Re: WTIC (AM) anniversary broadcast

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Dan Strassberg wrote:
<snip>
>Well, 433' towers are 105 degrees at 660, so they would have worked.

        Except, IMO, based on pieces of the history I know about, they
didn't have a DA pattern when they were still on that frequency. And I
don't think Travelers would have used little quarter-wave towers for its
Rolls Royce 50 kW clear-channel trophy station.
        And, yes, at one time, after the 660/WEAF period, WTIC and WBAL
shared a frequency also.

<switch to Dan's other post and snip>
>WBBM and
>KFAB shared time at night on 770; KOB and KEX shared time at night on 1180.
>I'm sure that there were quite a few other examples. In fact, I believe that
>CBS bought WBT, which until then had been non-duplicated at night (in other
>words it was a IA), and made WBT's frequency (which became 1110 with NARBA)
>available to KFAB (then KFOR Lincoln, I believe) so that WBBM could become a
>full-timer. Then CBS sold WBT to what eventually became Jefferson-Pilot. If
>I recall, it was only after World War II, that KFOR moved to Omaha,
>increased to 50 kW-U, and became KFAB.

        I have a 1942, post-NARBA list that shows KOB and WJZ on 770 (the
start of the epic battle over that) and on 780 there is KFAB, 10 kW, in
Lincoln, and WBBM, 50 kW.They are still listed as synchronized. On a 1946
list, KFAB is on 1110, still with 10 kW. Even though that list still shows
10 kW for KFAB, the deal with CBS buying WBT to make that switch would
explain why KFAB has the unusual and sweetheart special provision that it
gets to operate with its daytime facilities (i.e., non-DA) from sunrise at
Charlotte. I can see the memos now--farm country, people out milking before
dawn, etc., etc. The 1942 list shows WBT owned by CBS; my 1946 does not
list licensees.
        At the same time, I have a new mystery to mull over now. I thought
all those cantilevered Blaw-Knox towers were built earlier, in the '30s.
But WBT has three of them, which I visited two months ago. So either the
installation is of later vintage than I believed any of the Blaw-Know
towers were, or two were added somehow but specially made to match the
others exactly, or something else I haven't figured out.
        The terrain of the site is a little odd. It's not flat at all.
There are little lumpy micro hills at the site. I actually looked it over,
however, with an eye toward whether any of the towers were add-ons. They
all look very much the same. The only clue could be from an old unused
concrete stump closer to the road than any of the towers. But that could be
an indication of a whole lot of things other than that the site originally
was one tower and it was removed or moved slightly.

>These machinations should make it
>clear that ICBC's purchase of WOWO for the purpose of upgrading WLIB was not
>unprecedented.

        I disagree with comparing these, at least based on what you have
written. The WBT-KFAB thing added a substantial, maximum-power
clear-channel service to a region that didn't have one and didn't destroy
WBT. Sure, it diminished WBT's nighttime coverage area in square miles of
land. But, (and I'm presuming here that the switch caused WBT to have to
start using a nighttime DA) it also strengthened WBT's nighttime signal
over pretty much the entire, heavily populated eastern seaboard region of
the country.
        And, technically, I believe that NARBA listed 1110 kHz as a I-B
frequency, so that WBT never was a I-A station. It was more along the lines
of KOA, a I-B station, operating non-DA (again, I presume) on a frequency
on which no other I-B station had been assigned, at least in the U.S. The
1942 list definitely makes 1110 look like a I-B channel. There's a 20 kW
station in Mexico City, a CP for a 50 kW station in Tijuana, and a CP for a
10 kW station in Pasadena. In 1942, that would not have been happening on a
I-A channel.
        So, unlike WOWO, WBT never was trashed and reclassified as
something other than a Class I (now Class A) station.
<special WOWO memorial rant mode off>