of the audio clips from its heyday. I'll look up the specs via the FCC. PS. Those trees are sucking much of the RF from the antenna and dumping it to ground, thereby ruining the effeciency of the signal, but I doubt that's a factor of importance after what I viewed.. Good catch Walt! Thanks much for sharing. 73
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES According to the FCC, this tower is 154 degrees tall. Because it's closer to 1/2 wave than 1/4 wave (180 degrees vs 90 degrees) it will be higher impedance and have less losses in the ground. The current lobe will also be higher up the tower. Hope that helps 👍
Thanks, Walt, for that bit of history. Back in the 90s I use to subscribe to Popular Communications. My favorite section was where they would give the history of AM stations going way back. I have a working tube AM radio I like to listen to every so often. Growing up in the 60s and 70s I spent a lot of time listening to AM radio. Thanks again Gary KF6EWO
In the 60's I was a volunteer telephone/radio operator for the lacal ambulance service at night, when the crew were out on the ambulance, sometimes for a couple of hours aswe covered a large area. There was an old valve radio with all the short wave bands on it, the antenna ran the length of the station. I listened to everything from Moscow, China, USA and Europe. 73 Steve, ZL1SPR
Great video Walt, love to see more like these. I grew up with a AM radio station just a couple of miles from my house so anytime I made a crystal radio that is what would come in. The station had three antennas, love to know more about how that works.
Back in the day I used to love listening to the US AM stations as they came across the pond in the early hours. Always so much more exciting to listen to than the UK stations as they played music we did not get over here and the advertising ! My parents could never understand why the batteries in their transistor radio were always going flat so quickly lol. 73 and hope all is well ? M7BLC.
I have a lot of fun with long distance AM radio listening. On a good evening I can hear WSM Nashville from my apartment in Colorado. I use a MLA-30 mag loop antenna and my Airspy SDR.
Hi over here in little old England we have what left of AM/ MW is very little mostly now we have a talk sport and more of Indian and Pakistani station’s. But we have got radio Caroline which was a pirate station back in the day. Which I’m sure you knew., and they got away with it by being out at sea 3 miles out.which is international waters as I know you know. More now 5 miles, anyway they have got back together and got themselves a license, not much power, but you can just about hear them at certain times of the day depends where you are in the country. What you are using yourself to listen to them. And it’s great to hear them because of the history and keeping AM alive still. Thanks for sharing your story about one of channels over there and very interesting to. Take care out there on them roads and see you soon Alan.ps just got myself a Radioddity QT40 and love it great noise reduction on it this is one of the reasons why I got it because of noise everywhere. And then I remembered thinking that you have a a code to get money off. Is that right or am I just wrong. If so I would love to usual code because I’ve got to get a couple more things.sorry for the big story. Thanks again.🇺🇸🇬🇧👍
Most of the AM radio stations in my corner of the Midwest are either talk radio or religious stations. Studio consolidation and deregulation has really done a number on the variety of AM stations in particular. Glad to see at least one station still plugging away, serving the community as it has changed over the years.
Hi Walt, here in the UK local stations have been switched off and moved over to DAB. All we have left is BBC Radio 5, Talk Sport, BBC Wales and Radio Caroline. Best wishes to you and your wife.
I'm glad you did this video. It made me think of my experience with AM radio. Back in the early 1970s - after getting out of the Navy - I started my career in radio broadcasting, which lasted for about 10 years. My first station was a 1000 watt daytimer in Central Massachusetts which had a single tower like WSUX. The station featured adult standard music with CBS news on the hour and local new on the half hour and lots of high school sports on the weekend. In a way. It's a format and a station which no longer exist. Our studio was in downtown and while our tower was down near the river on the outskirts. Of the 4 AM stations I worked for in the 70s, two our now silent. You're right, we need to pay homage to those stations which are gone. They played a useful role in the places like I used to live. But there are still a lot of good AM stations - especially the legendary flamethrowers - which are still needed. In fact, here in New England, there are places where you can't hear a FM station, much less find an internet signal, but you'll always find a station like WBZ. Thanks again. I hope you feature a few more stations like this.
Started life as a broadcast 'engineer'... 1kw day time regional... 500 watt directional... had to have someone on duty from sundown til shut down....(midnight... ussally) As all the tech staff were hams or old military radioman... I was 'allowed' to use the antenna after shutdown .... those were great days.... WB0ZLX
Listened to WLS out of Chicago and KAAY out of Little Rock. Alternative to the Poka music of MN. Still that he S38C receiver my dad gave me. Thanks for the video Walt! 73
Yes...early 1960s, WLS and DJ Dick Bianti. Bianti got fired for telling the joke: Boyfriend turned to girlfriend at a Cubs game and said, "I'll kiss you on the strikes, you can kiss me on the balls!"
Used to love listening to AM radio on my way home, working night shifts. So cool to randomly pull in stations from w-a-y outside the local area. Would be sweet if Walt could get a tour of a station for the channel : )
Hey Walt, we have a former Marconi station here in Kahuku and you may have been there when you were on Oahu. No antennas, just the buildings that housed the transmitters/receivers which is now full of homeless. 73 de KH6DC
Walt you need to get down to Richmond, VA... they have a HUGE antenna in the downtown area known at the WTVR Antenna. There is even a WiKi about it. It is pretty massive.
Cool vid Walt. Here in Au it's interesting what MW DX signals bounce here in the middle of the night. Slowly but surely losing our regional MW stations. Don't think we have any SW transmitters left at all.
Great show of a broadcast station. yes the tower is the AM antenna ! Thay why the fence and warnings ! . Lots of copper below the ground. That does look like a DC ground antenna . The base is the clue. Better protection from static build up and lightning. The tower still is antenna . The wire going up couples with the tower further up. Somewhat like a gamma match . The AM station I worked at is that way but clear freq 50 KW 4 phased towers and 2 transmitters . back up. This in NY and at night was heard in Asheville during emergency !! NC has many stations go off line . Only AM radio at night got threw for a while . So our local news people got word of that and gave Asheville area news they needed ! Not just ham radio came threw. AM radio did as well !! . It covers mountain's better . We have a WPIG in NY ! The west coast has a KRAP station. Many AM stations are tube transmitters. WBCQ and WMRI TUBE and WWV/WWVH tube as well. Many solid state now to save on power draw . It is the high power cost is killing AM radio for so many . Many old transmitters and towers that need up date and cost is $$$$ . BBC shut down MW station because of tube transmitter. Only 4 tubes left new in the world. And cost to rebuild tube was just too much so station went off the air in UK . Many AM and MW and LW station have same fate . Cheers
Ah, the AM memories of my childhood. As a kid, I listened to WLEE 1480 in Richmond. Later as a young adult, it was WRVA 1140 also in Richmond, but then I was listening at night from Newport News Shipbuilding. Shhh, don't tell anybody.
Hey Walt, great look into radio history. In the mid to late 70s, AT NIGHT out in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, I could listen to WLS in Chicago, KOMA IN OK City, and XROCK80 in Northen Mexico. Came in booming! No idea if they are still on the air, but, now I am interested to find out. Thank you! KQ4IXD
I curiously stopped at the impressive 1400 foot mast of an Omega VLF Transmitter here in Au back in the 90's and could literally hear the signal pinging inside my skull standing 4000 feet away. 😵💫
I can hear US stations here in Finland, the best catch recently was KOTA in South Dakota at just 5kW into Northern Finland. Seattle booms in at +10db at times KNWN, KPTR, KIRO KJR……. Long live AM radio!
Make AM radio great again! A good way the FCC could do this is by allowing part 15 am stations to be able to operate at 1 watt instead of the measly 100mW.
Kinda sad in a way to see the decline, but broadcast radio doesn't bring the value it used to. There are better ways these days to find out what's going on in your town. Back when I was a teen (90s) I listened to my local Class A (KMOX) a lot because hockey. And when the hockey game was over they'd get into talk of course which led me to kinda like talk radio (I was an odd teen) When I moved up to Chicago area for school switched over to listening to WLS Spent quite a number of years listening to WLS at all different hours of the day. In the beginning it was overnight (Fridays I'd often drive 300m to my parents starting @2AM - Coast to Coast!!) When I got out of school I would listen to WLS on the drive to/from work and often during work when streaming got good enough. Nowadays (since ~2011) I really don't listen to commercial broadcast anything. I don't care a whit about new releases of basically anything, and to the extent I do want music I have playlists of what I want instead of what's being broadcast On the AM side I have no interest at all in sports, and the talky stuff today just seems more a load of hooey. Podcasts fulfill the need for talk/information.
Anything below about 1.5:1 at this power level would probably be OK, depending on what transmitter is being used. At higher power levels the VSWR must be closer to 1:1 as there are severe losses in the coax if not properly matched. This is an extremely short run of coax. Most stations do not have the tower that close to the studio. They are usually several hundred and sometimes 1,000 feet away. The tower is "shunt fed" and grounded at the base. It's not your typical 36 ohm load. It would be more like 120 ohms if the shunt were in the correct spot on the skirt around the tower. The ATU is in the box inside the fence and that converts whatever the tower measures at down to 50-J0 for the coax feed to the transmitter. 73
So sad how these radio stations that were so much a part of the local economy and culture with local DJ's and engineers have become nothing more then a remote revenue generator for a corperate owner using syndicated programming. May as well see them shut down as they don't serve the local community like they did in the day.
Would you like to have a photo of the KVSA 1220 AM Station in en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGehee,_Arkansas? If yes how can I send it to you. The station established in 1953. John
Man, I haven't tried serious AM DXing in a long time, even now that I'm a ham. I used to adore seeing how far out of Chicago I could still hear WGN back in the day...
Thanks for bringing back memories! I worked at a small station in West Virginia in the early 70's. WXIT The "ROCK" of Charleston!
You are an AM DX-er like I am. Thanks for the stop at WSUX. Jost got two new stations tonight. Long live AM Radio!
Awesome video Walt!! Here in Australia, AM radio stations are slowly moving away to the FM band. One popular Adelaide station on air is 5AA. I live more than 200km away from it, but I have no trouble receiving it on my HF home base radio here in Port Pirie South Australia. One of my friends has a talk back show on that station, and I rang him one time. He asked how well I was hearing him. He wasn’t surprised when I said what equipment I was using.
Now we’re talking!! This is amazing Walt thanks for the tour. I wish we had those little AM sites with attached studios over here. More of this please my man!
Wow, really really great video Walt!!! I love seeing old radio towers. The problem is, most people don't show the little details, such as the signage on the fence and the way this antenna is mounted into the cement block. AM DXing is great at night and most people don't realize they have the equipment to do it in their car. I'm with you regarding radio. I love all forms of radio. To this day, I am still blown away that you can speak into a microphone and have it converted into a signal that ends up across the globe. It never gets old. I hope Mrs. K4OGO is doing well. You're both in my daily prayers. Take care and thanks for another interesting video...73...Hugh...KN6KNB
Great video. Very interesting little tour. Please do more of these.
I miss the days randomly finding AM stations from fat away. All the best Walt god bless you
73
M7LDK
Walty salty...I'm 55 now. As a kid I can remember in my room with a single band little Panasonic am pocket radio and I'd tune around at night living in the Chicago suburbs was, wgn , wbbm. All were apart if my life. Even today I've moved to Alabama and with my tecsun 990X I from Alabama can pick up wbbm at night ...great video don't stop being you Walt 73!!!
Hey Walt, the FM actually crosses the base insulator using something called an isocoupler. It's 2 inductively coupled loops.
Actually taking a closer look, that's a skirted antenna. The wires going up each leg are the antenna. Doing it this way avoids having to isolate the tower from ground.
Good to know, thanks for the info
It seems like the tower isn’t the AM radiating element. I don’t see any base insulator.
My guess is that the wire with insulators and stand-offs on the left hand side of the tower is the AM radiating element.
Keep up the good work, 73’s!
I had an instant flashback to the late 50s and early 60s of many a summer night tuning in WLS in Chicago from NE Ohio. I don't remember the brand or model of AM receiver I had but I do remember the gentle 60Hz hum and the warmth of the vacuum tubes from that radio. Thanks for the quick trip back in time, Walt.
I was a radio jock (dj had started going to the rappers at that point) starting in the 80s and worked at a lot of am and later FM stations with many formats. Thanks for covering this as stations are either closing altogether or swapping over to the much cheaper to operate FM bands. As one of my early mentors said, "it's the most fun you can have while boiling your shorts for soup!" Up north I once worked a station in an area slogged in by snow with windchill of -70c for 6 days with me and two highschool students and my wife handling phones, when they worked! I volunteered to stay while the rest of the staff went to the xmas party at a sister station further south when we snowed in. It was an extremely valuable service to locals and those hunting or on the traplines. People today keep thinking commercial radio is antique and useful only to those without modern audio. They are so wrong and discover it whenever shtf. Thanks for documenting this historic site.
The 1970s were a very unhappy and tumultuous time for many with the Vietnam war, high inflation and so on, but for me they were a very carefree happy time in childhood and AM radio was a kid's best friend. Thanks for bringing back the memories. 73
I wonder how many times Wolf Man Jack howled the night away through that station back in the day. That station reminds me of the one in American Graffiti where Wolf Man Jack was featured. Brings back memories as a little kid listening to my local FM station on weekend nights, waiting to hear the Wolf Man! lol
Thanks for showcasing my little state, Walt. -De W3RF, Smyrna, Delaware.
Morning Walt nice to hear from you again mate, brilliant video as all ways mate hope that Alison is well and okay and doing really good after her hospital treatment
Wave next time you drive by, I'm about a 4 mile drive from the WSUX building, pass it several times per week, I love it when people do videos about my local area, thanks!
YEAH BABY!!!!! This is a GROUNDED tower. I see no insulator, and no ball gaps at the bottom. What do see, is a "skirt" around the outside of the tower and that is fed through the ATU (the wood box next to the tower). We call this setup a "folded monopole". It's 1/2 of a folded dipole. The reason why many AM'ers do this is because their radial field has eroded away and the owner refuses to spend the money to rebuild the radial field..(or can't due to local zoning laws). It appears that this station is pre-existing, non-conforming and is therefore grandfathered in, but can not upgrade. I suspect it will be dark in less than 10 years (sadly). Glad you were able to document it and also provide some of the audio clips from its heyday. I'll look up the specs via the FCC. PS. Those trees are sucking much of the RF from the antenna and dumping it to ground, thereby ruining the effeciency of the signal, but I doubt that's a factor of importance after what I viewed.. Good catch Walt! Thanks much for sharing. 73
Hollywood you know this is my number one love! AM radio baby
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES According to the FCC, this tower is 154 degrees tall. Because it's closer to 1/2 wave than 1/4 wave (180 degrees vs 90 degrees) it will be higher impedance and have less losses in the ground. The current lobe will also be higher up the tower. Hope that helps 👍
Thanks, Walt, for that bit of history. Back in the 90s I use to subscribe to
Popular Communications. My favorite section was where they would give
the history of AM stations going way back. I have a working tube AM
radio I like to listen to every so often. Growing up in the 60s and 70s I spent a lot of time listening to AM radio. Thanks again Gary KF6EWO
In the 60's I was a volunteer telephone/radio operator for the lacal ambulance service at night, when the crew were out on the ambulance, sometimes for a couple of hours aswe covered a large area. There was an old valve radio with all the short wave bands on it, the antenna ran the length of the station. I listened to everything from Moscow, China, USA and Europe.
73
Steve, ZL1SPR
Great video Walt, love to see more like these. I grew up with a AM radio station just a couple of miles from my house so anytime I made a crystal radio that is what would come in. The station had three antennas, love to know more about how that works.
Thanks for the tour , love from india
Back in the day I used to love listening to the US AM stations as they came across the pond in the early hours. Always so much more exciting to listen to than the UK stations as they played music we did not get over here and the advertising ! My parents could never understand why the batteries in their transistor radio were always going flat so quickly lol. 73 and hope all is well ? M7BLC.
I have a lot of fun with long distance AM radio listening. On a good evening I can hear WSM Nashville from my apartment in Colorado. I use a MLA-30 mag loop antenna and my Airspy SDR.
Good to see you back on Walt. I pray Mrs. K4OGO is doing well. 73
Hi over here in little old England we have what left of AM/ MW is very little mostly now we have a talk sport and more of Indian and Pakistani station’s. But we have got radio Caroline which was a pirate station back in the day. Which I’m sure you knew., and they got away with it by being out at sea 3 miles out.which is international waters as I know you know. More now 5 miles, anyway they have got back together and got themselves a license, not much power, but you can just about hear them at certain times of the day depends where you are in the country. What you are using yourself to listen to them. And it’s great to hear them because of the history and keeping AM alive still. Thanks for sharing your story about one of channels over there and very interesting to. Take care out there on them roads and see you soon Alan.ps just got myself a Radioddity QT40 and love it great noise reduction on it this is one of the reasons why I got it because of noise everywhere. And then I remembered thinking that you have a a code to get money off. Is that right or am I just wrong. If so I would love to usual code because I’ve got to get a couple more things.sorry for the big story. Thanks again.🇺🇸🇬🇧👍
This is really good video. Thanks for your enthusiasm! "73"!!!
Cool video Walt, thanks.
Most of the AM radio stations in my corner of the Midwest are either talk radio or religious stations. Studio consolidation and deregulation has really done a number on the variety of AM stations in particular. Glad to see at least one station still plugging away, serving the community as it has changed over the years.
Hi Walt, here in the UK local stations have been switched off and moved over to DAB. All we have left is BBC Radio 5, Talk Sport, BBC Wales and Radio Caroline.
Best wishes to you and your wife.
That’s awesome Walt!
I'm glad you did this video. It made me think of my experience with AM radio. Back in the early 1970s - after getting out of the Navy - I started my career in radio broadcasting, which lasted for about 10 years. My first station was a 1000 watt daytimer in Central Massachusetts which had a single tower like WSUX. The station featured adult standard music with CBS news on the hour and local new on the half hour and lots of high school sports on the weekend. In a way. It's a format and a station which no longer exist. Our studio was in downtown and while our tower was down near the river on the outskirts. Of the 4 AM stations I worked for in the 70s, two our now silent. You're right, we need to pay homage to those stations which are gone. They played a useful role in the places like I used to live. But there are still a lot of good AM stations - especially the legendary flamethrowers - which are still needed. In fact, here in New England, there are places where you can't hear a FM station, much less find an internet signal, but you'll always find a station like WBZ. Thanks again. I hope you feature a few more stations like this.
Thank you Walt. I love this new content addition to your channel!
Grounded base, shunt fed. Unusual. No need to isolate the FM feed line to the array.
Started life as a broadcast 'engineer'... 1kw day time regional... 500 watt directional... had to have someone on duty from sundown til shut down....(midnight... ussally)
As all the tech staff were hams or old military radioman... I was 'allowed' to use the antenna after shutdown .... those were great days.... WB0ZLX
Very cool! I am lucky to still have a thriving local AM station. I hope it never goes away!
Thanks
thanks walt for the video on am like you say am is not much used in uk safe travels
Listened to WLS out of Chicago and KAAY out of Little Rock. Alternative to the Poka music of MN. Still that he S38C receiver my dad gave me. Thanks for the video Walt! 73
Yes...early 1960s, WLS and DJ Dick Bianti. Bianti got fired for telling the joke: Boyfriend turned to girlfriend at a Cubs game and said, "I'll kiss you on the strikes, you can kiss me on the balls!"
I've been doing AM work on 75M and having fun with it.
Those AM commercial sites are fun to climb.
Used to love listening to AM radio on my way home, working night shifts. So cool to randomly pull in stations from w-a-y outside the local area. Would be sweet if Walt could get a tour of a station for the channel : )
Great follow up info and video GOOD JOB thanks.
You gotta get the WSUX folks to let you tune that antenna up with the G90!
Think of the fun you could have on 160 meters if you could connect your Xeigu to that tower.
im picking up 1280 here in western south dakota right now
Hey Walt, we have a former Marconi station here in Kahuku and you may have been there when you were on Oahu. No antennas, just the buildings that housed the transmitters/receivers which is now full of homeless. 73 de KH6DC
Walt you need to get down to Richmond, VA... they have a HUGE antenna in the downtown area known at the WTVR Antenna. There is even a WiKi about it. It is pretty massive.
Cool vid Walt. Here in Au it's interesting what MW DX signals bounce here in the middle of the night.
Slowly but surely losing our regional MW stations. Don't think we have any SW transmitters left at all.
Cool video. Keeping it fresh! 73 de KF5OBG.
Very interesting! Us their enough of those places around you to have a series of episodes? Keep up the good work. 73
If you tried to put that call sign on a license plate DMV would probably say it was offensive.
Cool! They probably introduced people to Van Halen back in '78 !
Great show of a broadcast station. yes the tower is the AM antenna ! Thay why the fence and warnings ! . Lots of copper below the ground. That does look like a DC ground antenna . The base is the clue. Better protection from static build up and lightning. The tower still is antenna . The wire going up couples with the tower further up. Somewhat like a gamma match . The AM station I worked at is that way but clear freq 50 KW 4 phased towers and 2 transmitters . back up. This in NY and at night was heard in Asheville during emergency !! NC has many stations go off line . Only AM radio at night got threw for a while . So our local news people got word of that and gave Asheville area news they needed ! Not just ham radio came threw. AM radio did as well !! . It covers mountain's better . We have a WPIG in NY ! The west coast has a KRAP station. Many AM stations are tube transmitters. WBCQ and WMRI TUBE and WWV/WWVH tube as well. Many solid state now to save on power draw . It is the high power cost is killing AM radio for so many . Many old transmitters and towers that need up date and cost is $$$$ . BBC shut down MW station because of tube transmitter. Only 4 tubes left new in the world. And cost to rebuild tube was just too much so station went off the air in UK . Many AM and MW and LW station have same fate . Cheers
Ah, the AM memories of my childhood. As a kid, I listened to WLEE 1480 in Richmond. Later as a young adult, it was WRVA 1140 also in Richmond, but then I was listening at night from Newport News Shipbuilding. Shhh, don't tell anybody.
Dang I live 20 minutes from there would have like to have meet you sir safe travels Kc3yun
Hey Walt, great look into radio history. In the mid to late 70s, AT NIGHT out in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, I could listen to WLS in Chicago, KOMA IN OK City, and XROCK80 in Northen Mexico. Came in booming! No idea if they are still on the air, but, now I am interested to find out. Thank you! KQ4IXD
I curiously stopped at the impressive 1400 foot mast of an Omega VLF Transmitter here in Au back in the 90's and could literally hear the signal pinging inside my skull standing 4000 feet away. 😵💫
I can hear US stations here in Finland, the best catch recently was KOTA in South Dakota at just 5kW into Northern Finland. Seattle booms in at +10db at times KNWN, KPTR, KIRO KJR…….
Long live AM radio!
neat...
Make AM radio great again! A good way the FCC could do this is by allowing part 15 am stations to be able to operate at 1 watt instead of the measly 100mW.
I agree, 100% Holland did something similar to this.
Thanks for the explanation! Yes I was laughing thinking that was the worst name....but memorable
How is that tower isolated so it’s not in contact with the ground? Is it something inside that concrete block?
So many things I could do with antenna/tower that tall. One of them is get stuck halfway up installing an antenna.
I use to listen to the BBC on longwave some nights with a beverage antenna. I only know of one longwave station on the air now. Sad
Me too. I make detours just to have a look. Sometimes unsuccessful lol
Too bad you couldn't get inside. I'd love to see the transmitter.
If you take Rt. 113 it'll knock about 30 minutes off your trip either going north or south.
Kinda sad in a way to see the decline, but broadcast radio doesn't bring the value it used to. There are better ways these days to find out what's going on in your town.
Back when I was a teen (90s) I listened to my local Class A (KMOX) a lot because hockey. And when the hockey game was over they'd get into talk of course which led me to kinda like talk radio (I was an odd teen)
When I moved up to Chicago area for school switched over to listening to WLS
Spent quite a number of years listening to WLS at all different hours of the day. In the beginning it was overnight (Fridays I'd often drive 300m to my parents starting @2AM - Coast to Coast!!)
When I got out of school I would listen to WLS on the drive to/from work and often during work when streaming got good enough.
Nowadays (since ~2011) I really don't listen to commercial broadcast anything.
I don't care a whit about new releases of basically anything, and to the extent I do want music I have playlists of what I want instead of what's being broadcast
On the AM side I have no interest at all in sports, and the talky stuff today just seems more a load of hooey. Podcasts fulfill the need for talk/information.
I grew up in Delawhere and never heard of WSUX 😂
Has also gone by WECY (1990-1995), WJPY (1995-1998), WJWK (1998-2015)
I always wondered what SWR those towers have, or what is an acceptable SWR range for them or how a tuner works if it has one.
Anything below about 1.5:1 at this power level would probably be OK, depending on what transmitter is being used. At higher power levels the VSWR must be closer to 1:1 as there are severe losses in the coax if not properly matched. This is an extremely short run of coax. Most stations do not have the tower that close to the studio. They are usually several hundred and sometimes 1,000 feet away. The tower is "shunt fed" and grounded at the base. It's not your typical 36 ohm load. It would be more like 120 ohms if the shunt were in the correct spot on the skirt around the tower. The ATU is in the box inside the fence and that converts whatever the tower measures at down to 50-J0 for the coax feed to the transmitter. 73
So sad how these radio stations that were so much a part of the local economy and culture with local DJ's and engineers have become nothing more then a remote revenue generator for a corperate owner using syndicated programming. May as well see them shut down as they don't serve the local community like they did in the day.
Would you like to have a photo of the KVSA 1220 AM Station in en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGehee,_Arkansas? If yes how can I send it to you. The station established in 1953. John