Storms Knock Down WWVA Towers

[W3WN]

They lost all three towers Wednesday (8/4) afternoon around 4 PM EDT

http://www.wwva.com/cc-common/mainheadlines2.html?feed=119921&article=7439986

Direct link to the picture gallery at http://www.wwva.com/cc-common/gallery/display.html?album_id=244870

[NQ6U]

They carry Glen Beck! It must be God's wrath!

[W4GPL]

That's just nuts. Any word as to how strong the winds were? I don't recall anything like this happening even during Hurricane Charlie 5 or 6 years ago.

[W3WN]

Someone down there should know. If I find out, I'll let you know.

BTW, I should credit my source... Frank Bobro N3FB, CE of WPXI-TV channel 11.

(and no, the club's repeater is not on their tower, a different club beat us to it years ago)

[K7SGJ]

Being an ex-broadcast engineer, I really feel for their technical staff. I have had to do creative stuff to get a temp signal on the air, but nothing like that.

[W4GPL]

Do you happen to know if the towers were free standing or did they have guy wires? I've just never seen anything like that before.. especially when referencing a "severe thunderstorm". A direct hit by a tornado, I could see, but straight winds caused by a non-tornadic (is that even a word?) event? That's pretty uncommon, as far as my personal experience goes.

And yeah, I'm presuming there wasn't a tornado, but I guess they're not mutually exclusive. Just when there's a tornado, they usually say so rather than saying severe thunderstorm.

[K7SGJ]

I have never seen the towers in person, but from the first link you can go to a shot of all three standing. They are shaped like self supporters and I didn't see any guys. Of course that doesn't mean they're not there.

[W4GPL]

Nutty. Mother Nature, what a bitch.

[W5RB]

Helluva mess. I'm curious about the tower height , and brand . Must have been a heckuva storm .

[N8YX]

Those were free-standers, and from the debris field and fall pattern one can deduce that they were felled by straight-line winds. Most probably, they were hit by a series of gusts which arrived in such a manner as to repeatedly impart energy to the towers as they were bending away from the gust front...and the in-phase loads finally caused one of the legs to fail.

[N8YX]

Helluva mess. I'm curious about the tower height , and brand . Must have been a heckuva storm .
Probably the old American triangular-base or similar. Most newer construction is straight-face, guyed.

[W3WN]

By odd coincidence, this was in my inbox this morning (in response to the original email):
Hi Guys

An engineering type friend of mine from the Wheeling area rang my phone this morning at 7AM to tell me about the WWVA disaster! I told him that the chapter in my book where I responded transmitter (and tower)problems had long ago been written and closed!! His reply was "being a radio geek I thought you'd like to know!! (I did - but not at 7AM!)

I've been to that site several times. They once had one of the few Gates Radio VP-50 transmitters that were ever built. That was a 50 kW vapor phase cooled transmitter where the H2O in the water jackets is allowed to reach the boiling point and be discharged as steam. This provides for much more efficient cooling than just running 190 or 200 degree water through the system. Among other things, you didn't need water pumps. The water resivoir was on the roof so gravity feeds water to the transmitter and the steam discharge went back up to the roof to a condenser to be used again.

Those structures were 400 foot, 4 leg, base insulated, tapered self-supporting Blaw-Knox towers (almost a half wave length at 1170 kHz). The array is very short spaced (less than a quarter wave length) - about 175 feet between towers. Blaw-Knox - who stopped making towers around 1950 - used steel angle rather than tubular construction. This greatly increased wind loading. I am guessing that they were put up in the 1930s. Only one was used for 50 kW non-directional daytime operation; all three were used for 50 kW night time operation. Each leg sat on a large base insulator.

I am sure they will be back in business shortly. Clear Channel (owner of hundreds of US radio stations) has their own emergency response teams to respond to just such emergencies. FCC Rules permit operation at 25% power non-directionally when a directional antenna is damaged. This means when they get one tower back up they will be back up at 50 kW day and 12.5 kW night.

Jack Layton CPBE
Layton Technical Services
134 Lakeview Drive
McMurray, PA 15317
724-942-4054
layton134@comcast.net

Jack is the former CE of a bunch of radio stations including KDKA, and is now a consulting engineer. Hell of a nice guy, great CW operator, but don't let him park his jeep near the coax at Field Day!

[N2CHX]

Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh AND paid religious programming. Definitely the wrath of gawd.

[N8YX]

Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh AND paid religious programming. Definitely the wrath of gawd.
Will folks say the same when a network which carries Olbermann or Maddox loses its equipment? :chin:

[W5RB]

Will folks say the same when a network which carries Olbermann or Maddox loses its equipment? :chin:

Not an issue , since trying to generate revenue from liberal talk radio destroys a station without need of further intervention .

[N2CHX]

Will folks say the same when a network which carries Olbermann or Maddox loses its equipment? :chin:

Hey, just going with Pat Robertson on all this... Funny, even after Touchdown Jesus and now this, he's oddly quiet.

[W4GPL]

:lol: You guys can't take politics out of anything.

[W5RB]

Those structures were 400 foot, 4 leg, base insulated, tapered self-supporting Blaw-Knox towers (almost a half wave length at 1170 kHz). The array is very short spaced (less than a quarter wave length) - about 175 feet between towers. Blaw-Knox - who stopped making towers around 1950 - used steel angle rather than tubular construction. This greatly increased wind loading. I am guessing that they were put up in the 1930s. Only one was used for 50 kW non-directional daytime operation; all three were used for 50 kW night time operation. Each leg sat on a large base insulator.

So it's conceivable that they actually dominoed , given the close spacing . If not the simultaneous failures suggest a tremendous wind . Since Blaw-Knox is no longer around , I'd bet they'll contact Stainless , whose office is very near , and has a factory near Reading . LeBlanc could build it , and dunno who else . Those are pretty tall for self -supporters , beyond the resources of most makers . I'll be interested to hear more as it develops .

[W4RLR]

Will folks say the same when a network which carries Olbermann or Maddox loses its equipment? :chin:Probably the same thing.

[N2NH]

Being an ex-broadcast engineer, I really feel for their technical staff. I have had to do creative stuff to get a temp signal on the air, but nothing like that.

Yeh, same here. I was able to get a station on during the blackout using their 4th transmitter. It was only one of two stations on in the 77 New York Blackout.

I wonder what they did to keep things going.

[N2NH]

Will folks say the same when a network which carries Olbermann or Maddox loses its equipment? :chin:


Probably the same thing.

Yep. Was hearing that for years before Air America folded. Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk! They done went off da air.

[K7SGJ]

Yeh, same here. I was able to get a station on during the blackout using their 4th transmitter. It was only one of two stations on in the 77 New York Blackout.

I wonder what they did to keep things going.

Hard to say. I'm sure the FCC will issue some kind of STA, but whatever they do it won't be directional until they get the steel back up. I sure don't envy those guys.

[N2CHX]

Hard to say. I'm sure the FCC will issue some kind of STA, but whatever they do it won't be directional until they get the steel back up. I sure don't envy those guys.

Glad I got out of radio.

[K7SGJ]

Glad I got out of radio.


You aint the only one.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

The only Blaw Knox I ever climbed on was an asphalt machine. ;)

[N2CHX]

You aint the only one.

One engineer is now doing the work that three or four or more did 20 years ago. I had enough of that kind of crap, aside from some other things. I was on call for over two years straight. No amount of money could convince me to go through and put my family through that again.

[W5RB]

WWVA tower video



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ByhpBFriM

[K7SGJ]

One engineer is now doing the work that three or four or more did 20 years ago. I had enough of that kind of crap, aside from some other things. I was on call for over two years straight. No amount of money could convince me to go through and put my family through that again.

I didn't wise up until my kids were a bit older. It sucked doing proofs in the middle of the night. And it never failed the station would take a dump at oh-dark-thirty the day before your vacation started. The only high point was going to the NAB in Vegas every year, all expenses paid.

[NQ6U]

Something similar happened to the KSON tower just a bit south of downtown San Diego a few years back. A big storm blew in off the Pacific and broke it off about 80 feet above the ground, flattening several cars parked nearby. It took a couple of years to get a new one built.