RE: Fire at WWBX & WABI-AM and assorted musings

[EM1 GITCHIER <RGITSCHIER@doyle.navy.mil>]

I recall a fire a couple of years ago at a standalone AM, WELE 1380 in
Ormond Beach, FL...
No one was hurt. They made our like a bandit as they were fully insured for
the loss. A capacitor shorted in the phasor between the 5kw transmitter and
four towers. 
Now they have completely rebuilt studios and offices, new Harris five TX,
new phasor unit control room, yadda yadda. Nice place; I had the pleasure of
visiting them for part of a day a while back.
They have a talk format along with a call-in advertising trade auction. It's
a mighty successful business venture. They had to use 1kw out of a single
tower during reconstruction....

An odd thing about the station is only that a mobile home park was built on
the antenna farm out back. Makes me wonder what their 5kw signal bleeds into
in all those trailers... I remember the string about WXPO ch 50 studios in
Lowell, MA, unsuccessful attempts at getting WLLH's RF out of their boards
and equipment... One tower of four is a self-supporting  and the three
others are uniform cross section...which the CE told me makes it a
"challenge" to adjust for the prescribed patterns.

Any other examples of residences sharing property with AM TX sites??? I
can't think of any. WLLH Lawrence's flagpole antenna is on an office
building, as was their 4 Broadway Lowell uniform cross section tower...  I
had a copy of the article long ago of the fire that struck the WLLH studios
when they were out of the Rex Building across from the Federal Bldg on East
Merrimac St. Lowell, a stone's throw from the Lowell Sun's HQ... I have a
photo of the Rex Bldg from 1935 with the bottom half of the black
self-supporting tower. Guess the red n' white paint rule wasn't in effect...

Ron Gitschier



> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Andy Soule [SMTP:doctorradio@yahoo.com]
> 
> WABI got back on the air first yesterday, both stations are operating from
> the WABI transmitter site on WIlson Street in Brewer.  -----------
> Andy Soule
>