The AM Forum

http://keyetv.com/watercooler/local_story_011124211.html

they used to put out a STRAPPING signal. i used to hear them any time of the day or night in Baltimore!!

...Those were the towers that broadcast the nightly Jean Sherpard show in the 60's on OR> I went to sleep many a night as a kid listening to him on the 9 transistor radio!

Shame to see all that iron go to waste.. I'd gladly haul away one or two towers.. After the fall there's probably not much straight metal tho..

Probably quite a bit is still straight, the swamp is very mushy...

But these were not the original WOR towers. I think they went into service in the mid to late 60s at the earliest.

The original (classic) WOR site was in Carteret NJ.

They had two "eiffel tower" type towers in the swamp.
There was a cable between the top of each tower.
running down to the swamp in the center was a very FAT wire/cable to a big doghouse.
The cable between the top of each tower was very taught.
It was so, because in the base of each tower was a large concrete block pulling down on each cable through the center of the tower!
How large was the block of concrete?
About the size of a small cottage/home!!
Ya mon!

The transmitter (I am looking for a picture of the transmitter room!!) was a full bore art deco creation of incredible chrome and black glass floor to ceiling magnificance! The floor was tiled in mostly black with a white art-deco pattern around the edges. The walls were about 30 feet straight up.

In the center of the floor was the control console, also black glass and fluted chrome.
I have the chrome plated key from the console, and the bronze one from the back-up console.  ;)

You ENTERED the transmitter, buy opening a door hidden in the black glass wall of meters... the tank coils were made of copper tubing of about 1-2" diameter. The tubes were GLASS of ~4 ft length, globe in the middle and connections on either end. Multiple tubes.

The TX was rated at 100kw, but that was obviously very conservative.

If you remember WOR as being a blowtorch station pre ~'65 then you remember the old rig, not the towers they just dropped.

I really really really wish I had brought my camera to take pix on the day that I got to visit that site, as it was scheduled for demolition and after it had been decommissioned.  :'(

          _-_-WBear2GCR

That sounds like the old Greenbury Pt. transmitting facility in Annapolis. It's all gone now but it used to have quite a few 'Eiffel Towers' (5 I think) they were about 600ft and the center support was a 900ft tower. I'll dig up some links, unless someone beats me to it..

But anyway, the array was massive! Like a spiders web, the ends were held taunt with massive blocks as well. I beleive the center tower was shunt driven, the web was a cap hat (I think). Shortly after they demolished most of the site and made it a public park I stopped by, there was a piece of feedline the size of sewer pipe lying on the ground! It may very well have been, But it was made of corrugated copper like Heliax. No center conductor. If it were feedline I'd like to have seen it in one piece! I'd imagine at VVLF (100KHZ I think) they'd feed it with open wire but who knows.. One thing I remember is they were fully capable of operating in the 50megawatt range! When I worked on the Eastern shore some years back, Id listen to the overnight truckers show on AM on my way home.. Within a few miles of the site I could hear short pulses of inter mod. As I got closer, it was obviously CW. On the Bay Bridge it was even more obvious! lol

I would have loved to see that site running.. But oh well.. People piss and moan about HARRP with its Megawatt 'ERP' transmitter.. I wonder what they'd say today if HARRP was actually running 50megawats out the pipe into a field array. If they're only running a few KW out the pipe with a few megawatts erp imagine what kind of gain they'd get if they ran megawatts! WOW! That's a  B I G STRAP!! :D

You had a 9 transistor radio?  I had a 10 transistor radio   ;)

More coverage with better video:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4926618

WOR's coverage:

http://wor710.com/pages/182712.php

Nice website with lots of old and new WOR info:

http://hawkins.pair.com/wor.html

Thanks for the links.  Found out where an old college friend works now.  Tom Ray used to be the lead engineer at WTIC.

Hi Paul,

The NSS VLF rig in your photo looks like it might be a Continental Electronics transmitter.

Continental used to (or perhaps they still do) have the reputation for having more watts on the air than any other transmitter manufacturer. They built a lot of >50KW transmitting equipment for commercial and military applications.

Nice photo!

73,

Bruce

It was actually two Continental 500 kW transmitters. Close to one MW went into the antenna with an ERP of about 18 kW. Yea, it's hard to get an efficient antenna at 21.4 kHz!

More pix here.

http://www.amwindow.org/pix/htm/nss1.htm

Hmmmm...

Odd that shot looks suspiciosly like my operating position.  8)

yeah, right.

         _-_-WBear2GCr


actually, closer to INR's station actually...