Re: WTIC (AM) anniversary broadcast

[dan.Strassberg@att.net]

At least two of the towers you saw at the WBT site must 
have been specially made. The originals were destroyed 
in a hurricane (not sure exactly when, but maybe as late 
as the 70s) and were replaced with exact replicas. I 
suspect that Blaw-Knox was still in existance, and 
though I doubt whether the "diamond" towers were still 
in their catalog, I'm sure they could have built some 
for the right price.

1110 in Pasadena has been on 1110 longer than KFAB and 
its forbears. Interestingly, after KFAB appeared on 
1110, the Pasadena station had to jump through hoops to 
protect KFAB. Modifications to the DA went on for years 
and years and never really worked. This has to be an 
unusual situation because older stations are usually 
grandfathered.

As for 1110 in Tijuana, that's odd. I know that KFWB's 
increase to 50 kW is supposed to make room for a low-
powered station in Tijuana or some other nearby Mexican 
community, but, back in the 40s, I don't think anyone 
would have tried to put high-powered co-channel stations 
only 100 or so miles apart in that region of salt water 
and excellent ground conductivity. Also, although the 
Mexicans have never been terribly concerned about 
adjacent-channel interference on AM, 1090 and 1110 are 
probably too close for high-powered stations in the same 
community--even in Mexico.

>         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.