Mid-morning. A short time ago lightning hit
the WLW transmission tower in Mason. As the crow flies this is less than a mile
away. With a quick sharp crack and a few thunderous booms the show was over.
Spooky is lying near Carol sitting at the dining room table reading the morning
Enquirer and Jadah, even before the strike is already under the bed in your
bedroom. Needless to say, scattered thunderstorms today. – Amorella
0846
hours. That tower and the old VOA Bethany Station towers (used to be about two miles to
the west) had a lot of direct hits since 1975 when we first arrived from Silverton,
a small town squeezed among Madeira, Blue Ash and Cincinnati proper. Funny that
we lived our first three years in an apartment on Montgomery Road (3C’s
highway, state route 3) when in 1967 we lived in an apartment butting State
Street (10 ½ West College) in Westerville. We just moved down the road, so to
speak and literally. We all live down or up the road from something and along the
road too, depending on the slight of meaning slithering through the obtuse,
general or enlightened context.
You do yourself no favors with that last
line, my friend. – Amorella
0902
hours. I know, but I just don’t care. How often can I use obtuse, general and
enlightened in a single sentence? I know, I can use it but just not well.
1027 hours. Here is a little history of Mason’s
WLW tower. (I love this kind of stuff.)
** **
WLW Tower,
Mason, Ohio
(739 foot
high, 200 tons)
WLW
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (selected and edited)
WLW (700 AM) – branded Newsradio 700 WLW – is a commercial news/talk radio station serving
Greater Cincinnati. Owned by iHeartMedia, WLW is a 50,000-watt clear-channel
station that covers much of the eastern half of North America at night. . . .The
WLW studios are located in Sycamore Township, while the station transmitter is
located in Mason.
History
In July
1921, radio manufacturer Powel Crosley, Jr. began tests from his 20-watt
College Hill home "station", broadcasting “Song of India”
continuously under the call sign 8CR. Powell already owned a number of
enterprises including the Crosmobile, and a refrigerator-freezer company. He
owned the Cincinnati Reds baseball club from 1934 to 1961. Crosley was
innovative, personally inventing, or funding the development of, many then–cutting
edge technological advances related to his ventures. He placed these in the
able hands of his younger brother (by two years) Lewis, who was a graduate
engineer from the University of Cincinnati.
On March
22, 1922, Crosley and his Crosley Broadcasting Corporation began operating a
commercially licensed, 50 watt station, under its current call sign, WLW.
Crosley was a fanatic about the new broadcasting technology, and continually
increased his station's capability. The power increased to 500 watts in
September 1922, and to 1000 watts in May 1924. In January 1925, WLW was the
first 5000 watt broadcasting station. On October 4, 1928, the station increased
its power to 50 kilowatts.. It was the first station at this power level, which
remains the maximum power allowed for any AM station in the United States.
At 50
kilowatts, WLW was heard easily over a wide area from New York to Florida, but
Crosley still was not satisfied. In 1933 he obtained a construction permit from
the Federal Radio Commission for a 500 kilowatt superstation, and he spent some
$500,000 ($9.14 million in 2016) building the transmitter and antenna.
It was
the first large amplifier used in the United States for public, domestic radio
broadcasting and was in operation between 1934 and 1939. It was an experimental
amplifier, driven by the radio station's regular 50 kW transmitter. It
operated in class C with high-level plate modulation. The amplifier required a
dedicated 33 kV electrical substation and a large pond complete with fountains
for cooling. It operated with a power input of about 750 kW (plus another
400 kW of audio for the modulator) and its output was 500 kW.
In
January 1934, WLW began broadcasting at the 500 kilowatt level late at night
under the experimental call sign W8XO. In April 1934 the station was authorized
to operate at 500 kilowatts during regular hours under the WLW call letters. On
May 2, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a ceremonial button that
officially launched WLW's 500-kilowatt signal. As the first station in the
world to broadcast at this strength, WLW received repeated complaints from
around the United States and Canada that it was overpowering other stations as
far away as Toronto. In December 1934, WLW cut back to 50 kilowatts at night to
mitigate the interference, and began construction of two shorter towers a
quarter wave length high, a half wave length apart, and 1850 feet southwest
from the main tower. This adequately reduced the signal strength broadcast
towards Canada.
The two
shorter towers were fed 85kw at 96 degrees out of phase with the signal to null
in the opposite direction they were from the main Blaw-Knox tower. With these
antenna towers in place, full-time broadcasting at 500 kilowatts resumed in
early 1935. However, WLW was continuing to operate under special temporary
authority that had to be renewed every six months; each renewal brought
complaints about interference, and undue domination of the market, by such a
high-power station.
The FCC
was having second thoughts about permitting extremely wide-area broadcasting
versus more locally oriented stations. In 1938 the US Senate adopted the
"Wheeler Resolution" which said that allowing more stations with
power in excess of 50 kilowatts would be against the public interest. As a
result, in 1939, WLW's 500-kilowatt broadcast authorization was not renewed
bringing an end to the era of the AM radio superstation. Because of the
impending war, and the possible need for national broadcasting in an emergency,
the W8XO experimental license for 500 kilowatts remained in effect until
December 29, 1942. In 1962 the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation again applied
for a permit to operate at 750 kilowatts, but the FCC denied the application.
Many
reports have surfaced over the years, from those who lived near the 500
kilowatt transmitter, of power fluctuations. Residents would see their lights
flicker in time to the modulation peaks of the transmitter. It was widely reported that the signal was so overpowering
some people picked up WLW radio on the metal coils of mattress and boxed
bedsprings, similar to KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Arcing often occurred
near the transmission site.
In the
1930s, WLW occupied the entire 48th floor of Carew Tower. In 1942, the station
moved its studios into the Crosley Square building, a converted Elks Lodge No. 5 in downtown Cincinnati. WLW's sister
television station, WLWT (then branded WLW-T), was founded in the same
building. In 1955, WLW and WLWT became the first radio and television station
to own a weather radar.
Crosley
sold the station Aviation Corporation of the Americas in 1945, earning a
handsome return on his original investment of a quarter-century earlier.
However, the Crosley name was so well respected that Avco retained it for its
broadcast division until 1968. . . .
Selected
and edited from Wikipedia
** **
1032 hours. We witnessed hearing WLW and VOA through the aluminum siding at the southeast corner of our bedroom on Majken Place in Mason in the '70's and '80's.
Post. - Amorella
Late
afternoon. You had a late lunch at Smashburgers and are reading chapter nine of
Elon Musk. You also downloaded November and December 2009 from the blog.
It copies the text but not the photos, which you usually don’t need for Dewdrop.
You have them already in files if one or two is needed periodically. – Amorella
1727
hours. I think it is only the 2009 months (Aug.-Dec.) of the blog that I am having
trouble finding from original blog files. I don’t know if I have any actual
readers on Dewdrop. The blog stats say I have two or three but they might be
the same person. My independent ‘Stat Counter’, which has been working since
the inception, shows no readers for Dewdrop so far. Blogspot stats say I had
31 hits last month and a total of 58 hits in all time history. I have no idea
where these stats come from unless they are from me setting up the original
Dewdrop site, which sounds like a reasonable explanation.
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