The AM Forum

Of interest to you Massfolks.

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Last rites for America’s oldest standing AM site? The Westinghouse plant at East Springfield, MA was home to one of the country’s first radio stations – WBZ, which started there in September 1921. Even after WBZ moved to Boston in the thirties, the towers atop the East Springfield plant stayed in broadcast use until 1962, carrying WBZ’s western Massachusetts synchro-cast, WBZA. Now those long-silent towers may be facing a wrecking ball. The Springfield Republican reports that a developer has plans to raze the Westinghouse buildings, which have been sitting mostly vacant for years, replacing them with a $45 million shopping plaza. Here at the Radio Journal, we’re pretty sure the East Springfield plant is the oldest extant AM site in the country. None of the other stations with roots that far back – Pittsburgh’s KDKA, Detroit’s WWJ, Madison’s WHA, to name a few – still have their original towers standing, almost nine decades later.

http://ftp.media.radcity.net/ZMST/Journal/RJ3251.pdf

It'll truly be a shame to lose this site, but try to convince the mall-oriented public that such a place deserves to be preserved. At least they could save the building with the towers, even if they renovate it for office or store space.

Then again, maintaining those towers for future generations would be a hard sell on a good day.

We in Detroit are proud of our radio heritage to. The old WWJ 1940's plant still exists even if it is the anchor for the WWJ tv tower. Nothing but an address is left of the original. I love this place and hope the frends of WBZ find a way to preserve(http://[img])[/img] it's home.

Mike

Is that a cool art deco building or what?
- - A radio man's radio station - -

Obviously a much larger tower stage left too.
Guy wires to Godzilla?

I was a summer sub engineer at WEEI in Boston in 1970. Their transmitter building, in Medford, has a similar appearance. One of the other engineers, who was about to retire, said that on Sundays during the 1930's, there was a line to get in and view the transmitter.

How times change.

73, Bill W1AC

Here's a (rather poor) picture of the 1932 building of 50KW KOA Radio, Denver.

Once again, a beautiful, spare no expense deco building. It's still there, maybe 10 miles east of Denver, but now occupied by  the
Colorado Highway Department.

This is what is left of the original KDKA tower. Labeled as the worlds first commercial radio tower.

I've GOT one of those original KDKA tower sections embedded in plastic!

It was given to me be a BCB DXer and writer who I gave a tour of the Denver facilities to. The owers of KDKA apparently cut up their original tower and made trophies of the pieces as mementos.

Now, being east of the Mississippi, they need a "W" call.. :D

A piece of KDKA will be on the KD0HG fireplace mantel as long as I survive...Maybe a chunk of the original mighty 850 KOA Denver tower. 1930s jingle in harmony:
"KOA, KOA, covers western USA..."

Bill, these were made up as a fundraiser for the Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh. Somewhere I got the story that it had to be in Lucite to encapsulate the lead paint or it wouldn't happen.
Someday I'll have to drive north to see if the original building is still there in Allison Park.


Still there...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=kdka+rd.,+allison+park,pa.&sll=34.05331,-118.245&sspn=1.094543,1.851196&ie=UTF8&ll=40.561058,-79.954162&spn=0.007841,0.014462&t=h&z=16

Bill, KD0GH, I see the link explains why WNTM was off the air Easter...no one told us why here in Mobile!

Needless to say, the copper theives are pretty dumb at times...just a little way up from the WNTM towers, officials found an alledged copper thief where he fell from underneath I-165...with some tools of the trade around him...he was pretty crispy, after he cut into some power cables that supplied the roadside lighting.... ;D

I gots one of them tower leg pieces of KDKA. They were sold for some sort of benefit.
WTOP AM in Washington DC had/has an old building that houses their 50KW transmitter and there are still many studios in this building from the 40's. Those were the days of everything "under one roof". Can you imagine the RFI problems?? There are apartment buildings about a block away that have grown there over the years and the station management is constantly "dealing with it". There's one guy makiing a killing solving the RFI problems for the residents. I bet their radiation pattern is pretty hard to maintain.

fred

In 1983 I got to get inside the old AM studio of WBAL thru one of their engineers who was on the fm/TV side. they had a hallicrafters sx 100 and a viking 2 inside. They lived there on premises in the old days. The transmitter was one of the 50KW Continentals, and I remember that the audio chain leading into the TX was the biggest bird nest of JS I have ever seen. The standby was a 10KW RCA of much earlier vintage.

I dont know if they got rid of the building or not. nice art deco front with WBAL on he facade which used to light up at night.

Back in 1975 I saw what I thought were the towers at WBZ in Springfield. They were two self supporting towers atop a very large brick building. The towers were at each end of the building maybe 300 feet from the tops to ground level. There was a wire(cable) strung between them and it had a single wire going up to the center to feed the array. In later years as I visited Springfield,I noticed the towers were gone but the building was still there. Maybe someone can find a picture of the building with the towers still on it.  Springfield is 88 miles from Hull MA where WBZ Am is located. In the middle of the day in 1975 WBZ had a very strong signal in Springfield. Somewhere in this post I believe some said the quit broadcasting earlier than when I saw the towers. Seems to me that their signal was too strong to be coming from Boston in the middle of the day. What about it Dan, You work for WBZ, can you tell us anything about the history of the service?   ;D ;D       

Hi all:

I remember taking the train by the old site. I know this site was the original WBZ in the 1920's and when Boston started they later synchronized the two carriers with (I think) a 9kc tone on the phone line.

More info:

http://www.bostonradio.org/stations/wbz-hist.html

George Westinghouse would be sad...

73,
Dan
W1DAN