WWVA Loses All Three Towers to High Winds

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Just came across this story:

http://www.wtrf.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=83934

Sad to see those massive towers all crumpled up. Here's a link to their home page with some shots of the towers taken previously:

http://www.wwva.com/cc-common/mainheadlines2.html?feed=119921&article=7439986

I know that the station has come up in discussion here a number of times in recent years. I recall listening to Wheeling, West Virginia on Saturday afternoons in VT when I was a youngster, as clear as a bell.

Nasty WX has been rolling through here the last few days. We got more of it tonight.

[K5UJ]

Free standing towers with four sides, looks like they were made with angle stock.   That must have been a heck of a wind.  Unfortunately I don't see anything nearby they can hang a wire off of to get back on with.   They could probably get by temporarily with a short folded vertical, inverted L or slant wire and 5 KW.   I hope they have insurance.

[w3jn]

Do G5RVs work at MF?

[W3GMS]

Todd,

At first I thought they were a "time signal"  like WWVB!  I did not look, but if they are non-directional during the day with using a single stick, they may get back on pretty quickly and maybe with reduced power be able to operate in the evening as well until the DA gets back in shape.  Maybe on an interim basis they could use one of those low profile verticals that the FCC approved some years back.
Its amazing that this happened in the summer.  Ice in the winter with winds can create problems but we know ice was not a factor this time of year.  When mother nature decides its over, its over! 

Regards,
Joe, W3GMS     

[AB3L]

I suppose that this opens the frequency for the broadcast bobbyists looking for dx.
 
Wasn't there a flurry of interest a few years ago due to a big gun N.E. station going down for 12 hours or so for maintainance?

[KM1H]

Time for a NVIS dipole or loop, at least they are not down at the low end where you need a lot more wire

Carl

[K5UJ]

Well, here's the list of stations on 1170 for  your dxing pleasure:

http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/finder?prev=0&sr=1&freq=1170&sort=City&count=20&band=AM&is_lic=Y&is_unl=Y&is_ful=Y

they were DA at night with a null to the west southwest.  Yes, usually in a situation such as this they can get a temp. authorization to operate full time with one antenna at reduced power.  They could get one of those telescoping masts on a trailer kind of things, often used for temporary cell phone sites, and jack that up and feed a wire off it.  The hardest part is usually working up a feedpoint tuner to match the new load and handle some power.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

They're apparently working through a sister station right now. It's just sad that three classic towers that date back to at least the 40s are destroyed.

Todd,

At first I thought they were a "time signal"  like WWVB!     

Well Joe, at first glance it's a reasonable assumption to make. WWVA (Wheeling West VirginiA) is a 50KW powerhouse that was once a big C&W/Bluegrass station, Grand Ole Opry and all that. They also sold program time to religious interests just like in the good ol' days. Not sure when they went to a news format, but last I heard they were still selling programming to Brother whomever.

Their station building has big blue block call letters across the front. I'd love to have a piece of one of those towers.

[k4kyv]

They also sold program time to religious interests just like in the good ol' days. Not sure when they went to a news format, but last I heard they were still selling programming to Brother whomever.

Stair, perhaps?

I'd love to have a piece of one of those towers.

If they were 4-sided, that means they were built sometime in the 40s or earlier. I don't know if anyone even makes 4-sided towers any more.  3 sided towers are cheaper because they use less material.

I read somewhere not too long ago that 3-sided towers were rare before the mid-30s because the side member angle pieces would have had to be bent 120° instead of just 90°, and they feared that great a bend would weaken the metal too much.  Triangular shaped towers were developed when they started welding solid round or hollow tubular components together,  instead of bolting or riveting angle pieces.

Those towers might not have fallen if they had been guyed instead of free standing. Mechanically, the Blaw-Knox diamond shaped towers with the cantilever design and one heavy duty set of guys near the middle, like the towers at WSM and WLW, are probably the most durable of all, but there has been debate whether or not the bulge in the middle affects the radiation pattern, particularly with tall towers over 1/4λ that attempt to increase the ground wave ERP. Blaw-Knox made a few uniform cross-section cantilever towers that otherwise work mechanically just like the diamond.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Their station building has big blue block call letters across the front. I'd love to have a piece of one of those towers.

I've got a piece of the original 1929 KDKA tower displayed on the mantel. They were selling the chunks with the proceeds to charity when they replaced the stick in 1995. Solid steel legs, no pipe in that stick.

[flintstone mop]

Their station building has big blue block call letters across the front. I'd love to have a piece of one of those towers.

I've got a piece of the original 1929 KDKA tower displayed on the mantel. They were selling the chunks with the proceeds to charity when they replaced the stick in 1995. Solid steel legs, no pipe in that stick.

I gots one too. Very nice memento from the good ole days of KDKA
Fred

[K5UJ]

Guying a tower designed to be free-standing is sometimes risky.  The tower may actually be compromised by the guy tension, added wind load and downward force.

It is possible these were Blaw Knoxs -- just half diamonds.   Todd, if you try to get a wreckage souvenier, ask if they have any leg insulators.  You may get one they can't use but is okay for a lighter weight ham job like insulating a short aluminum tower. 

I've been told the pre-WW2 AM towers are in some cases, becoming a tad scary.   The steel wasn't as good as modern day steel and it's hard to keep rust completely at bay.  They stay up because they are working, not near anything and are not holding any big wind load other than their own load.

[KX5JT]

Do G5RVs work at MF?

Depends on the tuner!   

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

I've got a piece of the original 1929 KDKA tower displayed on the mantel. They were selling the chunks with the proceeds to charity when they replaced the stick in 1995. Solid steel legs, no pipe in that stick.

That's what made me think of it, Bill. Those washer-size pieces in clear epoxy from KDKA. Would be neat to get a piece of WWVA just for nostalgia. Somewhere I have a couple bricks from the corner of the power house from MCC, Marconi Cape Cod, South Wellfleet MA. That's where the first Trans-Atlantic attempt was supposed to take place, until Mother Nature mucked it up.

I've been told the pre-WW2 AM towers are in some cases, becoming a tad scary.   The steel wasn't as good as modern day steel and it's hard to keep rust completely at bay.  They stay up because they are working, not near anything and are not holding any big wind load other than their own load.

My buddy Ray KC1BT is a retired BC engineer who took over his dad's tower business long ago (later sold). Ray is 74 now and probably more fit than me. He told me a story of the three towers at WDEV in Waterbury VT which has dad had built back in the 30s I think, after a hurricane took down their single tower. These were bolt together 4-sided towers. Well, by the 60s they had gotten noisy due to corrosion in all the joints where they were bolted. So his dad and Ray were hired to weld all of the joints. He told me about the massive, heavy rolls of hose they had to carry over their shoulders as they climbed. He joked with his  dad (who was in his 70s then) about racing him to the top.  Ray said he turned around to make sure his roll of hose was free before jumping onto the tower, and when he turned back, his dad was already headed up the tower 20 or more feet. So even before they became scary to climb, those joints were causing problems. Bet it was even worse near the ocean.

He also told me a story about his dad installing a Blaw Knox for a station and him being in the center when the top section fell. I'll have to get a fresher on that one at NEAR-Fest, but I know his dad survived.

[k4kyv]

Guying a tower designed to be free-standing is sometimes risky.  The tower may actually be compromised by the guy tension, added wind load and downward force.

It would depend on the ratings of the tower.  The main difference between a guyed tower and a free standing one is that the guyed tower is not rigidly attached at the base, but designed to swivel like a ball and socket joint.  I have heard of some free standing AM towers that were later guyed near the top. Since the free standing tower is designed to sway in the wind, the guys would merely act as a safety back-up, so they could be left without a lot of tension to generate excessive downward force.  But if the tower is already near its maximum limit for downward force from its own weight, guys might be just enough to make it buckle in a high wind.

 Todd, if you try to get a wreckage souvenier, ask if they have any leg insulators.  You may get one they can't use but is okay for a lighter weight ham job like insulating a short aluminum tower. 

Those insulators ought to hold up a lot more than that.  The leg insulators are usually a pair of cone-shaped hollow ceramic insulators identical to the ones used in base insulators for guyed towers.  They are stacked one on top of the other with a  rod passing through, configured so that the cones take turns being subjected to compression but never to tension.  Each of those towers should have had 8 ceramic cones, for a total of two dozen.  I doubt they would re-use the insulators; they will probably just trash them.  Out of two dozen ceramic cones, at least a few should be undamaged and usable as a base insulator for a guyed tower.  Of course, the hardware that goes with the ceramic cone will probably have to be modified to adapt it to guyed base insulator service.

[flintstone mop]

Micro-burst or downburst is very hard to protect against. Very extreme downward burst of wind that could go beyond 100MPH
The engineer didn't think they could get their original authorization back.
Why For?
Fred

[K5UJ]

Here's a link for some more photos of the towers. 

http://www.wwva.com/cc-common/gallery/display.html?album_id=244870

It turns out the bottoms seemed to stay in place.  The failure point looks like it was around 50 feet up.   Notice how the tops really smashed into the ground.  They were really flying when they hit. 

The base insulators may be re-useable.   My comment about a "light-weight" was based on the assumption they would be cracked and damaged.  You would not want to use such an insulator for anything with a lot of downward compression.

I don't know a great deal about free standing leg insulators.  I have never seen a guyed tower base insulator made up of stacked sections.  The ones I have seen were all single piece ceramic cones that were hollow and filled with oil.  These were made by Lapp.  I think Austin is the only company making them today and the new ones are not conical but rather are cylindrical.   

Rob

[KC2YOI]

That's a sad sight.

If the towers were blasted between 65 years worth of re-paints the cumulative loss of steel is a possible factor. ( assuming they weren't galvanized )

                                                                      D.

[W2PFY]

Took a listen last night on their frequency and heard a bible beater, so I thought it may be DX. I looked up their web site and they said that they are operating at reduced power on their assigned frequency. They did announce while I was listening that it was WWVA so I guess they sell time to religious broadcasters.

[K5UJ]

More news and history:

http://www.fybush.com/featuredsite.html

[flintstone mop]

Musta been a downward twisting action. Got the towers at their weakest point.

fred

[W3GMS]

Here is some pretty good video showing all the mess on the ground!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ByhpBFriM

Regards,
Joe, W3GMS

[K5UJ]

FWIW I've heard they are back on running 5 Kw.  the antenna is an inverted L.  They are using one of the remaining end tower stubs as a vertical with a wire off its top and going over to the center tower stub (but terminating there with an insulator).   They have an L network at the feedpoint.  I read that the Z is 5 ohms 25X.   

Rob

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Thanks for posting that video, Joe. Excellent walk through!

By the looks of the clean galvanized metal showing through where the paint came off, these towers were still in decent shape with many years of life left in them. Worst case, they should be able to throw up three 400' sticks made of 55 or 65G pretty easily. Maybe guy wire footprint issues preclude that. Would be cool if they could find a way to salvage the undamaged bases, build some kind of platform on the top, then go from there up with new tower. Makes me twitch to think of those massive legs, insulators, and footings all going to waste.

[wb1aij]

I remember hearing WWVA at night here in Connecticut back in 1961 when I was a "young-un" What got my attention was the hill-billy music and the commercials for chewing tobacco & guitar strings.